quote:My God. The UN is headed by the man who ordered UN peacekeepers to let the Rwanda genocide happen, rather than compromise the UN's neutrality! He ordered them to withdraw from buildings that contained Rwanda civilians fleeing the genocidaires, and ordered them to leave the civilians behind when the killers were outside waiting.
I very seriously doubt the validity of that statement. The UN Secretary General is not commander in chief (or commander in any sense) of UN Peace Keeping forces. UN Peace Keeping forces are always army forces from member states and are always commanded by the regular chain of command for those member states. Decisions about when to deploy Peace Keeping troops are made by the Security Council (not the Secretary General). Decisions about when to withdraw troops are made by the security council and the member nations who have donated the troops.
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During the Rwanda genocide, Kofi Annan was High Commissioner of Peacekeeping Forces. That office (DPKO) has the task of directing and managing peacekeeping operations. (The Security Council did, of course, authorize the deployment of peacekeepers to Rwanda, but does not manage day-to-day operations.)
His time as Secretary-General came later.
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quote:Originally posted by Will B: During the Rwanda genocide, Kofi Annan was High Commissioner of Peacekeeping Forces. That office (DPKO) has the task of directing and managing peacekeeping operations. (The Security Council did, of course, authorize the deployment of peacekeepers to Rwanda, but does not manage day-to-day operations.)
His time as Secretary-General came later.
You still don't correctly understand Kofi Annan's role in Rwanda. The commander of the UN forces in Rwanda was General Romeo Dallaire of Canada. Kofi Annan was the assistant secretary general for Peace Keeping operations from 1992-93 and then as under secretary general from 1993-1996. In this position, he oversaw the Peace Keeping operation in Rwanda but his responsibility was never to set policy in Rwanda. His responsibilities were primarily to communicate what was going on to the Security Council and then to execute policy established by the security council. The Secretary General's office (including all under and assistant secretaries) is not a UN policy setting body.
Kofi Annan has expressed regret that he did not do more to stop the Rwandan genocide. But given his position, "do more" means present stronger arguments to the security council not send more troops. The decision to send troops or remove troops was never his decision to make.
I'm not claiming that Kofi Annan made no mistakes in Rwanda. I'm arguing that it is inaccurate to to claim that he ordered UN troops to let the Rwandan genocide happen. Kofi Annan was never in a position to order the UN troops to do anything. The UN troops withdrew under the order of General Romeo Dallaire of Canada because their numbers were too few for them to safely remain. More peace keeping troops were not sent because the Security Council failed to authorize more troops. Kofi Annan says he regrets not doing more to pursuade the security council to send more troops. That is the extent of it.
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quote:Originally posted by Will B: During the Rwanda genocide, Kofi Annan was High Commissioner of Peacekeeping Forces. That office (DPKO) has the task of directing and managing peacekeeping operations. (The Security Council did, of course, authorize the deployment of peacekeepers to Rwanda, but does not manage day-to-day operations.)
His time as Secretary-General came later.
You still don't correctly understand Kofi Annan's role in Rwanda. The commander of the UN forces in Rwanda was General Romeo Dallaire of Canada. Kofi Annan was the assistant secretary general for Peace Keeping operations from 1992-93 and then as under secretary general from 1993-1996. In this position, he oversaw the Peace Keeping operation in Rwanda but his responsibility was never to set policy in Rwanda. His responsibilities were primarily to communicate what was going on to the Security Council and then to execute policy established by the security council. The Secretary General's office (including all under and assistant secretaries) is not a UN policy setting body. His position was also not the day to day command of forces in Rwanda. General Dallaire held that position.
Kofi Annan has expressed regret that he did not do more to stop the Rwandan genocide. But given his position, "do more" means present stronger arguments to the security council not send more troops or put troops in different places. The decision to send troops on how many troops to send and how to position those troops were never his to make. Those decisions belonged to the Security Council and General Dalliere respectively.
I'm not claiming that Kofi Annan made no mistakes in Rwanda. I'm arguing that it is inaccurate to to claim that he ordered UN troops to let the Rwandan genocide happen. Kofi Annan was never in a position to order the UN troops to do anything. The UN troops withdrew under the order of General Romeo Dallaire of Canada because their numbers were too few for them to safely remain. More peace keeping troops were not sent because the Security Council failed to authorize more troops. Kofi Annan says he regrets not doing more to pursuade the security council to send more troops. That is the extent of it.
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Annan's insistence that the UN "maintain its neutrality" with regard to the genocide was his insistence, not General Dallaire's. Dallaire protested it, and in the end, violated it (too little, too late).
If it were really true that as high commissioner of UN peacekeeping forces Annan had no authority over UN peacekeeping forces (what an amazing claim!), it wouldn't excuse the orders he gave to hand Rwanda nationals over to machete-armed genocidaires.
Documentation of these orders (by which I mean not "some guy's opinions about the orders" but "the words of the orders and the dates they were given") can be found in Tower of Babble by Dore Gold.
[ December 12, 2006, 09:49 PM: Message edited by: Will B ]
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