Citation
S/PV.7155
United Nations
asdf
Security Council
Provisional
Sixty-ninth year
7155th meeting
Wednesday, 16 April 2014, 10 a.m.
New York
President:
Mrs. Ogwu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
(Nigeria)
Members:
Argentina . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Australia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Chad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Chile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
France . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Jordan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Lithuania. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Luxembourg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Republic of Korea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Russian Federation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Rwanda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland . . . .
United States of America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Mrs. Perceval
Mr. Quinlan
Mr. Cherif
Ms. Sapag Muñoz de la Peña
Mr. Wang Min
Mr. Araud
Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al-Hussein
Ms. Murmokaitė
Ms. Lucas
Mr. Oh Joon
Mr. Churkin
Mr. Gasana
Sir Mark Lyall Grant
Ms. Power
Agenda
Threats to international peace and security
Prevention and fight against genocide
Letter dated 11 April 2014 from the President of the Security Council addressed
to the Secretary-General (S/2014/265)
14-30187 (E)
This record contains the text of speeches delivered in English and of the interpretation of
speeches delivered in the other languages. The final text will be printed in the Official Records
of the Security Council. Corrections should be submitted to the original languages only. They
should be incorporated in a copy of the record and sent under the signature of a member of the
delegation concerned to the Chief of the Verbatim Reporting Service, room U-506.
*1430187*
S/PV.7155
Threats to international peace and security
The meeting was called to order at 10.10 a.m.
I wish to warmly welcome the Deputy SecretaryGeneral, His Excellency Mr. Jan Eliasson, to whom I
now give the floor.
Adoption of the agenda.
The Deputy Secretary-General: “The genocide in
Rwanda is one of the darkest chapters in human history”.
Those are the words of the Secretary-General — deeply
moved — spoken in Kigali last week.
The agenda was adopted.
Threats to international peace and security
Prevention and fight against genocide
Letter dated 11 April 2014 from the President
of the Security Council addressed to the
Secretary-General (S/2014/265)
The President: In accordance with rule 37 of the
Council’s provisional rules of procedure, I invite the
representatives of Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic,
Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Latvia,
Malta, Montenegro, Morocco, the Netherlands, New
Zealand, Norway, Panama, Poland, Portugal, Romania,
Slovenia, Somalia, Sweden, Switzerland, Togo and
Turkey to participate in this meeting.
In accordance with rule 39 of the Council’s
provisional rules of procedure, I invite His Excellency
Ambassador Colin Keating to participate in this
meeting.
The Security Council will now
consideration of the item on its agenda.
begin
its
Members of the Council have before them
document S/2014/270, which contains the text of a draft
resolution submitted by Argentina, Australia, Belgium,
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, Chad,
Chile, China, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic,
Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece,
Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Latvia, Lithuania,
Luxembourg, Malta, Montenegro, Morocco, the
Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Panama,
Poland, Portugal, the Republic of Korea, Romania,
the Russian Federation, Rwanda, Slovakia, Slovenia,
Somalia, Sweden, Switzerland, Togo, Turkey, the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
and the United States of America.
I wish to draw the attention of Council members
to document S/2014/265, which contains the text of
a letter dated 11 April 2014 from the President of the
Security Council addressed to the Secretary-General,
transmitting a concept paper on the item under
consideration.
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Today we remember the victims and the survivors
as we continue to work to achieve justice for them and
to prevent genocide and other mass atrocities anywhere
in the world. We remember with heavy hearts the
collective failure of the international community to
recognize and act on the warning signs of genocide.
Twenty years ago, we saw yet again, after the
Holocaust, how genocide was not a single event but a
process that evolves over time, a process that requires
planning and resources. That means that genocide can
be prevented, with information and mobilization as
well as with courage and political will.
We must continue to build on the lessons learned
to improve our ability to protect populations from the
most serious international crimes. Positive steps have
been taken. The International Criminal Tribunal for
Rwanda, alongside national trials, has held perpetrators
to account. Tribunals and special courts for the former
Yugoslavia, Cambodia and Sierra Leone have made
similar inroads against impunity. The International
Criminal Court has been central in the advance of
international criminal law. The Special Adviser to the
Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide now
gathers information and sounds the alarm where there
is a risk of genocide or other atrocities. Along with the
Special Adviser on the Responsibility to Protect, he
and other United Nations officials work on prevention
and on helping countries build inclusive institutions
and tolerant societies, with a focus on the resolution of
grievances and disputes through peaceful means.
More broadly, the United Nations has progressively
placed the promotion and protection of human rights at
the core of our prevention work. The recently launched
Rights Up Front initiative aims to improve our ability
to respond to serious violations of human rights, which
often are early warning signs of mass atrocities and of
conflicts to come. The initiative is meant to generate
early action and more active engagement by Member
States and by the different entities of the United Nations
system. We must be committed to doing our utmost to
protect human lives in a very violent world.
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Threats to international peace and security
The Rwanda genocide had a serious impact on the
Great Lakes region. Twenty years later, the region is
still seeing and dealing with the consequences. The
International Conference on the Great Lakes Region
(ICGLR) established a Protocol for the Prevention
and the Punishment of Genocide, War Crimes, Crimes
against Humanity and all Forms of Discrimination.
Rwanda now chairs the Regional Committee to
implement the Protocol. We count on Rwanda’s
leadership in the prevention of atrocities. Almost half
of the States members of the ICGLR have established
national committees on genocide prevention. I
commend Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and
Uganda for doing so.
As we mark the passage of 20 years since the
genocide, we also pay special tribute to the impressive
work of the Rwandan people for their own recovery and
reconciliation. Rwanda has come a long way since 1994,
and is one of the few countries that have established
a national institution dedicated to the prevention of
genocide. We encourage others to follow its lead and
institutionalize prevention mechanisms.
Conflicts today, from Syria to South Sudan to the
Central African Republic and beyond, sadly, show that
the protection of populations from atrocities remains
lagging and elusive. Those and other crises have different
roots, yet there is a commonality. Across the landscape
of conflict we see similar fault lines, divisions based on
religion, ethnicity and even language. We see the rise of
separatism, extreme nationalism and demonization of
“the others”: us versus them, our way or no way.
No part of the world is immune to that threat,
and all of humankind is diminished by it. That means
that all societies should assess their vulnerability and
work at every level to build resilience, tolerance and
vigilance in detecting early warning signals of crises
to come. Let us reaffirm that the primary responsibility
lies with States themselves.
Preventing atrocities also means establishing
legitimate and accountable national institutions that are
inclusive and credible in the eyes of the population. It
means ensuring that the rule of law is respected and that
all human rights are protected, without discrimination.
It means managing diversity, supporting a strong civil
society and allowing all peoples’ voices to be heard.
In conclusion, we must do more as a community of
nations and as global citizens if we are to live up to the
promise of “never again” and act upon our collective
S/PV.7155
responsibility to protect. Let us, in these days of so
many acts of blind and brutalizing violence — and
I look at the President as I say this and think of the
recent atrocities committed in Nigeria — be guided and
inspired by the preamble of the Charter of the United
Nations, which reaffirms “the dignity and worth of the
human person” and by the Charter, which urges us to
“live together as good neighbours” in this world.
The President: I thank the Deputy SecretaryGeneral for his briefing.
I now give the floor to Ambassador Keating.
Mr. Keating: I want to thank all of the members
of the Security Council for inviting me to participate
in this briefing.
Twenty years ago, Madam President, your country,
Nigeria, and mine, New Zealand, sat beside one
another as members of the Council. I had the dreadful
responsibility in April 1994 of presiding over a Council
that refused to recognize that genocide was being
perpetrated against the Tutsi in Rwanda and failed
in its responsibilities to reinforce the United Nations
peacekeeping mission in Rwanda in order to protect as
many innocent civilians as possible.
My first responsibility today is therefore to
remember the victims, the almost 1 million who died,
and the survivors. It is good that the Council will today
make its own commemoration of the genocide and
discuss the need to prevent genocide in the future. This
briefing also provides a fitting opportunity, for me in
my capacity as former President of the Council in April
1994, to apologize for what we failed to do in 1994 and
for that to be formally recorded in the official records
of the Security Council.
Secondly, I want to acknowledge those Council
members that joined with New Zealand in 1994 and
supported our efforts to condemn the genocide and
to reinforce the United Nations Assistance Mission in
Rwanda (UNAMIR). In this regard, Nigeria deserves
great credit, as do the Czech Republic and Spain. Two
other members that gave support and encouragement
were Argentina and Djibouti.
We must also remember those in the field who
displayed great courage and did their best to protect
civilians. Force Commander General Romeo Dallaire
is first among these, as are the brave soldiers from
Belgium and Senegal who gave their lives. I want to pay
tribute especially to the major contingents from Ghana,
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Senegal and Canada, which remained in Rwanda
throughout the genocide. While sitting in Amahoro
Stadium during the genocide commemoration in Kigali
last week, I could not but recall the bravery of the
United Nations soldiers who protected many thousands
of Tutsi in that stadium during the genocide. I was also
reminded that despite what many people believe, the
United Nations did not desert Rwanda completely.
I also want to pay tribute to two organizations:
the International Committee of the Red Cross and
Médecins sans frontières. Both had their people in
several locations outside Kigali. As President of the
Council, I met with their New York representatives,
usually every morning, and was able to update the
Council with objective information from the field.
We all know how important the flow of information
to the Council can be — especially information during
the early stages of an emerging conflict, when there are
still options for prevention or deterrence. In March and
April 1994, the Council was not getting useful reports
from the Secretariat. Even after the genocide had
begun, events were being described for several weeks
as simply a resurgence of the civil war. The wholesale
slaughter of civilians was not being conveyed to the
Council. Moreover, the Secretariat had concealed from
the Council a critical piece of advice — a cable from
the Force Commander in January 1994, which gave
graphic early warning of probable genocide. And, in
terms of early warning, a vital piece of evidence also
existed in the United Nations system in Geneva — a
report by a Special Rapporteur to the Commission on
Human Rights warning of the likelihood of genocide. It
was never drawn to the Council’s attention.
All this confirms that there are many lessons about
information, about early warning and about how to
use information that I believe are still relevant today.
I know there are hesitations among some here about
the value of horizon-scanning, but if they want to take
prevention seriously, then some creative alternative is
desperately needed.
I need to explain what led the Council in April
to downsize UNAMIR. Some months earlier, a
permanent member was seeking to reduce the number
of peacekeeping missions. It selected UNAMIR as
a target for a special attention because of the slow
progress in the peace negotiations in Arusha. It
pushed for UNAMIR to be put on a very short leash.
Accordingly, resolution 909 (1994) scheduled a review
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of the mandate for mid-May. Clear signals were given
in consultations that there would be no agreement to
renew the UNAMIR mandate if there were further
obstacles in the Arusha peace process.
In hindsight, we can see that this was a naïve gift
to the genocidaires in Kigali. Their ambassador was
sitting as a member of the Council. They were privy
to all the discussions in the informal consultations.
They knew that the mandate was at risk. They had
every reason to believe that all they had to do was to
create conditions of chaos in Rwanda for the UNAMIR
mandate to be terminated.
Against this background, all Council members
will appreciate the political difficulties for those of us
who were arguing for a reinforcement of UNAMIR. To
reinforce UNAMIR required a new formal decision,
but it was absolutely clear from the negotiations that
a draft resolution to strengthen the force would meet
with a veto. The task became even more difficult once
some major troop contributors decided unilaterally
to withdraw. Belgium had suffered serious losses; it
believed all its troops were at risk and it began lobbying
the Council and other troop contributors to evacuate.
Some contingents, especially those that were lightly
armed and lacked protective equipment, also feared for
the safety of their personnel and wanted to leave. Thus,
another challenge at that time was how to maintain
the morale and confidence of the troop-contributing
countries (TCCs).
To that end, I organized daily informal meetings
between the President and the TCCs, and at the same
time with Nigeria and others, seeking to negotiate the
best possible compromise on the future of UNAMIR.
But that compromise inevitably had to be a downsizing
rather than reinforcement. For me, the bottom line was
to keep UNAMIR in existence and to retain as many of
the most effective troops as possible, because we knew
that the Force Commander would use whatever capacity
he had to protect as many civilians as he could, and
we hoped that this would be a foundation for the early
reinforcement of UNAMIR.
Perhaps this history demonstrates some lessons
about the important and necessary interaction between
the Council and troop contributors that I think are
probably still relevant today.
I will now turn to the efforts of New Zealand and
the Czech Republic, with the support of Argentina and
Spain, to name and condemn the genocide. Despite
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improved briefings by the Secretariat and the flow
of information I was relaying to the Council from
non-governmental organizations in the field, most of
the permanent members were objecting. Their reasons
varied, but the net result was that several members were
blocking a draft presidential statement.
As the days wore on and the end of the month
approached, New Zealand put in blue a draft resolution
condemning the genocide. The words were drawn
exactly from the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. As President,
I announced that unless there were agreement on a
presidential statement based on the exact language of
the Genocide Convention, I would convene an open
meeting of the Council at 11.55 p.m. on Saturday
30 April and put the draft resolution to the vote.
Ultimately, presidential statement S/PRST/1994/21 was
agreed, condemning the atrocities in Rwanda, using all
of the language that we had proposed from the Genocide
Convention, but at the insistence of some permanent
members, the specific word “genocide” was removed.
In early May, New Zealand and Nigeria each
introduced draft resolutions to reinforce the number
of troops and to give the operation a formal mandate
for the protection of civilians. But it took until 8 June
before resolution 925 (1994) was adoped. Even then,
the resolution was equivocal and did not allow full
deployment. Ultimately, the genocide stopped only
when the forces of the Rwandan Patriotic Front took
control of the whole country.
That is the tragic history of April, May and June
1994. Time does not permit a detailed discussion of
events in the following months, such as the mistaken
decision of the Council to authorize Operation
Turquoise or the events leading up to the establishment
of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. But
please permit me to make some brief final observations.
My first observation is a message of hope. I think it is
very important to contrast the failure in 1994 regarding
Rwanda with what the Council did in 2010 concerning
Côte d’Ivoire. On Côte d’Ivoire, the Council members
knew that there was a serious risk of ethnically based
mass atrocities. They had good information from the
Secretariat. They had put in place a proper protection
mandate. The United Nations had properly resourced
the Mission. The Department of Peacekeeping
Operations, through its Capstone Project, had in place
a useful set of doctrines. The TCCs showed courage
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and determination, and they were well supported by the
United Nations. Most importantly, Council members
were fully agreed on the need for limited robust action
to ensure protection.
I would like to add that the development of the
principle of responsibility to protect, which is referenced
so clearly in the draft resolution before the Council
today, gives further reason for hope. Recent Council
practice in Mali and the Central African Republic and
with the Force Intervention Brigade in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo further demonstrates that some
important lessons have been learned.
My second observation relates to the belief in 1994
that the international community did not have the means
to intervene in Rwanda; but it was false. In early April,
just after the genocide began, a number of countries
mounted a major unilateral military intervention in
Rwanda. That was done to protect and extract foreign
nationals, but those forces then departed. They left the
Tutsi to their fate. Again in 1995, when the genocidaires
and much of the civilian population had fled to the
Democratic Republic of the Congo, a further major
intervention was launched, this time in the eastern
Democratic Republic of the Congo. Ironically, that was
to help those who had undertaken the genocide. The
truth is that there was no lack of capacity. What was
missing, both in Rwanda in 1994 and again in 1995
when the Council failed to act to establish security in
the camps in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,
was political will.
My third observation relates to the cascade of
tragedy that can occur when there is a failure of political
will, such as in 1994. The Deputy Secretary-General
has already touched on this. A toxic accumulation of
events unfolded and eventually embroiled the whole
region. Twenty years later, we are still dealing with the
consequences in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The failure in Rwanda in 1994 not only caused genocide,
but also led to an appalling humanitarian catastrophe in
the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1995.
That led directly to the civil wars in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo and to human tragedy on an even
more massive scale. Some estimates suggest that up to
5 million may have died. Major instability has afflicted
the whole region.
If we truly want prevention to work, then we need
better political, operational and financial mechanisms
for the Council and the wider United Nations system to
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achieve better outcomes. I believe that this means new
mechanisms for improved early warning, better systems
for briefing and presenting options to the Council at the
early stages of potential crises, enhanced preventive
diplomacy, more effective use of Chapter VI tools of
the Charter of the United Nations, quick preventive
deployment, and, if all else fails, robust deterrence. I
suggest that the costs of investing in such mechanisms
would be insignificant when set alongside the dreadful
human, political and financial costs of inaction that
flowed from our collective failure in 1994 to respond to
the genocide in Rwanda.
The President: I thank Ambassador Keating for
his briefing.
It is my understanding that the Council is ready to
proceed to the vote on the draft resolution before it. I
shall put the draft resolution to the vote now.
A vote was taken by show of hands.
In favour:
Argentina, Australia, Chad, Chile, China, France,
Jordan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Nigeria, Republic
of Korea, Russian Federation, Rwanda, United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
and United States of America
The President: There were 15 votes in favour.
The draft resolution has been adopted unanimously as
resolution 2150 (2014).
I now give the floor to members of the Security
Council.
Mr. Gasana (Rwanda): Madam President, I thank
you for organizing this important briefing as one of
the events for the twentieth commemoration of the
genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.
Our briefers today have undoubtedly an extensive
array of experience on the topic of the prevention of and
fight against genocide. I welcome Ambassador Colin
Keating of New Zealand, a man who, as a President
of the Security Council in April 1994, witnessed a
lurid moment of weakness of this organ 20 years ago,
when he was calling for help for our people. I also
acknowledge the presence of Deputy Secretary-General
Jan Eliasson, a man who has rallied the United Nations
system to learn from its failure in Rwanda in 1994 and
who has played an important role in the liberation and
promotion of our responsibility to protect. I thank both
gentlemen, or let me say dear friends, for their briefings
today.
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I take the opportunity to thank all members of
the Council for adopting unanimously resolution 2150
(2014) on the prevention and fight against genocide on
the occasion of the commemoration of the twentieth
anniversary of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in
Rwanda, during which Hutus and others were also
killed. I also particularly thank all States Members of
the United Nations that sponsored the resolution. It is
our hope that the resolution will serve as a wake-up
call and make a contribution, small as it may be, to
preventing and fighting against future genocides.
In April 1994, more than a million people were
slaughtered in Rwanda during the 100 days between
April and July 1994. That is 10,000 people every day for
the sole crime of being born Tutsi. Others — Hutus, Twas
and foreign citizens — were also killed for opposing
the genocide and for carrying out their obligation to
protect their fellow humans. The systemic slaughter of
men, women and children was perpetrated in full view
of the international community. The genocide against
the Tutsi highlighted the extent to which methods of
prevention at the United Nations failed utterly. In
that regard, my Minister for Foreign Affairs, Louise
Mushikiwabo, at the launch of the commemoration of
the twentieth anniversary in Rwanda back in January,
raised a pertinent question that I believe the Security
Council should endeavour to respond to in the years
ahead. Her question was that today, if the international
community had at its disposal the information and
capacity to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe, as it did
in 1994, would it act differently?
In 1994, the issue was not a lack of information
about the true picture of what was happening in
Rwanda. It was not a lack of a legal characterization
of the crimes that were committed. It was not a lack of
budgets or funding. As Ambassador Keating wrote, it
was simply a lack of political will. A lack of political
will on the part of permanent members of the Council,
who held veto power; a lack of political will on the part
of the United Nations Secretariat, which deliberately
gave erroneous information in the Secretary-General’s
reports that contradicted the true information coming
from the United Nations Force Commander; a lack
of political will on the part of the troop-contributing
countries that pulled out their troops, leaving those
who had run to them for protection at the mercy of
Interhamwe militias. As President Paul Kagame said
on 7 April, “genocide prevention demands historical
clarity of all of us”.
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It is therefore our duty to recall that genocide was
carried out in Rwanda owing to complete systemic
indifference between and during the tragedy. Twenty
years later, we should ask if the broader international
community, and the United Nations in particular, is
capable of being any better at preventing a repeat of
Rwanda in 1994 from happening elsewhere. On this
issue, President Kagame clearly stated, in the same
speech on 7 April, that
criminal mechanisms, the importance of accountability
for perpetrators has been highlighted. It was our hope
that the combination of all those efforts would result
in a robust and effective architecture. As the concept
note (S/2014/265, annex) puts it, the key question today
is whether such capacity is adequate, or if there are
areas that need sustained improvement. Without going
into detail, anyone in this Chamber would agree that
sustained improvement is required.
“[n]o country, in Africa or anywhere else, ever
needs to become another Rwanda. But if a people’s
choices are not informed by historical clarity, the
danger is ever present”.
It is regrettable that some of the initiatives adopted
in good faith in the United Nations by Member States
and aimed at preventing and fighting genocide have
encountered various challenges in their implementation
and created controversies among States. Today, some
of the viable initiatives, such as the International
Criminal Court, are prone to political manipulation and
abuses, which in turn contradict the original intentions
in creating such mechanisms. Other initiatives are
still ill equipped and without sufficient capacity to
discharge their functions, which in the long run hinders
the translation of normative frameworks into practical
preventive tools that match the realities on the ground.
As a result, some of those efforts may not amount to
much, and the pledges of “never again” will sound just
as hollow today as they were after the genocide against
the Tutsi in Rwanda.
The horrific scenes coming from the Central
African Republic, Syria and South Sudan will in
some cases convince many that the United Nations
is still struggling to match its normative principles
with realities on the ground, and that the prevention
of mass atrocities still has a long way to go. This was
evident in the fact that the genocide against the Tutsi
in Rwanda materialized in spite of the adoption four
decades earlier of the Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, and despite the
inherent responsibility of the Security Council for the
maintenance of international peace and security.
Since the tragedy that occurred in Rwanda, the
Organization has deployed efforts to prevent genocide
and mass atrocities by improving the capacity of the
United Nations system, mobilizing the political will
of key Member States and trying to learn lessons from
the failures of the recent past — without, however,
reaching their full potential. Those efforts range from
endorsement in 2005 at the World Summit of the concept
of the responsibility to protect; the enhancement of the
agenda on the protection of civilians through normative
frameworks; the creation of the Office of the Special
Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide; and, in relation
to the responsibility to protect, the implementation
of the Rights Up Front action plan as a tool for the
United Nations to improve prevention by instituting a
due-diligence policy on human rights to help enforce
United Nations purposes and principles as set out in
the Charter.
With the work and jurisprudence of the United
Nations criminal tribunals, including the International
Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International
Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and the special
mixed tribunal in Sierra Leone and other international
It is true that the severity of the challenges that
must be overcome for preventive action to be timely
and effective are immense. On any given day, not just at
the level of the United Nations but also within Member
States, policymakers are grappling with many pressing
tasks relating to crises unfolding somewhere in the
world. Focusing on a problem that has not yet surfaced
is clearly very difficult, but we believe that this is the
task that this Organization should have mastered by
now, over the nearly seven decades of its existence. It
requires immense effort and willpower to overcome the
many political, financial and operational obstacles.
We believe that more emphasis should be placed
on reducing the risk of genocide and mass atrocities in
order to reduce the need for crisis response. Investing
in the areas that address the root causes of conflicts,
such as improving the quality of democratic governance
and human rights, establishing strong institutions,
promoting economic performance, reducing poverty
and inequality, and ensuring national reconciliation
will, over time, lower that risk. We also believe that
more effort should be put into United Nations crisis
preparedness as opposed to crisis improvisation.
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In that context, operational capacities should be
developed well ahead in order to manage commonly
recurring situations and to improve institutional
responsiveness. In other words, the United Nations
should have the capacity to deploy quickly rather than
mobilizing for that deployment when a crisis erupts.
That can be harnessed to regional and subregional
arrangements, most of which are in the process of
creating standby brigades. It is also very important
that the international community invest greatly in
strengthening the capacity of local and regional actors,
given their higher incentive to respond to conflicts and
crises in their proximity.
In that regard, we welcome the statement delivered
by the Secretary-General in Kigali on 7 April during
the twentieth commemmoration of the genocide against
the Tutsi, which we believe is a paradigm shift of the
Organization:
“I have sent my own signal to United Nations
representatives around the world. My message to
them is simply this: when you see people at risk of
atrocity crimes, do not wait for instructions from
afar; speak up, even if it may offend. Act. Our first
duty must always be to protect people — to protect
human beings in need and distress.”
So let the entire United Nations system put in place the
infrastruture to implement such a shift in policy. It is a
priority.
Before I conclude, let me say that Rwanda is
grateful to the Security Council that resolution 2150
(2014) condemns without reservation any denial of the
genocide in Rwanda. We therefore reiterate our call
on all Member States to support the fight against the
denial of the genocide, which is a denial of the right to
memory, healing and reconciliation, and the obligation
to learn lessons from the past.
In conclusion, I would like to quote Ambassador
María Cristina Perceval of Argentina, who stated the
following at a meeting of Security Council members
with President Kagame, held on 7 October 2013 in
Kigali.
“When I hear you, Mr. President, I remember
the history of my country. I came here to see, to
learn and to understand, not to point fingers.
Genocide is not a slogan; it is in our body, and the
shadow of the past is the light of tomorrow.”
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Let us learn from that bitter past of the 1994 genocide
against the Tutsi in Rwanda in order to better prevent
and fight against future genocide and mass atrocities.
Again, a special thanks to all my colleagues on the
Security Council, who not only voted for the resolution
but also all of whom, exceptionally, co-sponsored it.
Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al-Hussein (Jordan):
This morning, we make statements in remembrance
of those who suffered so cruelly and in such great
numbers 20 years ago in Rwanda. But, as so many
before us have said, on other such sombre occasions,
can statements ever meet the needs of a moment such as
that, when more than 800,000 lost souls, still 20 years
later, must be asking: Well? Have the 15 members of the
Security Council, particularly the permanent members,
learned anything from our slaughter after we were
beaten, carved up by machetes or shot over the course
of 100 days?
What words would we, the current members of the
Security Council, use? What words would be immune
to the inevitable mockery and cynical laughter of the
people of the Central African Republic, whose relatives
have been killed or who have fled their homes in huge
numbers. Once we strip away the obvious differences
between the Rwanda of 1994 and the Central African
Republic of 2014, even with the welcome early African
and French deployments to that country and the
adoption of resolution 2149 (2014), other aspects of
the way in which the United Nations confronts such
crises have, regrettably, remained the same. The long
deployment time lag is still there, as are the concerns
over securing troop contributors in sufficient numbers.
Financial constraints also apply and, ultimately, are we
not too late again? We all care — yes, maybe — but it
is equally clear that we still do not care enough to act
immediately and overwhelmingly in those cases where
an intervention is needed.
We do not care enough because the labels by which
we identify ourselves and others still hide from view
the obvious crucial point. While those who were killed
20 years ago met a sudden and brutal death because
they were Tutsis or moderate Hutus who opposed the
genocide, it is not because of who they were, Tutsi
or moderate Hutu, that we mourn them. We honour
and remember them today because they were people,
humans, like us. Our very categorization of humans
according to race, nationality, religion, ethnicity and
circumstances of birth still overwhelmingly defines
how we see each other. The inevitable stacking is then
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there, whereby many of us dangerously view ourselves,
and are viewed, as more important than others. That
has been humanity’s principal curse. Our tendency
towards classification, based on only one point of
reference, is the foundation for ethnic extremism and
ethnic nationalism. Those, in turn, abuse and corrupt
victimhood.
The alarming fact is that most of the killers in
Rwanda were not raving sadists or psychopaths. Most
of the killers were ordinary people. If our historical
understanding of genocides and mass killings tells us
anything, it is that ordinary people in very specific
circumstances will behave with a cruelty never thought
imaginable to them, let alone their victims. Even after
they commit such horrific crimes, few are able to
express remorse without some offer of a quid pro quo,
for they can almost not believe it themselves. Of all the
representatives sitting here in the Chamber, more than
we would ever dare imagine could potentially commit
mass atrocities in extreme and unusual conditions.
Whether we would be one of them, we would never
know unless, to our great misfortune, we found
ourselves enveloped by that toxin we call mass atrocity.
That is what our understanding of genocide tells us.
Part of what makes it possible for ordinary people
to become something else entirely is fear. It is as if fear
switches off the higher cerebral functions one by one
and, as it balloons in the mind, it finally extinguishes
empathy. Whatever capacity for thought is left in that
shrunken mind falls into a self-reinforcing closed
loop, where the killing, even of children, has been
rationalized as just. After the atrocities, those beings
become human again. Yet their guilt has been edited
so heavily by their returning reason that it becomes
distorted: Was it not, after all, an understandable case
of preventive self-defence, they rationalize. If we had
not tried to kill all of them, they eventually would have
killed us all. It is simple.
Fear, based on lies and fed by extreme ideologies,
grinds the morality in many individuals down to
nothing, leaving only the primitive shell of a being.
Fear is the fuel of genocide. It also creates hesitation
in those who could intervene to stop it. The events in
Somalia in 1993 shaped the international response to
Rwanda in 1994, as Ambassador Keating has analysed
thoughtfully in his writings. It did not help that Rwanda
was then on the Council, which made the Secretariat
hesitate in sharing more broadly General Dallaire’s
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cable of 11 January. Hesitation produces the excuses
and the very rationality for cowardice.
If fear is our enemy then courage must be our
friend, and not one that is rarely seen, but one that
will be with us when needed most. We, the individual
members of the Council, need the courage to contribute
more to United Nations peacekeeping, not just to order
it and shape it, or even to finance it, but to share in
the danger and to participate in it with vigour. The
Secretariat needs the courage to give us the unedited
truth; we need the courage to recognize it; and they,
the peacekeepers, need the courage to protect civilians
in extreme circumstances, with or without a mandate.
In such circumstances, what would mandates matter
anyway?
In addition, we need the courage to understand that
our methods of work in the Council generate a sense of
routine that is deadening and dangerous. And we need
the courage to confront the basic fact that, whatever
its remaining weaknesses, there is no alternative to
the International Criminal Court. The sooner we all
strengthen it and adhere to it, the sooner it will fulfil
its stated mission to end impunity for all such crimes.
And finally, on courage, my delegation will submit
a draft resolution for adoption in due course by the
Council, with the aim of instituting a distinctive United
Nations medal for extreme bravery. The SecretaryGeneral would award it to those military and civilian
United Nations personnel who demonstrate outrageous
courage in the face of the most incredible and
continuous danger when saving or rescuing people from
almost certain death, in the service of humankind and
the United Nations. And it must be called the Mbaye
Diagne medal for exceptional courage in honour of the
greatest hero the United Nations has ever had.
Captain Mbaye Diagne of Senegal was killed after
he had saved hundreds of, perhaps even a thousand,
Rwandans from death. That he did so unarmed and
practically on his own at a time when the Tutsis and
moderate Hutus of Rwanda were disowned shamefully
by almost the entire international community makes
Diagne’s feat all the more humane and distinguished.
And I urge the members to see or listen to a moving
BBC TV and radio documentary called “A Good Man
in Rwanda”.
There were others too, like General Romeo Dellaire
and his Deputy, General Henry Anyidoho, as well as
United Nations military observers, humanitarian aid
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workers and journalists who, working together with
many courageous Rwandans, behaved honourably in
the impossible circumstances of 20 years ago.
The draft resolution will propose that the SecretaryGeneral establish a team to design the Diagne medal
and to create an external committee comprising a
diverse and select group of former peacekeepers to
review all proposals and to confirm all submissions to
guard against unwarranted recognition. The General
Assembly should also consider creating a special fund
to help families of those meriting the award. The medal
would have to be presented by the Secretary-General
to the recipient or next of kin in a formal ceremony
witnessed by the full membership of the Security
Council.
Now is the right time for the Security Council to
recognize those who labour on its behalf and whose
humanity and courage in theatres of war far exceeds
our own by a very considerable amount. And we need
to inspire ourselves and all United Nations personnel
serving in the field to be like them, if we are ever to end
the wickedness we refer to as genocide permanently.
Only then, can we utter to the souls of those who
were murdered in Rwanda 20 years ago, “Yes, we, the
members of the Security Council, have learned; we
have changed.”
Mr. Churkin (Russian Federation) (spoke in
Russian): I would like to thank Mr. Jan Eliasson and
Mr. Keating for their briefings. We listened with great
emotion and attention to the statement made by the
representative of Rwanda.
Today we remember the tragic events of 1994 in
Rwanda, which for the past 20 years have evoked in the
international community not only a feeling of horror,
but also a deep sense of guilt for the slaughter that took
place at end of the twentieth century — events that
could and should have been prevented. The history of
the last century, and especially the terrible lessons of
the Second World War, should have taught us that signs
of genocide must be fought with resolve and without
pandering to those who espouse a xenophobic ideology
for short-term political goals. The Russian people, some
of whom were sentenced by the Nazis, like many other
peoples were, to physical annihilation, paid a ghastly
price — the lives of tens of millions of fallen soldiers
and civilians, women, the elderly and children.
It seems that humankind has not learned the bloody
lessons of history. Nazi criminals were tried and, as
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a result of the victory over fascism, we established a
new international system. The 1948 Convention on the
Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
and the 1968 Convention on the Non-Applicability
of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes
against Humanity were adopted. They have allowed
certain actions to be qualified as genocide and ensured
that there is legal accountability for them.
Nevertheless, in the late twentieth century, the
international community was able neither to recognize
in time the signs of distress coming from a small
African country, nor to rescue its people. One of the
most horrifying instances of genocide occurred before
our eyes with almost complete inaction on the part of
the United Nations. How was that possible? In 1994,
there was already a United Nations peacekeeping
Mission in Rwanda. Why was it powerless in the face
of the horrific bloodshed that led to the genocide?
We believe that the answer to those questions lies
in the conclusions of the report of the commission to
carry out an independent inquiry into the actions of the
United Nations during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda
(see S/1999/1257, annex), which was created in the wake
of the Rwandan tragedy. The commission came to the
conclusion that the main reason for the United Nations
total failure to prevent the genocide was that States,
and even the itself Organization itself, lacked sufficient
political will for decisive action, even though all the
necessary instruments and the legal basis required for
making decisions already existed.
However, somebody raised the issue of protecting
staff in the United Nations Assistance Mission for
Rwanda or helping to save their compatriots who were
in the country. Someone thought first and foremost
about their internal political needs and someone
thought about maintaining their political influence in
the country. And someone simply did not pay sufficient
attention to the horrifying news coming from Kigali,
attributing it instead to the particularities of the
African continent. Indeed, the United Nations betrayed
Rwanda and the cost of that betrayal was approximately
1 million human lives.
What conclusion can we draw today as we
commemorate such a tragic anniversary? We must
continue the work being carried out by the United
Nations to correct our mistakes. Yet such mistakes
continue to be made, as evidenced by what is being
proposed by several Security Council members with
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regard to the establishment of a United Nations mission
in Syria, which would somehow supposedly to stop the
violence and give the Security Council more objective
information on what is going on there.
It is important to stop using political forces that
preach nationalistic and sometimes extremist ideas for
short-term goals. It is important to understand once and
for all that a policy of accommodating such forces can
lead to the most tragic and destructive results. It was
no surprise that the need to protect and promote the
fundamental rights of minorities, regardless of their
nationality, ethnicity, race or religion, was raised yet
again at the recent International Conference on Genocide
Prevention in Brussels. Similarly, the importance of
measures to prevent incitement to violence based on
ethnic or religious hatred was also underscored.
We call on all countries to effectively strengthen
international and regional cooperation to achieve those
goals in accordance with the Charter of the United
Nations. That should be the focus of the Secretariat,
particularly of the Special Adviser to the SecretaryGeneral on the Prevention of Genocide. In that context,
determining genuine priorities and appropriate goals
is highly important. Theoretical research, when truly
necessary, should be fully integrated into the framework
of existing international legal foundations.
Today as we mourn with the people of Rwanda, we
should remember that our fragile world requires our
joint efforts in order to meet its current challenges.
Mr. Wang Min (China) (spoke in Chinese): The
Chinese delegation thanks the Nigerian presidency
for convening this meeting. I thank Deputy SecretaryGeneral Eliasson for his briefing. I also listened
attentively to Mr. Keating’s statement.
Twenty years ago, the people of Rwanda were
subjected to unprecedented carnage in which hundreds
of thousands of civilians were killed. That was a
dark page in the annals of humankind and should
be remembered forever. Over the past 20 years, the
Government and people of Rwanda have spared no effort
in promoting national reconciliation, safeguarding
national stability and restoring economic and social
development. Remarkable results have been achieved.
China expresses sincere best wishes to the Government
and people of Rwanda for continuing to achieve new
results on the path of national reconstruction.
Over the past 20 years, the international community
has continued to reflect on the lessons learned from
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the Rwandan genocide and has spared no effort in
preventing the recurrence of a similar tragedy. As the
core mechanism for collective security, the Security
Council has engaged actively in recent years in various
actions to prevent and resolve conflicts, and played an
important positive role in the maintenance of regional
peace and security.
Regarding ways to promptly prevent and effectively
respond to various conflicts and potential crises
involving new situations so as to prevent the recurrence
of genocide, I wish to stress the following three points.
First, preventing and containing conflicts is
the most effective fundamental manner by which to
prevent genocide. Ethnic and religious disputes, lack of
development and weak capacities, among other factors,
can potentially generate ethnic tensions, aggravate
social conflicts and even lead to bloody conflict.
In order to contain and eliminate the root causes of
conflict, it is necessary to take integrated measures
to treat symptoms and root causes alike by promoting
inclusive political dialogue and national reconciliation
and creating a peaceful environment that is conducive
to ethnic harmony and unity. In a pluralistic society
of diverse ethnicities and religions, it is all the more
necessary to promote dialogue among different ethnic
groups, advocate peace, harmony and inclusiveness,
strengthen social cohesion, enhance understanding and
trust, and prevent discrimination and confrontation.
Secondly, in order to effectively prevent genocide,
countries and their Governments should fulfil their
duties and obligations. Governments bear the primary
responsibility in protecting their civilians. Governments
and parties to conflicts should all abide by international
humanitarian law and the Convention on the Prevention
and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, among other
international obligations, and spare no effort to protect
civilians from genocide.
The international community should respect the
lead role of the countries concerned and, in accordance
with the purposes and principles of the Charter of
the United Nations, provide constructive support.
Regional organizations have a deeper understanding
of the situation on the ground and the root causes of
conflicts and tensions. They also enjoy closer ties with
the parties concerned. The United Nations and regional
organizations should strengthen coordination and
cooperation in order to take full advantage of synergies
aimed at actively supporting the efforts of the countries
concerned in the protection of civilians. The legal
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systems of the countries concerned should constitute
the main channels for ensuring due process and justice
for the victims of genocide, based on full respect for
their legal traditions and genuine needs.
Thirdly, the international community should
prioritize assistance to the countries concerned in
achieving economic growth and social progress in order
to eliminate economic and social causes of conflict.
The international community should use dialogue, good
offices and mediation, among other tools, to promote
the settlement of disputes and differences to prevent
and contain the escalation of conflict and halt genocide
and other crimes against humanity at the source.
In parallel, the international financial institutions
and development agencies should strengthen their
efforts in African and other developing countries to
fulfil all of their commitments in terms of assistance and
debt reduction and in raising the resources necessary
for Africa’s comprehensive development, strengthening
capacity-building and providing political, financial and
technical support.
The events of the past should be recalled as lessons
for the future. The tragedy of Rwanda 20 years ago has
left a permanent scar on the memory of humankind. The
international community should draw profound lessons
from those events and dedicate itself to maintaining
peace, enhancing common development, eliminating
the root causes of conflict, promoting harmony and
coexistence among various ethnic groups, and pooll
their efforts in building a harmonious world of lasting
peace and common prosperity.
Ms. Power (United States of America): I thank the
Government of Nigeria for organizing this important
meeting. I thank the Deputy Secretary-General for his
remarks and his commitment, and that of the United
Nations to doing better. My appreciation goes as well to
Ambassador Keating for sharing with us his experience
and many insights. All who are privileged to serve on
the Security Council must learn from what the world
let happen in 1994. Ambassador Keating has helped us
to do that.
Nigeria, New Zealand, Spain and the Czech
Republic were given special praise last week by the
Rwandan Government for their efforts during the
genocide. Now, thanks to Ambassador Keating, we can
add Argentina and Djibouti to that short list of those
that were up-standers — not bystanders — during the
worst horrors to occur since the Holocaust.
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Nine days ago, I had the privilege to join
representatives from across the globe in Kigali to
mark the twentieth anniversary of the Rwandan
genocide. We bowed our heads in remembrance of
the more than 800,000 men, women and children who
were so ruthlessly deprived of life. We rededicated
ourselves to assisting in the still-unfinished task of
recovery, reconciliation and reintegration and joined
with President Kagame in saluting the unbreakable
Rwandan spirit, as he put it, that has enabled the people
of that beautiful land to build a better future without
forgetting the past.
As dignitaries sat solemnly at the ceremony,
however, we began to hear the screams and wails of
Rwandan women — mothers, wives, daughters and
sisters — who gave haunting voice to what every
survivor must feel, and not just on anniversaries. Every
single day the people of Rwanda, including many at
the Rwandan Mission here in New York, and their
families live without those who matter most to them.
Two hundred people had to be carried out of Amahoro
Stadium last week, convulsed by grief. Millions more
live with that daily despair.
The stadium itself where we sat was the stadium
that during the genocide sheltered 12,000 people who
lived in complete squalor under the eye of General
Dallaire’s dwindling force. The stadium itself will
always be a reminder of what the United Nations might
have been able to accomplish if its top officials and the
United States and other leading Member States had sent
United Nations reinforcements rather than extracting
most of the peacekeepers on the ground.
As President Clinton has said many times, the
failure of the United States to act during the 1994
genocide in Rwanda is his greatest regret. All of us,
whether we were in Government or not, in the Security
Council or not, must look inward to consider what more
we might have done.
Today we consider again the paramount question
of lessons learned — learned not just in theory or on
paper but truly understood, felt and applied in practice.
In so doing, we benefit from instruments that did not
exist two decades ago, including the Office of the
United Nations Special Adviser on the Prevention of
Genocide, the Office of the High Commissioner for
Human Rights, the International Criminal Court,
the responsibility to protect doctrine, improvements
in regional peacekeeping capabilities — and in that
regard I would note in particular the participation of
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Rwandan peacekeepers who perform exceptionally
and admirably in the cause of atrocity prevention in
the Central African Republic and elsewhere — more
nimble deployment of accountability mechanisms, and
a welcome surge within civil society of anti-genocide
awareness and activism.
I mention that last dimension in particular because
during the genocide in Rwanda, while 800,000 people
were killed, one American Member of Congress,
Patricia Schroeder, explained the United States
response by noting that her home state of Colorado was
home to a research organization that studied Rwanda’s
imperilled gorilla population. As she puzzled publicly
over the United States response and described United
States citizen engagement, she said
“there are some groups terribly concerned about
the gorillas. But — it sounds terrible — people just
do not know what can be done about the people”.
All of the political pressures cut in favour of
avoiding action rather than creatively responding to
help a people in desperate need. Political calculuses
should not dictate our response. As a global community,
we recognize that mass atrocities may emerge from
a variety of scenarios. We have begun to identify
telltale patterns and indicators. We have agreed on the
value of vigilance to prevent unstable situations from
unravelling. We have affirmed — all of us — the duty
of each Government to protect its citizens from mass
atrocities. We have stated our preparedness under the
Charter of the United Nations to respond when States
require help in fulfilling that duty.
In some cases, from Timor-Leste and Liberia to Sierra
Leone, Libya, Kenya and Côte d’Ivoire, we have joined
with local partners to end or deter violence. Recently,
we made progress in assisting the Democratic Republic
of the Congo and strengthening the United Nations in
their fight against those militia who continue to attack
and rape civilians. We have intensified diplomatic
efforts to restore peace in South Sudan, and the United
Nations there has not only provided emergency supplies
to populations displaced by recent fighting but it has
importantly opened its doors in an unprecedented way,
allowing its bases to become islands of protection. The
Africans and French deployed to try to prevent mass
atrocities in the Central African Republic. We quickly
authorized a commission of inquiry, and now we have
authorized a United Nations peace operation to address
the unfolding catastrophe there. We must get African,
European and United Nations forces deployed urgently.
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Overall, however, it is both fair and profoundly
unsatisfying to admit that our successes have been
partial and that the crimes against humanity that
persist are devastating. Yesterday, many of us
attended an Arria formula meeting in which we saw
graphic photographs taken in Syrian prisons showing
systematic, industrial-style slaughter and forced
starvation killings of approximately 11,000 detainees.
Those photos were taken in just three of the 50 Syrianrun detention centres in Syria. To that, we can add
the Syrian victims of chemical weapons attacks,
the children felled by barrel bombs and those being
starved to death in besieged towns and villages or those
executed by terrorist groups. Twenty years from now,
how will we reflect on the Security Council’s failure
to help those people? How will we explain Council
disunity on Syria 20 years after Rwanda?
Too often we have done too little, waited too long
or been caught unprepared by events that should not
have surprised us. Moving forward, we have to do a
better job of confronting and defeating the practitioners
of hate. Part of protecting against mass atrocities is
preventing the conditions that allow them — rampant
discrimination, denial of human dignity and the
codification of bigotry. No one should be targeted for
violence simply because of who are they or what they
believe.
In our collective effort to prevent mass atrocities,
we must make creative use of every tool we
have — human rights monitoring, diplomatic missions,
technical assistance, arms embargoes, smart sanctions,
peace operations, judicial inquiries, truth commissions,
courts and other measures designed to influence the
calculations of perpetrators who every day are deciding
how far they are going to go. Every day they are doing
a cost-benefit analysis in their heads about whether the
costs of moving forward exceed the benefits they see in
their often warped perspective.
We must also be innovative in taking advantage
of new technology, like the unmanned aerial vehicles
now being deployed in the Democratic Republic of the
Congo and even text messaging, which is being used
to raise alarms, track the movements of outlaw groups,
gather evidence of criminal violations, and naturally
we must always deliver aid to those in desperate need.
We must also remember that preventing mass
atrocities is a global responsibility requiring robust
contributions from all. In particular, we need to
train and equip peacekeepers who head into harm’s
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way. More countries should do their share, whether
through soldiers, civilians, enablers or other forms of
contribution. I echo my Rwandan colleague’s point
that, 20 years after the Rwandan genocide, we should
have moved further beyond what he called “crisis
improvisation”. Further, we must enhance the bonds of
trust between us. Historic differences within or between
regional groups must neither lessen our capabilities nor
diminish our willingness to act as one.
Finally, we must ask every State to consider whether
there is more that it can to do remove the political
roadblocks that impede effective action. Again, with
thousands of lives at stake in Syria and elsewhere,
obstruction is untenable and cooperation is a moral and
strategic imperative. Tomorrow afternoon we will also
have a chance to shine a spotlight on the horrors going
in the darkness of North Korea.
Our task is as straightforward as it is vital — to
ensure that when our successors gather in this Chamber
two decades from now they will not speak of more lost
opportunities and failures. Instead, their words will be
of respect — respect for the comprehensive anti-atrocity
steps we took together. Let them say in their time
that we in our time moved beyond deadlock to unity,
beyond remembrance to mobilization and beyond mere
promises to the kind of bold and concrete actions that
end wars and stop genocide before the searing pain it
causes can be heard in the cries of those left behind.
Mr. Oh Joon (Republic of Korea): First of
all, the Republic of Korea joins Rwanda and the
international community in commemorating the
twentieth anniversary of the Rwandan genocide. The
reverberation of what happened 20 years ago is still
echoing in our thoughts and conscience. We thank you,
Madam President, for providing this timely opportunity
to remember and to build on the lessons of that tragic
event. Our appreciation also goes to Deputy SecretaryGeneral Jan Eliasson and Ambassador Colin Keating,
whose briefings help us to renew our commitment to
“never again”.
Based on the lessons of the Rwanda genocide,
the United Nations and Member States have worked
together to prevent another terrible humanitarian
ordeal. We have made efforts to strengthen the
institutional capacities of the international community
to address grave crimes against humanity through
international and national criminal justice systems.
The establishment of the Human Rights Council is
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warning role by maintaining vigilance over any grave
violations of human rights and crimes of mass atrocity.
Empowering various United Nations peacekeeping
missions throughout the world with a clearer mandate
to protect civilians is also an important step in the right
direction. The Secretary-General’s calls, including the
Rights Up Front initiative and the open-gate policy,
have been playing a catalysing role to boost the moral
authority and operational reach of the United Nations.
However, there are still challenges to face before we
can claim that past lessons have been fully acted upon.
For one thing, there is work to be done to narrow
the gap between the desperation of people in dire
situations and the aspiration of the international
community to help them. Formulating an international
contingency plan that can be promptly invoked in a
serious humanitarian crisis may be one way to address
these challenges. Promoting regional cooperation and
partnerships with non-governmental organizations
in this field, such as the recent Brussels International
Conference on Genocide Prevention, is a path that
should be explored further.
How to deal with the culture of impunity is another
big challenge. In that regard, we appreciate the work of
the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).
The international community needs to continue support
to the ICTR in order that it can conclude its work in
accordance with the completion strategy.
In a broader context, international cooperation to
bring all fugitives to justice should be strengthened.
We call for more support for the International Criminal
Court, the only permanent international criminal
justice mechanism.
The responsibility of States to protect their
own people should be given more attention, and the
discussions on the responsibility to protect should
produce more tangible results.
As we learned the hard way, successful efforts to
stop the most egregious humanitarian crimes require
our collective wisdom and close cooperation. We
should join forces and do everything we can so that our
commitment to “never again” does not slip into another
agonizing resignation of “again and again”.
Mrs. Perceval (Argentina) (spoke in Spanish):
First of all, Madam President, I would like to convey
the solidarity of the people and the Government of
Argentina to the people and the Government of your
country, Nigeria. Humankind has no right to suffer.
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Argentina does not sponsor draft resolutions for
reasons of technical or timely factors that may or may
not be present in a given draft resolution. As in this case,
we do so when the goal of the draft resolution entails
reaffirming the absolute validity and unquestionable
force of the purposes and principles of the United
Nations, in particular the promotion and protection
of human rights and the individual freedoms of all
without distinction of any sort. We also do so because
that is State policy in our country. We do so when, as
in this case, we have no doubt that the international
community must set aside its feint-heartedness to raise
its voice in the certainty that only memory, truth, justice
and reparations will prevent the repetition of massive
crimes of atrocity such as the genocide that took place
in Rwanda in 1994 — and not just in Rwanda, but
throughout the entire world. We do so when not doing
so would run counter to the legal and moral imperative
we have as Members of the Organization and of the
Security Council, but especially as men and women
who share a common humanity.
In the face of the horror he faced, an Argentine
thinker said that genocide was the context in which,
with dark and monstrous evidence, one could see the
absolute evil that naked power was able to do to other
human beings. All genocide raises the most important
of questions: where lies the ever-present, dark abyss
of humankind, wherein the roots of our own society
are found? At the same time, we know that all human
tragedy is, collectively and individually, an impetus for
a new beginning. Rwanda knows that, as do we peoples
who have suffered genocide, State terrorism, massacres
and mass killings. We know that tragedy means a new
beginning. It demands one. It is an opportunity to think
anew about what it means for us to build a society. We
know that transitions are not easy or the same, nor
do we undergo them in the same way. Here, too, one
cannot impose on a people that it build memory in a
single way. One question leads to another and it seems
there are no definitive answers. Like victims, memory
is unique. Memory is creative.
That is why remembering genocide does not mean
shedding light on a set of fragmentary experiences or a
list of horrors and random events. It would be obscene
to do so. Remembering genocide is to seek meaning,
for there exists a horrendous abyss within society as
well as within ourselves. That abyss separates us from
the past that horrifies us and the idea that the future
demands that we think, believe and trust that the life to
which we want to do justice and the world we deserve
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to live in can be different. We need to make the world
different, beginning today. We can do so with truth,
memory, justice and reparations, because for our people
the future means the present that exists in our memory.
As has been pointed out, Argentina was a member
of the Security Council in 1994. On 16 May of that
year, following the introduction of the report of
the Secretary-General on the situation in Rwanda
(S/1994/565), we had no hesitation in saying (see
S/PV.3377) that, since the events of 6 April — the
atrocious violence, abuse and systematic slaughter
that had been unleashed — Rwanda had found itself
plunged into a humanitarian crisis of enormous
proportions and a situation of horror for which there
was no justification whatever. At that time, Argentina
claimed that systematic and widespread violations of
humanitarian law in Rwanda, as well as all human
rights violations that had stunned the world, should be
thoroughly investigated. In July of that same year, when
mass slaughter of communities and families — not
only majority Tutsi, but also Hutu and others who had
denounced the violence and horror — confirmed that
the atrocities committed in Rwanda qualified as crimes
of genocide, Argentina unequivocally affirmed that
crimes of such magnitude must not be covered up or
minimized, or enjoy impunity.
In that context, and in the memory of the victims,
this commemoration represents a valuable opportunity
to reflect on the three dimensions that we must bear in
mind when we speak of genocide.
First, the protection of populations from genocide,
war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against
humanity — including incitement to hatred — has only
one name: prevention.
Secondly, we must strengthen human rights
norms and international humanitarian law, democratic
institutions and a social culture in which the recognition
and respect for differences and diversity alienate us
definitively from an ideology of hatred that is not of
the left, right or centre. The ideology of hatred is the
ideology of hatred, in which hell is other people. We
must therefore strengthen not only substantive law but
our ethical conscience and the legitimate foundations
of national and international democratic society.
Thirdly, with respect to the fight against impunity,
I recall that my mother used to cite Saint Theresa,
saying that more tears have been shed over prayers that
have been heard than over those that have not. We live
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with that reality every day. Every single day, we hear
the prayers being said and we see the tears being shed.
What matters is our decision to listen, because these
are the voices of the victims. It is not only a question of
having a good normative architecture or solid and just
legal institutions. We need to fundamentally change the
concept of power that is still hegemonistic. We need to
change social practices that are still discriminatory. We
need to change political cultures that are still based on
humiliation.
Yesterday, I noted that many need to see to believe,
as Saint Thomas said. But in the case of genocide, we
need to believe in order to see. We can come here time
and time again with our prayers and our tears, we can
point to the suffering of the victims, but people may not
believe that these things constitute genocide. They may
believe that no massacre has occurred. That is why we
feel that reality is based on a genuine consciousness.
When we truly feel abhorrence towards violence as a
means of resolving conflict; when we rebel peacefully
against the overwhelming use of power to resolve
conflict with weapons or through economic means
of humiliation, the Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of the Crime of Genocide will not only be
an excellent legal text, compelling and committing us
to act, but also a reality for all humankind.
Among the three dimensions of prevention, the
strengthening of norms and the culture of human
rights and international humanitarian law, and the fight
against impunity, I wish to stress that of prevention.
The Secretary-General and Mr. Eliasson, whom I thank
for his presence at this meeting, have convened us
under a theme that is not a slogan; it is a call to place
rights up front. Since it is not a slogan and these are not
just words, we must heed this call. To put rights up front
is a synonym; it is the antonym of placing disputes over
power first. It is to place the human rights of all human
beings first.
To prevent is to assume responsibility to protect. To
prevent is to listen to indviduals, regional organizations
and the people of every nation State who can give
voice to their experience and not to papers issued from
ivory towers that merely imagine what others may be
going through. To prevent is to continue to strengthen
international human rights law. To prevent is to ratify
the International Convention for the Protection of
All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, which we
drafted with France. To prevent is to recognize the right
to truth as a right. To prevent is to strengthen, not to
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destroy, the International Criminal Court so that it is
fairer, more consistent and more effective.
I should like to conclude by emphasizing prevention
in societies that have experienced genocide. What can we
do in its aftermath? How do we imagine the future? How
can we believe in the future? How does a society — not
individuals, but society as a whole — emerge from this
once it has fallen victim? Does it survive by exacting
further punishment or by enforcing more human rights?
Through more repression or more freedom? Through
more discrimination or more equality?
If the prevention of the recurrence of genocide in all
societies that have lived through it is based on a political
and social scenario in which the culture of fear persists
and is perpetuated by the mass media, and in which
we are overwhelmed by a culture of suspicion against
the dark-skinned, the young, the poor or the immigrant,
it may be that punitive tendencies will flourish and
massacres recur. Let us look at the populations of the
prisons in all our countries and how they got there.
To the extent that repression is a response to what we
perceive as a potential threat, we may be justifying new
genocides.
Chesterton says in one passage that policemen
should be philosophers. It is not just a matter of looking
for criminals in their hideouts, he says; it is not a matter
simply of arresting thieves so as to live in peace. One
must go into the elegant halls to detect the pessimists.
Who are the pessimists? Those who entertain the
frightful thoughts that lead to fanaticism, intolerance
and the conviction that hell is others. There is no useful
moral relativity when we speak about human rights.
It is only on the basis of human rights that we can tal
about cultural relativism. There can be no impunity
when we speak of violations of human rights, because
they are not a matter of opinion. We have talked about
this often.
Allow me a gesture in commemoration of the
genocide in Rwanda and in thanks to the Ambassador
of Rwanda. I have brought for the Ambassador and
for the people of Rwanda, on behalf of human rights
organizations and of my country and Government,
a symbol of our fight against the pessimists, because
therein lies our hope. I have here a handkerchief of the
mothers and grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo. But
it is not really a handkerchief; it was the diaper of the
babies who had been kidnapped or who were born in
the concentration camps.
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We were never victims; we were never pessimistic.
We will always work so that power does not humiliate
us and so that the world may be ours.
Mr. Araud (France) (spoke in French): I thank
Rwanda for having organized this moment of gathering
and commemoration in honour of the victims of
genocide. The briefings of Mr. Eliasson and Mr. Keating
will enabled us to draw a lesson from the past in order
to improve our actions in the future.
On this day of mourning, France pays tribute to
all the victims of the genocide. More than a million
innocent people were massacred because they were
Tutsi or because they were opposed to the murderous
folly of a political ideology and system. Mass atrocities
were carried out by militias, armed forces and civilians
in violation of the very principle of humanity. The
violence was planned; radios disseminated hate speech
that will forever echo in our consciences.
I also pay homage to the 15 Blue Helmets of
the United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda
(UNAMIR) who were killed in the line of duty. The
international community was not able to prevent or stop
the genocide. The Council acted too late and did not do
enough. And yet, the earliest warning signs had already
been given, the first of which in a communiqué from
General Dallaire of 11 January 1994.
Fourteen years ago, we met in the Security Council
to draw lessons from our collective failure. At that
time, we asked the Secretary-General to draft an action
plan to prevent genocide. Since then, our preventive
mechanisms have been strengthened. Like my
Argentine colleague, I shall return to this topic, which
she addressed with deep emotion and thoughtfulness.
To prevent is first and foremost to warn.
One early aspect of progress to that end was the
establishment of the Office of the Special Adviser of
the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide,
led by Mr. Adama Dieng. Mandated by resolution 1366
(2001), his Office is acting as an early rapid-warning
mechanism for the Secretary-General and the Security
Council by bringing to their attention any situation that
threatens to deteriorate into genocide. The briefings
of Mr. Dieng in the Security Council on the Central
African Republic have contributed to raising the
awareness of the international community so that it can
act urgently to prevent such crimes. We must continue
to include him further in our work.
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To prevent is also to act. A second note of progress
was the adoption in 2005 by the Heads of State and
of Government of the concept of responsibility to
protect. When a Government cannot or will not assume
responsibility to protect, the international community
must assume that responsibility, including by taking
resolute and timely action. France is currently engaged
in Mali and the Central African Republic, at the request
of the authorities and under Council mandate, to assist
the endangered populations. In those countries and in
the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Council has
given the kind of robust protection of civilians mandate
that UNAMIR lacked in 1994. That progress should be
consolidated. The Council must continue to play its full
role in implementing the responsibility to protect. As a
member of the Group of Friends on Responsibility to
Protect, France is in favour.
To prevent is to bring to justice. Adopted in1948,
the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the
Crime of Genocide was a precursor to the International
Criminal Court; 58 years later, we finally adopted
the Rome Statute. In the meantime, the International
Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda advanced justice. It was
the first to recognize that acts of sexual violence could
be acts of genocide. That jurisprudence has been used
since then. It remains an essential factor for memory
and reparation in reconciliation processes that can
avert the cycle of reprisals. The International Criminal
Court is permanent and operational. When atrocities
are committed, as they are today in Syria, there is no
excuse for inaction. The Council can refer the situation
to the International Criminal Court.
In spite of such progress, tragic situations, such as
that in Syria today, recall the ongoing need to improve
our action. In that regard, I welcome the initiatives
of the Secretary-General, including his policy of
accelerated diligence and of limited contact with those
against whom an arrest warrant or a warrant to appear
has been issued by the International Criminal Court.
The Organization must serve as a model. All tools
must be mobilized — our human rights mechanisms;
the network of focal points for the responsibility to
protect, in which we participate; our horizon-scanning
meetings in the Security Council, which are integral
parts of our preventive diplomacy efforts that would
benefit from being organized regularly.
Tragic situations arise despite early warning and
preventive action. Crimes against humanity or war
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crimes are perpetrated before our very eyes, while the
Security Council remains paralysed by the abusive
use of the veto. That is why France is working for a
voluntary code of conduct for the five permanent
members to limit the use of the veto when such crimes
are committed. We owe that in particular to the Syrian
people.
Rafael Lemkin called 70 years ago for international
cooperation to free humankind from an odious scourge
whose anomic, immoral and inhumane nature shocks
the human conscience. In his lofty statement, my
Jordanian colleague tried to attribute this scourge to
fear. He may well be right, but the absolute horror of
the crime attains a metaphysical level in touching upon
the evil that is within each of us. Whether or not we are
Christian, it is difficult to not think about the original
sin in human nature.
Today, France honours the memory of all victims
of genocide, and reiterates its commitment to doing
everything possible to ensure that the lessons of the
mistakes of the past are heeded and that such atrocities
do not recur, because such tragedies are still present
and possible.
Ms. Murmokaité (Lithuania): Madam President,
I would like to thank you first of all for organizing
today’s briefing on the prevention of and fight against
genocide. I also thank Deputy Secretary-General Jan
Eliasson and Ambassador Colin Keating for their
insightful statements.
As we mark the twentieth anniversary of the
genocide in Rwanda, this briefing is an opportune
occasion for all of us to reflect on the lessons we have
drawn and applied, or that we have failed to apply, since
that horrendous tragedy took place. Reeling from the
horrors of the Second World War, the international
community adopted the Convention on the Prevention
and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in 1948.
Yet ever since, the gap between the intent and
implementation has persisted with tragic consequences.
Names like Khmer Rouge, Srebrenica and Rwanda,
among others, evoke the shocking failures of the
international community to stop genocidal carnage.
Twenty years ago in Rwanda, at least 800,000 people
were slaughtered in mere weeks. It is our moral duty as
human beings to keep the memory of that tragedy alive
for generations to come, in order to educate, prevent
and protect. We cannot give life back to the victims of
those unspeakable horrors. But we can and must honour
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them by learning from past failures and applying the
lessons learned in order to preserve the lives of those
who can still be saved.
The most fundamental lesson of the Rwanda
genocide is that it could have been prevented, as
Ambassador Keating testified to so eloquently earlier
this morning. There were plenty of early-warning signs
of what was about to come, but they were systematically
ignored. The necessary action was not taken, or when
taken was too little, too late. And so the carnage went
ahead, wiping out as much as 20 per cent of Rwanda’s
total population, and 70 per cent of the Tutsis. A year
later, horrendous atrocities took place again, this time
in Srebrenica.
Since then, the international community has come
a long way. At the World Summit in 2005, Member
States embraced the concept of the responsibility to
protect. Early-warning offices were set up within the
structure of the United Nations. Special Advisers to
the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide
and the Responsibility to Protect were appointed.
We commend the two Special Advisers for the
dedication and resolve they have shown in carrying
out their lifesaving functions. Furthermore, mediation
and preventive-diplomacy capacities have been
strengthened, and regional organization have increased
their cooperation with the United Nations to that end.
Peacekeeping has continued to evolve, and today the
protection of civilians has become an integral part of
peacekeeping mandates. The Security Council has
expanded its own tools by developing instruments such
as horizon-scanning, which, if used systematically,
can contribute significantly to early warning and
prevention.
The most recent building block of preventive action
is the Rights Up Front initiative, aimed at strengthening
early response and organizational preparedness
incountering human rights violations, which, as
we know too well, are a key early-warning sign of
conflict and possible atrocities to come. With all those
mechanisms and instruments in place, the world today
is in a much better position than it was 20 years ago to
be able to prevent mass atrocities and genocide. And
yet we are all witnesses to the harrowing story of the
suffering of Syria’s civilian population as the conflict
has entered its fourth year. Late last year, the Council
had to take urgent action to reinforce protection efforts
in South Sudan.
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At the same time, a particularly dire humanitarian
situation in the Central African Republic was unfolding,
reaching new levels of brutality and decimating the
country’s Muslim population. We welcome the Security
Council’s decision to establish a United Nations
peacekeeping mission there to reinforce the protection
efforts undertaken by the African-led Internatinal
Support Mission in the Central African Republic and
by Operation Sangaris. If only they could — those
brutally hacked or starved to death, tortured, mutilated
and left to rot by the roadside, made to disappear by
force or massively displaced, all because of their
ethnicity, religion or creed in these and other conflict
zones around the world — they would argue that even
today, too little, too late has been done to protect them.
All of this speaks to the fact that further progress
is needed in translating into action the concept of
the responsibility to protect, the most important and
imaginative doctrine to emerge on the international
scene for decades, as Louise Arbour put it. With
adequate information, mobilization, courage and, first
and foremost, political will, genocide can be prevented.
We, the international community, must cultivate and
build that political will, or even the best of concepts and
conventions will fail to protect the world from crimes
against humanity and genocide.
The responsibility to protect to which Member
States committed themselves in 2005 must be honoured
and acted on consistently. National Governments
bear the primary responsibility for protecting
their populations, including through human rights
education and preventive measures, such as countering
incitement, extremism and hate speech, intolerance and
discrimination, as well as by practising accountability
to their citizens themselves. A critical ingredient in
the prevention of mass atrocities is the existence of
legitimate and accountable national institutions that
are inclusive and credible in the eyes of a country’s
population, as well as an enabling foundation of the rule
of law, good governance, and respect for all human rights
for all. To that must be added justice and accountability.
Accountability must be assured both nationally and
internationally, through the supporting decisions of
domestic courts and international tribunals. If justice
is not done and perpetrators go unpunished, they will
continue to kill, maim, rape and commit atrocities.
Through ad hoc international criminal tribunals
and especially the International Criminal Court, which
merits our full support, the international community
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delivers a stern warning to all perpetrators that there
is no escaping impunity. That in itself is an important
deterrent to those who may be considering engaging
in acts of violence. In that regard, the International
Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda did important work in
pursuing justice, and it has set important precedents in
the development of international criminal law, such as
the first ever prosecution of rape as an act of war. A
significant number of the perpetrators of the genocide
in Rwanda, including former high-level officials, have
been brought to justice. Such a state of affairs should
be the rule rather than the exception. Sadly, for many
victims of unspeakable crimes around the world,
closure through justice is still beyond reach.
Today, through the adoption of resolution 2150
(2104), marking the twentieth anniversary of a genocide,
we stand with the people of Rwanda in paying our
respects to the victims and expressing solidarity with
the survivors. The international community has a duty
and moral responsibility to make sure that genocide and
crimes against humanity have no place in the twentyfirst century.
Ms. Sapag Muñoz de la Peña (Chile) (spoke
in Spanish): We thank Nigeria for organizing this
important meeting in the framework of the activities
commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the
genocide in Rwanda, whose victims, among them many
children, we remember today with deep respect and
solidarity. We appreciate the statement made by Deputy
Secretary-General Jan Eliasson and through him the
commitment of the Secretary-General in this area. We
are particularly grateful to Ambassador Keating for
the reminder he has given us and for his words on the
lessons learned that we should consider today.
My country had the honour to participate in the
commemoration held in Kigali on 7 April. At that time
we conveyed our solidarity with the people of Rwanda.
We would like to once again express our gratitude
for our invitation to that commemoration, which our
special envoy described as a powerful experience in
both human and professional terms.
The gravity of the crime of genocide and its general
condemnation meant that a mere four years elapsed
between the conception and adoption of the Convention
on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
Genocide, which established that its States parties must
undertake to prevent and punish that crime in time
of peace or war. The International Court of Justice
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has ruled that those obligations extend even to those
that are not party to the Convention because they are
obligations erga omnes.
Genocide springs up in divided societies, where
perceptions and feelings of exclusion that fuel actions
against specific groups, creating the conditions for
the crime. Such declines in respect for human rights
are often a warning sign that demands that national
and international authorities display the political will
necessary to recognize and report them, as many other
speakers have said. In that regard, we emphasize the
Secretary-General’s Rights Up Front initiative, since it
reaffirms the central role of human rights in the United
Nations system, as well as the importance of the work
of the Offices of the Special Advisers on the Prevention
of Genocide and on the Responsibility to Protect, which
have a vital preventive role to play.
Prevention is possible and should be a central
part of our responsibilities as a Council and an
international community. There is room here to
exercise preventive diplomacy and make efficient use
of existing early-warning mechanisms. With that end in
view, we recognize the role of regional and subregional
organizations, such as the International Conference
on the Great Lakes Region, as well as of local and
religious leaders, women, young people, civil society
and the media. We must improve coordination and
cooperation with such actors. To that end, international
cooperation is necessary. The establishment of national
commissions for the prevention of genocide and the
efforts made in that regard by the Special Adviser on
the Prevention of Genocide, mentioned at the Arria
formula meeting on intercommunal dialogue and crime
prevention of 14 March, are examples to consider.
Greater commitment to strengthening the rule
of law and respect for international law, in particular
human rights and humanitarian international law, will
make it possible to improve levels of inclusion and
respect for diversity, development and social justice,
thereby dealing with the root causes of such conflicts,
as the Permanent Representative of Rwanda pointed
out.
Each State has the primary responsibility to protect
its population against massive and widespread human
rights abuses. The international community must stand
by and support Member States when they willfully or
owing to a clear inability do not meet that obligation
under the concept of the responsibility to protect,
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enshrined in the 2005 World Summit Outcome (General
Assembly resolution 60/1). Chile has convened a series
of seminars and meetings at home in the context of
its commitment to the concept of the responsibility to
protect and its preventive nature. This year, we hope to
hold a new outreach seminar at the intersectoral level
together with the Global Centre for the Responsibility
to Protect.
Another key aspect is the need for international
mechanisms and/or tribunals to ensure accountability,
thereby preventing impunity and, at the same time,
serving as a tool for deterrence and the prevention of
future crimes. In that regard, we recall the important role
of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. We
also underscore the role of the International Criminal
Court, established by the Rome Statute, which is one
of the most important developments in international
criminal justice of the past 50 years, since it is the
only permanent independent international criminal
court to complement national criminal jurisdictions
established in order to deal with, inter alia, the crime of
genocide. Given its complementary nature, States must
duly cooperate with the Court in order for it to fully
discharge its mandate.
In conclusion, Chile wishes to reiterate the appeal
we launched at the General Assembly for countries
that have the veto power to refrain from using it
in cases of crimes against humanity, war crimes,
genocide or ethnic cleansing, since that detracts from
the effectiveness of the Council in upholding the most
fundamental values and principles of humanity. We
urge the Security Council, in particular its permanent
members, to shoulder that responsibility. Let us not
forget the failures of recent years and the complex
situations facing us today. May we not act too late.
Mr. Quinlan (Australia): Human progress is
evolutionary. It is built on failure and the strength of a
positive response to it. Failure always contains lessons.
The United Nations inaction in the face of the events
of 1994 in Rwanda remains one of the Organization’s
darkest failures. Despite credible forewarning and the
frustrated efforts of countries such as New Zealand and
some other elected members of the Council that tried
to persuade the Council to deploy additional United
Nations forces to Rwanda, we all failed. Now, 20 years
after we said never again, we witness unspeakable
crimes being committed in places such as Syria and
the Central African Republic. We should need no other
reminders that we still have so much more work to do.
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The Council’s authorization last week of a new
peacekeeping mission for the Central African Republic,
with the protection of civilians at its core, sent a clear
message that the savage abuses and atrocities must end.
The Council has acted and done the right thing, as have
French and African forces. But the situation could so
easily have got away from us and descended into even
more chaos. Many of the visible precursors to potential
genocide and other atrocities were present. Prevention
will always probably be our hardest task. Our diligence
must be not only constant but also intrumentalized and
quick. We still have lessons to learn.
The Council must now act to respond to the mass
atrocities being committed in Syria, including the
systematic and widespread torture and deliberate
targeting of civilians by the regime as part of its
military strategy. The referral of the situation to the
International Criminal Court is long overdue. In that
context, France’s proposal for permanent members to
voluntarily renounce their veto powers in cases of mass
atrocity crimes is very welcome. It should be supported
and we should give it serious consideration.
The unanimous endorsement by Heads of State
and Governement of the responsibility to protect
(R2P) in 2005 was a resounding ackowledgement that,
while States have the primary responsibility to protect
their own populations from mass atrocities, we, the
international community, and the Council must provide
protection where national Governments have manifestly
failed. On behalf of the Group Of Friends of R2P,
comprising 45 States in total, including 10 members
of the Council, we welcome the references to R2P in
resolution 2150 (2014), which we have just adopted.
While that is an essential normative response to our past
failures, the challenge, as always, is implementation.
We must do all that we can to operationalize R2P.
As we now understand, the genocide in Rwanda
started not with massacres in churches but with hate
speech, discrimination and marginalization. That
underlines the fact that it is possible to identify and
to implement a policy for atrocity prevention so that
risk factors are addressed before a situation becomes
a crisis that results in mass atrocities. As the Deputy
Secretary-General reminded us this morning, just as
genocide is systematic and planned, so the work to
prevent it must be deliberate and systematic. Prevention
requires strengthening the rule of law and respect for
human rights, building institutions, ensuring good
governance, combating discrimination and ensuring
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the participation of women and, in particular, young
people. Youth unemployment and alienation will be, I
believe, the most challenging for us all over the next
decades.
Prevention also requires a robust civil society
and non-governmental organizations, parliaments and
media. National legislation can be instrumental and
education decisive. The designation of a national R2P
focal point within countries can help to integrate an
atrocity prevention perspective in national policies.
Focal points can form instrumental networks, especially
across combustible regions, for helping to prevent
atrocity crimes. Australia, together with Ghana, Costa
Rica and Denmark, co-facilitate the R2P focal points
initiative. We encourage Member States that have not
already done so to appoint a national R2P focal point.
As others have said and as we all know, effective
early warning mechanisms are of course essential. The
Secretary-General’s Special Advisers on the Prevention
of Genocide and on R2P have a dedicated function to
look for signs of precursors to mass atrocity crimes,
sounding the alarm, when necessary, and working
with States and regional organizations to enhance their
prevention efforts. The Council should receive more
frequent briefings from both Special Advisers. We
should schedule regular and serious horizon-scanning
sessions that are uncensored by the Council’s own
political dynamics. The Secretary-General’s leadership
on that is crucial.
The Council should support the vital Rights Up
Front initiative, as we now know that human rights
violations are often the canary in the mineshaft. We
see that in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
and will be briefed by the commission of inquiry on
human rights in the Arria format tomorrow. We should
also support the provision of peacekeeping operations
with robust mandates. The protection of civilians must
always be at the core of United Nations efforts to secure
peace.
The recent use of peacekeeping bases in South
Sudan to shelter people fleeing violence shows the type
of concrete steps that can make a real difference and
save lives on the ground. It also shows what desperate
people fleeing atrocity not just need, but rightfully
expect from the United Nations. As Dag Hammarskjöld
said, the United Nations is not here to take people
to heaven, but we are here to save people from hell.
Humanitarian access itself is a vital component in how
we must approach peacekeeping.
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Finally, the Council must continue constantly to
support efforts to end impunity, including the efforts
made by the ad hoc international criminal courts and
tribunals and the International Criminal Court. We
are seeing evidence that international criminal justice
mechanisms can be a powerful deterrent, but to do that
they require strong international support. It should
be axiomatic that the Council provides support to the
International Criminal Court where the Council has
itself referred a situation to the Court.
In concluding, I recall that in his book about the
Rwandan genocide, entitled Shake Hands with the Devil,
United Nations Force Commander General Romeo
Dallaire, a hero, chillingly describes the mechanics of
genocide — the actual killings every day — as hard
work. It takes a lot of effort to murder 1 million people
in 100 days. Equally, today it takes a lot of effort from
us, hard work in the Council, to prevent genocide and
mass atrocities. Renewed common resolve, through
occasions like this debate, is necessary, but is too easy
to give and it is never enough.
As Ambassador Colin Keating concluded in his
remarks this morning — and Colin’s words deserve
repeating — if we truly want prevention to work, then
we need better political, operational and financial
mechanisms for the Council and the wider United
Nations system, new mechanisms for improved early
warning, better systems for briefing and presenting
options to the Council at the early stages of potential
crises, enhanced preventive diplomacy, more effective
use of Chapter VI tools, quick preventive deployment
and, if all else fails, robust deterrence.
That is simply a linear challenge to all of us in the
Council and there is no rocket science in understanding
that challenge. We have the conceptual frameworks and
the toolkits and we see what is happening every day
across the world. That is why we are sitting here. What
we need to do is work harder, much harder, to match our
response and the leadership mandated of us by all the
peoples of the world to meet a simple linear challenge.
Sir Mark Lyall Grant (United Kingdom): I thank
you, Madam President, for convening this important
meeting to mark the twentieth anniversary of the
genocide in Rwanda. I would like to thank the Deputy
Secretary-General for his presence and his thoughtful
intervention today. And I thank Colin Keating for
his powerful and telling testimony, speaking from
a position of real authority, as the President of the
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Security Council in April 1994. We must heed his
important recommendations.
It has been 20 years since the international
community said “never again”. This debate is an
opportunity to assess the progress made against that
pledge and to consider what more should be done.
Terrible events took place in Rwanda in 1994. Today
we remember the victims, the survivors and those who
risk their lives to stop the horror. We remember both
the personal tragedies and the horrendous scale of
the killing. We commend the Rwandan people on the
outstanding progress they have made in transforming
their country from an impoverished war-torn State into
a stable, confident country. The United Kingdom has
been and will continue to be a long-standing friend,
but it is not enough to simply remember. The events
in Rwanda in 1994 and other genocides and mass
atrocities, like Srebrenica in 1995, underline the vital
shared interest in devising and re-evaluating measures
to protect populations at risk.
The primary responsibility for protecting citizens
rests, of course, with the States themselves. But
1994 showed us that where a State is failing to act to
protect its own population or, even worse, is active in
persecuting and killing its own citizens, the international
community has an equal and shared responsibility to do
all it can to protect populations at risk. States must act
in full conformity with the United Nations Charter and
work with and through the United Nations to confront
threats. We urge countries that have not already done so
to sign and ratify treaties such as the Convention on the
Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal
Court. Those treaties work because they provide
effective penalties for persons guilty of genocide.
To deter atrocities and achieve justice for victims,
perpetrators of genocide must be held accountable for
their actions. Since the genocide in Rwanda, global work
to fight impunity has been considerably strengthened
through the investigation and prosecution of crimes
in the international criminal justice system. The
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda has made
a substantial contribution. And in the International
Criminal Court (ICC) we now have a permanent court
with jurisdiction over genocide war crimes and crimes
against humanity. It is vital that States cooperate with
the ICC so that it can deliver accountability where
national authorities are unable or unwilling to act.
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There must be no safe harbour for those who
commit atrocities, no matter what office they hold. It
is a matter of great regret that some ICC States parties
have failed to comply with their obligation to implement
an arrest warrant for an indictment which covers three
counts of genocide. It is high time for States to live up
to those obligations and for the Council to follow up on
its referral of the situation in Darfur.
The Rwandan genocide is one of several instances
in which the Security Council has failed to act, but
since 1994 the United Nations has brought about real
improvements in our collective ability to take action
in situations that could result in mass atrocities. We
have responded to the horrors of the past with a number
of important decisions. In 2006, the Security Council
adopted resolution 1674 (2006) on protecting civilians
and reaffirmed its commitment in resolution 1894
(2009) in 2009.
The protection of civilians is now a cornerstone
of modern peacekeeping and is incorporated into
most peacekeeping mandates. The United Nations has
developed better early warning mechanisms to equip
the international community with the means to preempt
mass atrocities. The United Nations High Commissioner
for Human Rights, the special procedures of the Human
Rights Council, the Human Rights Council and the
Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on the Prevention
of Genocide all make important contributions.
But as Ambassador Keating spelled out, early
warning by itself is not enough. We must get better
at translating early warning into effective preventive
action and that requires political will. Political will is
a responsibility of every single member of the Security
Council and especially every permanent member of
the Security Council. The responsibility to protect
initiative of 2005 is another positive development and is
increasingly incorporated into national Governments’
deliberations. We must support States that are building
their capacity on the preventative aspects of the
responsibility to protect and help them to respond to
tensions before they escalate.
When the international community is united,
we can achieve progress that would otherwise be
impossible. A united Security Council effectively
prevented mass atrocities in Côte d’Ivoire and in Libya
and has made positive progress in Mali and Somalia.
Today widespread insecurity in the Central African
Republic is creating intensifying ethnic and religious
divides, but the African Union, the United Nations and
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the European Union are working together to bring hope
to that appalling situation. But immense challenges
remain. South Sudan, the world’s newest nation, faces
descent into civil war if peace talks falter. In Syria, the
regime still denies the life-saving access the population
desperately needs and continues to persecute and kill
its own citizens indiscriminately.
With 20 years having passed since the terrible
atrocities in Rwanda, there are no more excuses. We
now have the tools not just to say “Never again”, but
to stay true to our word and to act together to prevent
future genocides.
Ms. Lucas (Luxembourg) (spoke in French): I,
too, thank Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson and
Ambassador Colin Keating for their statements.
Twenty years ago, despite numerous warnings,
the States Members of the United Nations, and in
particular of the Security Council, were not been able
to take decisive measures that would have put an end
to the spread of ethnic hatred or to prevent genocide.
As my Minister of Foreign and European Affairs did in
Kigali on 7 April, I wish to pay tribute to the hundreds
of thousands of victims of genocide. I also pay tribute
to the strength and determination of Rwandans who
were able to rebuild their lives and their country after
their terrible ordeal. Our meeting today will not restore
life to the more than 800,000 massacred Rwandans or
lessen the pain of the survivors, but it is an opportunity
to reaffirm our commitment to applying the lessons
of the past in order to prevent such atrocities from
happening in the future.
The genocide in Rwanda unleashed a shock
wave that rocked the entire United Nations. It raised
fundamental questions about the authority and
responsibility of the Security Council, the effectiveness
of United Nations peacekeeping, the scope of
international justice, the roots of violence and the
responsibility of the international community to protect
endangered populations from genocide. I shall focus on
two points: the responsibility to protect and the fight
against impunity.
The 1994 genocide highlighted the need for the
United Nations to strengthen its capacity to respond
to serious violations of human rights and international
humanitarian law, and to give greater attention to the
prevention of mass atrocities. It was a catalyst to the
development of the principle of the responsibility to
protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic
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cleansing and crimes against humanity. This principle,
which Luxembourg fully supports, was endorsed by the
2005 World Summit. Since then, the Security Council
has invoked the responsibility to protect several
times, most recently in South Sudan, Yemen, Mali
and the Central African Republic. The Council must
continue on this path and embody the principle of the
responsibility to protect in all its dimensions.
Luxembourg also reaffirms its full support for the
Office of the Special Adviser to the Secretary-General
for the Prevention of Genocide and its early warning
role. On our initiative, the Special Adviser was able
to speak for the first time before the Security Council
at its open meeting on 22 January (see S/PV.7098) to
sound the alarm about the Central African Republic.
Indeed, we must pay special attention to forewarnings
of atrocities, in a logic of prevention. Sustained efforts
are needed to end incitement to hatred and intolerance.
The implementation of the Rights Up Front initiative,
launched by the Secretary-General and the Deputy
Secretary-General in December 2013, will also
contribute to strengthening the capacity of the United
Nations and the Council to respond in a timely manner.
Over the past 20 years, the Security Council has
come to recognize that the fight against impunity is
essential to preventing further genocide and to bringing
justice to victims. Created on 8 November 1994 at the
request of Rwanda, the International Criminal Tribunal
for Rwanda (ICTR) has played a crucial rôlе. While the
ICTR is about to conclude its work and its transition to
the Residual Mechanism is in progress, we welcome the
significant progress made by the ICTR in developing
international law to bring justice to victims, apprehend
fugitives and prosecute persons responsible for
genocide and other serious violations of international
humanitarian law.
The ICTR has been a source of inspiration to
national and international courts, and in particular in
the creation of the International Criminal Court. Mass
atrocities committed in recent decades have shown
that it was imperative to create a permanent court with
universal vocation to end impunity for the most serious
crimes. It is more important than ever that the Council
fulfils its responsibilities to end impunity, including
by providing unfailing support to the International
Criminal Court.
This commemoration of the Rwandan genocide,
a moment of reflection and pain, is also a moment of
inspiration to action. We must act to prevent genocide,
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crimes against humanity and war crimes. Whether for
Syria, South Sudan or the Central African Republic, we
must do our all to ensure that the Security Council lives
up to its responsibilities. Our goal must be to translate
the moral imperative of “never again” into action. The
unanimous adoption this morning of resolution 2150
(2014), drafted by Rwanda, impels us to do so. Let us
comply in honour of the victims of the past and to protect
future generations from the scourge of genocide.
Mr. Cherif (Chad) (spoke in French): I thank you,
Madam President, for having convened this meeting
of the Council on threats to international peace and
security and the fight against genocide. I also thank
Mr. Jan Eliasson and Ambassador Colin Keating for
their statements.
The world is commemorating the twentieth
anniversary of the genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda,
which cost more than 800,000 human lives. It was a
massacre that shocked the conscience of the entire
world in its brutality and scope. Chad remembers all
of those who lost their lives and expresses its support
to the survivors and relatives of the victims who
continue to seek the truth. Chad welcomes the efforts
of the Rwandan Government and its reconciliation and
peacebuilding policy, which has enabled the country to
restore stability and pursue its economic recovery.
The world is increasingly threatened by conflicts
within States arising from multiple and varied causes.
Given its inability to end conflicts, the international
community must use all the tools necessary to anticipate
conflict and thereby prevent its tragic and incalculable
consequences, including genocide, war crimes, crimes
against humanity and other types of atrocity.
The 2005 World Summit Outcome (resolution 60/1)
places the prevention of mass crimes — genocide,
war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against
humanity — at the core of the responsibility of States
to protect civilians. The lessons learned from the
genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda call upon the entire
international community to reconsider its means of
action and capacity to act when faced with such mass
atrocities. In that context, the international community
should not only continue to assess the effectiveness of
its measures, but also and above all to provide itself
with an early-warning mechanism to detect situations
that are likely to lead to crimes on a mass scale.
While the genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda escaped
the vigilance of the international community at the
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time, my country notes with great concern that,
unfortunately, the latter remains powerless in the face
of mass crimes perpetrated in some parts of the world.
Although the African-led International Support
Mission in the Central African Republic Operation
Sangaris has saved thousands of lives and set in motion
a stabilization process in Central African Republic,
the international community remains paralysed when
it is faced with other situations of grave violence
perpetrated against civilian populations. Confronted
with large-scale atrocities, States — and the United
Nations — must above all meet their responsibilities to
end them before it is too late.
Former Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in a
statement he made at the Human Rights Council in
Geneva, said,
“We have little hope of preventing genocide, or
reassuring those who live in fear of its recurrence,
if people who have committed this most heinous of
crimes are left at large, and not held to account. It
is therefore vital that we build and maintain robust
judicial systems, both national and international, so
that, over time, people will see there is no impunity
for such crimes.”
We therefore cannot speak about reconciliation or
lasting peace in Rwanda without raising the question
of justice for the victims and their families and the
impunity that certain perpetrators of genocide and
their accomplices enjoy. Indeed, only an independent
and impartial justice system can make a significant
contribution to healing wounds and mending broken
hearts. In that regard, we welcome the work done by the
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in
arresting and prosecuting perpetrators of genocide and
their accomplices. That initiative sounded the end of
impunity and sent a strong signal to all those who might
be tempted to commit mass crimes. The ICTR has
shown that strengthening international criminal justice
could go beyond playing a deterrent role to efficiently
contributing to prevention.
The United Nations, whose principal role is the
maintenance of international peace and security,
must strengthen its cooperation with the regional and
subregional organizations to be even more effective
before, during and after conflict throughout the world.
In that regard, we welcome the current partnership
between the African Union and the United Nations and
call for it to be strengthened. Concerted action between
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the United Nations and the African Union has allowed,
despite the lack of resources and some difficulties
in coordination, to contain and/or push away serious
threats to peace at various levels in certain African
countries, including Mali, the Democratic Republic of
the Congo and the Central African Republic, to cite but
a few.
In conclusion, we believe that the Security Council
should react with urgency in the event of mass crimes
based on its responsibility to protect. The resolution
that we have just adopted (resolution 2150 (2014))
translates, we hope, our shared determination and will
to continue to fight against the crimes of genocide and
serious violations of human rights.
The President: I shall now make a statement in my
national capacity.
I want to join those who have taken the floor before
me to thank our briefers, Deputy Secretary-General
Jan Eliasson and Ambassador Colin Keating, for
their briefings. They have not only provided profound
insights and fresh perspectives on today’s subject
of discussion, but they have also established some
institutional memory for the future. I want to sincerely
thank Ambassador Keating in particular for his
recognition of Nigeria’s critical role in condemning the
genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda and reinforcing
the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda in
the Security Council in 1994. I thank him very much;
we feel inspired by that recognition.
The concept note for today’s briefing (S/2014/265,
annex) invites us to consider various issues related to
the prevention of genocide. I shall attempt to address
the evolution of the preventive capabilities of the United
Nations since the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in
Rwanda, early warning mechanisms, fighting impunity
through justice, and lessons learned.
On the evolution of the preventive capabilities of
the United Nations since 1994, Nigeria would like to
acknowledge the important steps that the United Nations
has taken, and I want to name them specifically. During
the tenth anniversary of the genocide in 2004, thenSecretary-General Kofi Annan presented a five-point
plan of action aimed at preventing genocide. The
elements of the plan were designed to, first, prevent
armed conflict which may provide a provide a pretext
for genocide; secondly, protect civilians in armed
conflict, including through the use of United Nations
peacekeepers; thirdly, end impunity through judicial
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action in national and international courts; fourthly,
gather information and set up early warning systems;
and fifthly, take swift and decisive action, including
through the use of military force.
One year later, at the 2005 World Summit, leaders
from across the world agreed on the responsibility
to protect populations against the four mass
atrocities — genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes
and crimes against humanity. We appreciate the
Secretary-General’s past reports on the subject in
which he has proposed tools for genocide prevention,
including the report of January 2009 on “Implementing
the responsibility to protect” (A/63/677), the July
2010 report on “Early warning, assessment and the
responsibility to protect” (A/64/864), and the July 2013
report on “Responsibility to protect: State responsibility
and prevention” (S/2013/399).
In July 2009, the Secretary-General presented his
January 2009 report to the General Assembly, and in
the same month a General Assembly plenary debate
on the responsibility to protect was held (A/63/PV.97).
The debate presented delegations with an opportunity
to demonstrate their support for implementing their
commitments under the 2005 World Summit Outcome
Document (resolution 60/1). Similarly, following the
release of the July 2010 report, the General Assembly,
on 9 August 2010, convened an informal interactive
dialogue on the main themes of the report. Nigeria
was one of the eight countries that participated in that
dialogue.
In addition to the periodic reports, the SecretaryGeneral has made some significant appointments
since the genocide in Rwanda that will help in the
fight against genocide, which has been mentioned by
various speakers this morning. We therefore commend
the Secretary-General for appointing the Special
Adviser for the Prevention of Genocide and a Special
Adviser on the Responsibility to Protect. We also
commend the Secretary-General for his Rights Up
Front initiative, which contains six critical actions to
help the Secretariat coordinate the Organization’s work
in the area of human rights. One of the actions requires
the United Nations to provide Member States with
candid information concerning people at risk of various
violations of human rights.
Nigeria would like to underline the importance of
adherence to the principle of early warning mechanisms
and the need for a timely and decisive response. Today,
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there is a plethora of theatres of conflict around the
world, and urgent actions are required to halt those
conflicts and indeed address their root causes. In some
of those places, the situation is reaching a critical
threshold and the risk of mass atrocity crimes is very
high. The benefits of an early warning mechanism is
that it enhances the chances of detecting those signs
that point to the possibility that genocide may indeed
occur. With that comes the added benefit of allowing
for preventive measures to be taken in a timely manner.
Nigeria remains committed to the fight against
impunity. We believe that impunity must be addressed
resolutely wherever it occurs anywhere in world. The
fight against impunity and the prevention of mass
atrocity crimes are national priorities for us, as clearly
demonstrated through the various instruments instituted
to address that menace. Our belief in the need for global
action against mass atrocity crimes and security threats
to humankind underpins our ratification of the Rome
Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the
Arms Trade Treaty and other relevant international
legal instruments.
Nigeria appreciates the important role of the ICC
in fighting genocide and other mass atrocity crimes.
Perpetrators of genocide must be held accountable
in order to send a strong and unambiguous message
of zero tolerance on the part of the international
community. We recall that at the 27 January New
York launch of Kwibuka20, the commemoration of the
twentieth anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, the
Secretary-General aptly stated that we have learned
important lessons. He also emphasized that genocide is
not a single event but a process that requires planning
and resources to carry out, and that with adequate
information, mobilization, courage and political will,
genocide can indeed be prevented.
Several questions arise from that thesis of the
Secretary-General. How can we obtain information
to prevent genocide? Who needs to be mobilized and
by whom in order to prevent genocide? And how do
we generate the courage and political will to prevent
genocide? Those are key questions to which we are
all collectively responsible to provide adequate and
genuine responses.
Ultimately, it all boils down to the choices that
we all decide to make. The choice of compassion over
hatred, the choice of inclusion over exclusion, and the
choice of peace over war are always ours to make.
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Today is an important reminder of the far-reaching
consequences of those choices. Let the memories
of Rwanda be a constant and visible reminder of the
necessity of making the right choice — the choice of
peace. Let us muster the courage that makes us too
strong for fear and too noble for anger or revenge. Let
us eschew neutrality.
We want to take this opportunity to recognize
the remarkable progress that Rwanda has made over
the past 20 years in healing the wounds of genocide
and advancing the process of reconciliation. We are
greatly inspired by that, and we join the international
community in the adoption of resolution 2150 (2014)
today in the determined chorus of “never again”.
In 2010, while we served on the Security Council,
I had occasion at a retreat of the Council to remind
the Council that, according to the great poet Dante,
neutrality is not an option because, again according to
Dante, the hottest corner of hell is reserved for those
who preserve their neutrality in times of moral crisis.
I now resume my functions as President of the
Council.
There are no more names inscribed on the list of
speakers. The Security Council has thus concluded
the present stage of its consideration of the item on its
agenda.
The meeting rose at 12.55 p.m.
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