Mr. President,

Let me thank you for presiding over today's Open Briefing on the situation concerning Rwanda.

My delegation wishes to commend the Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, for his historic initiative in setting up an independent inquiry to investigate the actions of the United Nations during the genocide in Rwanda in 1994.

We also wish to express appreciation to former Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson of Sweden, and to the other members of the Commission for the thoroughness with which they discharged their mandate.

The analysis and conclusions in the report presented to the Council today by Mr. Carlsson are all the more sobering, as they point to one inescapable conclusion: the terrible events which occurred in 1994 in Rwanda were almost certainly preventable.

In this process of introspection, we are not seeking to attribute blame, but to understand the confluence of events and systemic deficiencies that allowed the genocide to take place unchecked, as we seek solutions which will prevent similar atrocities from occurring ever again.

As this debate is taking place within the Security Council, our focus must be on how this body can develop preventive measures that might be employed in the prevention of conflicts. The Security Council must assert the political will to strengthen its conflict prevention capabilities. We must become proactive, and not wait until great numbers of people have died before taking action.

Understandably, many of the causes of conflict - social, economic, developmental and political - must be addressed by the international community as a whole. However, it remains the responsibility of the Council to prevent breaches of the peace. The Security Council cannot abdicate this responsibility.

With crises such as those which occurred in Rwanda, in the Balkans, and are occurring in many parts of Africa today, the credibility of the Security Council is constantly being questioned.

It is for this reason that my delegation supports the recommendations in the Carlsson report, and will work with other members of the Council to move beyond acceptance of recommendations to action.

To do otherwise would mean that the 800,000 Rwandan men, women and children had certainly died in vain.

The Carlsson report makes several facts clear:

(i) the slaughter of some 800,000 persons over a period of about 100 days, without the use of weapons of mass destruction, was certainly unprecedented in human history;

(ii) the Tutsi population of Rwanda was savagely and brutally subjected to genocide.

Many reasons have been proffered for the failure of the international community, the United Nations system and the Security Council in particular, to act decisively to prevent one of the major tragedies of the 20th Century. These have been summarised as "a persistent lack of political will by member states to act or to act with enough assertiveness."

Perhaps the major failing was the inability to recognize or acknowledge the telltale signs of the impending catastrophe and to plan an effective response.

My delegation therefore believes that extreme diligence must be exercised during the critical planning stages of future missions. In this connection, I wish to direct my remarks to the recommendations in the report which aims at improving the capacity of the United Nations to conduct peacekeeping operations.

From its inception, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) was hindered by a poorly conceived mandate; by the lack of the necessary resources to carry out that mandate; and by the lack of political will on the part of the Security Council to take critical decisions at a time when the forces on the ground could ill afford undue delays.

In this connection, Mr. President, my delegation wishes to pay tribute to the peacekeepers and humanitarian personnel who sought to serve the cause of peace, even while the international community turned a blind eye to events in Rwanda.

My delegation believes that there are two critical factors which must be built into future missions.

Firstly, peacekeeping missions need to be designed with allowances for rapidly changing circumstances. At the very minimum, it must be possible to have reinforcements deployed quickly to augment forces when it becomes clear that the situation on the ground warrants a reassessment of the mission.

The practice of deploying the minimum number of troops, based on either political or financial expediency, takes no account of the many variables that troops may be presented with once in the field. We cannot continue to send troops without the necessary room to manoeuvre when faced with unforeseen circumstances.

Secondly, the mandates for peacekeeping operations must reflect the realities on the ground, and must be matched by the political will and the material means to implement these mandates. Mandates must also be formulated in close collaboration with all the parties involved in a conflict.

While only the Security Council can legitimately authorize troop deployment and determine mandates, a mechanism must be designed to allow force commanders the necessary flexibility to determine their best course of action and to be able to rapidly communicate their decisions to the Security Council.

In this regard, my delegation has noted the recommendations of the Commission on the protection of civilians. This must be addressed in all future peacekeeping mandates.

Also, troops, once deployed, must be under the command of one central authority. States should not unilaterally withdraw their contingents without reference to that central authority.

My delegation endorses the Commission's recommendation that the Secretary-General and the member states use the opportunity provided by the Millennium Summit and Assembly to mobilize the political will necessary to clearly address the challenges facing United Nations peacekeeping. We therefore look forward to the Brahini report and its recommendations.

The Security Council has, after the fact, taken action to bring the perpetrators of the Rwanda genocide to justice by establishing the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. But we must not stop there. The Security Council, the United Nations system, indeed the international community as a whole, have a moral obligation to ensure that we do in fact have the will to prevent another genocide from ever occurring. Perhaps today marks the first step.

Rwanda continues to need the assistance of the international community as it seeks to rebuild the economic, social and political basis of its society, and to bring about national reconciliation.

Let us not fail them a second time.

I thank you, Mr. President.






Permanent Mission of Jamaica to the
United Nations
New York
April 14, 2000


back to top