UN exploits Rwanda Genocide.(Insider Report, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan opens special UN Memorial Conference on Rwanda Genocide of 1994)

"The international community is guilty of sins of omission," insisted UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on March 25 as he opened a UN "Memorial Conference on the Rwanda Genocide." Annan was head of UN peacekeeping operations in 1994, when the Hutu-dominated Rwandan government undertook the systematic slaughter of at least 800,000--and perhaps as many as 1.1 million--Rwandan Tutsis (as well as Hutus opposed to the regime).

"I believed at the time that I was doing my best," continued Annan. "But I realized after the genocide that there was more that I could and should have done to sound the alarm and rally support." Indeed. One obvious thing he could have done would have been to refrain from sending a January 11, 1994 fax to Romeo Dallaire, commander of the UN peacekeeping force in Rwanda, instructing him to take no action to prevent the genocide. Dallaire had been warned by a defector that the Rwandan regime had cached weapons and registered the Tutsis for extermination.

When Dallaire informed Annan and requested permission to raid the government arms caches, Annan forbade him to do so, instructing him instead to give his findings to the government--the same ...