By JAMES C. MCKINLEY JR. – New York Times May 8, 1998
Secretary General Kofi Annan came to Rwanda this evening on what he called ”a healing mission” and admitted in a speech to Parliament that the United Nations had done too little to stop the 1994 massacres of Tutsi civilians.
But instead of finding forgiveness, he received an outright hostile reception from Rwandan leaders.
Just before Mr. Annan’s speech, the Foreign Minister, Anastase Gasana, embarrassed the Secretary General with a 10-point indictment of the United Nations’ role in the country’s history, culminating in the killing of hundreds of thousands of people four years ago.
Among other charges, Mr. Gasana accused United Nations officials, like Mr. Annan, of ignoring warnings that the massacres were coming and then lacking the political will to intervene once the massacres started. ”We are interested in knowing who was behind this lack of political will,” Mr. Gasana said.
After Mr. Annan delivered his speech, lawmakers rose to ask him tough questions about his own role in the decision to restrain peacekeeping troops from stepping in to stop the massacres. Mr. Annan was then the head of peacekeeping operations.
Later in the evening, the President, Vice President and Prime Minister of Rwanda refused to attend a reception in Mr. Annan’s honor because, a spokesman said, his speech had insulted Rwandans.
In his speech, Mr. Annan acknowledged that the United Nations had done little to halt the killings and had misread signs that the massacres were being planned, but he stopped short of offering an apology. Nor did he talk about his own role.
”We must and we do acknowledge that the world failed Rwanda at that time of evil,” he said. ”The international community and the United Nations could not muster the political will to confront it. The world must deeply repent this failure.”
”Looking back now, we see the signs which then were not recognized,” he said. ”Now we know what we did was not nearly enough, not enough to save Rwanda from itself.”
Then Mr. Annan urged Rwandans, both Tutsi and Hutu, to reconcile their differences and marginalize hate-mongers on both sides. He also said the key to reconciliation was to pursue justice for killers and to restore trust in the Government among both Tutsi and Hutu.
”Restoring trust is perhaps the greatest challenge facing your nation today,” he said. ”No one imagines that it can be restored without a degree of atonement and forgiveness that few peoples have ever had to find within themselves.”
”Ultimately, however, you and only you can put an end to the violence,” he added. ”You and only you can find the spirit and the greatness of heart to embrace your neighbors once again.”
Some lawmakers and other officials in the audience, however, wanted Mr. Annan to provide more detailed information about what went on behind closed doors at the United Nations in 1994.
The massacres began in April 1994, when Hutu militants seized the Government, started massacring thousands of Tutsi civilians and scuttled a peace agreement with a Tutsi rebel army, resuming a civil war. Over the next three months more than a half-million people were killed before the Tutsi rebels gained control of the country.
For nine months before the massacres began, peacekeeping forces had been in Rwanda to monitor a peace agreement. But these troops did not intervene when the massacres started, despite warnings as early as January from the commander of the force, Maj. Gen. Romeo Dallaire of Canada, that militant Hutu officials were planning the massacres.
Mr. Annan’s aides say he was aware of the warnings, but could not rally support on the Security Council to send more troops or to change the peacekeepers’ narrow mandate so that they could intervene in a war.
But the nuances of United Nations politics are lost on many Tutsi politicians and survivors of the massacres here. From their perspective the peacekeepers simply abandoned them to the killers. ”They deserted us,” a member of parliament, Rose Kabuye, said after Mr. Annan spoke.
Others in the audience said they expected Mr. Annan to explain his own actions more fully. ”He’s drowning his own responsibility in the collective responsibility of the world,” said Alice Karekezi, a lawyer. ”I was expecting to hear the man who was in charge of the peacekeeping operation. We were expecting some apology and he was giving lectures.”
Joseph Bideri, a spokesman for the President’s office, said the country’s top three officials had boycotted Mr. Annan’s reception mostly because he had declined to discuss why the United Nations decided to stay on the sidelines. ”He talked of the need for Rwandans to atone, yet he can’t atone for the failure of the U.N. in Rwanda which led to the slaughter of Rwandans,” he said.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/08/world/annan-given-cold-shoulder-by-officials-in-rwanda.html