Global Policy Forum

By Mark Riley

The United Nations is ready to exercise its broad diplomatic immunity to avoid moves by two Australian lawyers to sue the organisation for alleged complicity in the Rwandan genocide. The UN denied that it had any legal culpability in the 1994 killings, despite being severely criticised by an independent inquiry for not taking greater action to head off the murderous wave that left 800,000 Rwandans dead.

A United States-based former South Australian prosecutor, Mr Michael Hourigan, and the London-based human rights lawyer Mr Geoffrey Robertson are preparing to sue the UN on behalf of two Rwandan women who lost family members in the killings.

The women say UN peacekeepers sent to protect their families either handed them over to the rampaging Hutu militants or ran away when fighting broke out.

Mr Fred Eckhard, spokesman for the UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, said the organisation did not believe it had anything to answer for in the courts, and he warned that any legal action could compromise peacekeeping operations. "I can't say that we will definitely use our immunity, because there is no case at the moment, and everything is hypothetical. "But I can say that if we allowed our peacekeepers to be brought to courts and tried over matters like this, that would be the end of peacekeeping."

A UN official later said the organisation would exercise its immunity if the matter got to a court. Mr Eckhard said the UN soldiers in Rwanda were never given a Security Council mandate to become involved in fighting. "We were not there to stop a war. We were there to facilitate a peace process. We do not feel responsible for what happened, and we do not believe we should have to answer for anything in a court."

Mr Hourigan was an investigator with the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and uncovered diplomatic cables sent to UN headquarters warning of the impending genocide months before the killings began. The cables, from the UN commander in Rwanda, the Canadian General Romeo Dallaire, went to Mr Annan in his capacity then as head of peacekeeping operations.

An independent inquiry into the genocide, commissioned by Mr Annan and headed by the former Swedish prime minister Mr Ingvar Carlsson, issued a report last month criticising Mr Annan and other senior UN officials for failing to sound the alarm earlier.

It also condemned the lack of will on the Security Council to act against the massacre. The council met while the killings were continuing, and voted to reduce rather than increase its military presence. It also refused to strengthen the peacekeepers' mandate, leaving them with weak powers under Chapter 6 of the UN Charter, preventing the use of force. Mr Annan, in his official response last month to Mr Carlsson's report, emphasised the Rwandan peacekeepers' lack of power. "On behalf of the United Nations, I acknowledge this failure and express my deep remorse," he said.