By Diana Cahn
Entitled "Leave None to Tell the Story," the report criticizes France, Belgium, the United States and the United Nations for failing to intervene to stop the systematic killings in which at least half a million minority Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus perished. All the parties mentioned "received dozens of warnings in the months before the genocide but failed to act effectively," the rights group said. "Even worse, foreign leaders reacted timidly and tardily once the killing began."
The U.N. Security council last week said it supported an independent inquiry into U.N. actions before and during the genocide between April 6 and July 4, 1994. Such a probe would also look into the portion of the blame placed on the United States and France, permanent members of the Security Council who defined U.N. policy during the genocide and have been faulted for withdrawing U.N. peacekeepers after it began. "To the extent that governments and peoples elsewhere failed to prevent and halt this killing campaign, they all share in the shame of the crime," the report said.
The officer in charge of a U.N. peacekeeping force in Rwanda warned in early 1994 of plans to carry out a systematic killing. U.N. officials consistently refused pleas by Lt. Gen. Romeo Dallaire of Canada to send reinforcements and allow the peacekeepers to intervene to stop the killings, the report said.
Ten Belgian peacekeepers were killed on the first day of the genocide, prompting Belgium to pull its troops out and support the U.S. position against increasing the peacekeepers' mandate. France, which was a close ally of the Hutu government in Rwanda, has been accused of sending military support to Rwanda both before and during the genocide. A French parliamentary inquiry last year deflected blame on U.N. and U.S. policy.
"The Americans were interested in saving money, the Belgians were interested in saving face, and the French were interested in saving their ally, the genocidal government," said Alison Des Forges, a scholar on Rwanda and author of the report.
In addition to condemning the Rwandan government, the report compiled data on killings by the Tutsi rebels who took control in July 1994, ending the genocide. According to the report, soldiers of the Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front committed systematic and widespread killings of tens of thousands of civilians suspected of participating in the genocide both during and in the months following the slaughter.
Tanzanian police on Tuesday arrested a former Rwandan army officer wanted by both Belgium and Rwanda for his alleged role in killing the Belgian peacekeepers and the former Rwanda prime minister on the first day of the genocide. Both Rwanda and Belgium have submitted extradition requests to Tanzania for Bernard Ntuyahaga, who is suspected of involvement in the killings of Rwanda's Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana and the peacekeepers protecting her.
