The United Nations has recently accused Rwanda of dragging its feet on approving visas for witnesses that the UN wants to testify at Rwandan genocide trials. According to an Associated Press story, “Two judges have cited the Rwandan government’s failure to issue travel documents “in a timely manner” for witnesses to appear. .. ”
Of course Rwanda has been skeptical of UN efforts since that body dragged its feet and failed to act “in a timely manner” to prevent the genocide in the first place, even though it had troops on the ground who wanted to intervene while the worst of the genocide was taking place. Kofi Annan told them to stand down instead.
And while Rwanda itself has tried and dealt with numerous genocide participants, the UN has taken the better part of a decade to try 8 individuals.
If anything, the Rwandan genocide and snails-pace U.N. genocide court shows the absurdity of relying on international efforts to prevent and punish crimes against humanity. The current government of Rwanda — which overthrew the regime that carried out the genocide — certainly has not been perfect, but it has been overwhelmingly more effective than the United Nations, which chose to ignore one of the worst acts of genocide since the Holocaust and then tried to step in later and try to take over prosecution of the these war criminals.
(Actually it’s even worse since the United Nations and other agencies actively protected the individuals responsible for the genocide after they were driven out of Rwanda.)
Source:
Rwanda rejects accusation that it hinders operations of the U.N. genocide tribunal. Rodrique Ngowi, The Associated Press, August 4, 2002.