U.N. seeks reparations for Rwandan genocide

Monday, July 17, 2000

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By Timothy P. Carney

The United Nations has welcomed a report from the Organization of African Unity, holding the United States, France, Belgium and the Vatican responsible for the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and demanding monetary compensation for their failure to intervene.

Between 500,000 and 800,000 Tutsi Rwandans were slaughtered in the spring of 1994, mostly by the Hutus, another Rwandan tribe that speaks the same language and has the same customs. During this massacre, the U.N. was effectively silent, despite what the report calls "incontrovertible" evidence that Western powers were wary of the dangers before and during the slaughter.

President Clinton has formally apologized for inaction, as have other national and religious leaders, but the Organization of African Unity is not satisfied. The report presented to the U.N. on July 7 by the OAU's International Panel of Eminent Personalities reads, "Now the United States, the United Nations, Belgium and the Anglican Church have all formally apologized. That seems to us a good, small, first step. It is time they ensured that commensurate financial reparations back up their solemn words of repentance."

The report is considered troublesome by many in the U.S. government, not so much because it says the U.S. should have intervened when it could have, but because it considers it a vice for a country to balk at sending its boys and girls to die when there is no national interest involved, and it presumes to put a price on human life.

An aide to Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms, R-N.C., called the report "laughable," and "indicative of the fact that the United Nations is living in another world."

The OAU, consisting mostly of African leaders and led by Stephen Lewis, a Canadian, attempts to rebuke the United States by asserting that the reason for not sending troops to Rwanda was that "nothing was at stake for the United States in Rwanda. There were no interests to guard. ... I don't know how Madeleine Albright lives with this," said Lewis, trying to shift even more responsibility onto the United States.

Albright, former U.S. ambassador to the U.N., defended herself.

"I screamed about the instructions I got on this," Albright told ABC-TV's Cokie Roberts. "I felt that they were wrong, and I made that point, but I was an ambassador under instructions."

The report's criticism of the United States goes further than just blaming inaction. It chastises the United States for actively blocking U.N. efforts to intervene.

Distinguishing between a large-scale U.N. operation and an operation involving American soldiers and sailors might be logically possible, but not realistically so, say U.S. leaders who understand that when the U.N. fights, the United States has to be on call to solve any problems.

The report's final chapter summarizes the OAU's idea of justice. "Apologies alone are not adequate. In the name of both justice and accountability, reparations are owed to Rwanda by actors in the international community for their roles before, during, and since the genocide."

Source: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=17571