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UN chief appoints advisory committee on genocide prevention
By Rich Bowden
May 9, 2006, 19:00 GMT

UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, has announced the appointment of a new
eight-member advisory committee to counsel him on strategies to prevent
genocide. The formation of the committee answers growing world criticism over the UN’
s inaction in the troubled west Sudan region of Darfur where over 200,000
ethnic Africans have died as a result of conflict since 2004.
According to a 3 May UN press release, Annan said the committee – which
includes such eminent persons as Nobel Peace Prize winner Bishop Desmond Tutu;
International Crisis Group president Gareth Evans and former High Commissioner
for Refugees Sadako Ogata – has been formed to `provide guidance and support
to the work of the Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on the Prevention of
Genocide, Juan E. Méndez, and contribute to the broader efforts of the United
Nations to prevent genocide.’
International censure of the UN’s lack of effective response in Darfur has
been backed up by evidence of the UN’s historical inability to act decisively
to prevent genocides and massacres. In noted cases such as Rwanda in 1994,
East Timor’s 1999 independence referendum and the 1995 Srebrenica massacre,
the mass slaughter of local inhabitants continued unabated despite the presence
of UN peacekeepers.
The UN’s most well-known failing occurred during the genocide in Rwanda from
April to June 1994 when over 800,000 minority Tutsis were massacred in a
100-day period by the dominant Hutus. Calling the massacre an “internal
matter”, the UN Security Council refused all requests from Lieutenant-General
Dallaire – the commander of the United Nations Assistance Mission For Rwanda
(UNAMIR) Force – for permission to intervene to protect innocent Tutsis. Dallaire
had been advising UN headquarters of the impending genocide from as early as
January 1994.
In what has since been described as one of the UN’s darkest hours, UN
peacekeepers were prohibited from acting to prevent the carnage and were ordered
not to turn their weapons against the rampaging Hutu armies.
Darfur
Possibly the single most important present problem facing the newly-appointed
advisory panel is the tragedy occurring in the Darfur region of West Sudan.
It is estimated that government -backed militia – known as Janjaweed – have
killed over 200,000 Africans and displaced some two million people
allegedly with the assistance of the Sudanese army in the world’s latest example of
attempted genocide.
Though the announcement of the formation of the advisory committee comes
amidst some optimism following the signing of last week’s peace deal between
rebel groups and the government of Sudan, the situation remains dire.
`As Rwanda marks a grim twelfth anniversary, we must accept that while vast
human destruction in Darfur has unfolded plainly before us, we have again done
little more than watch,’ says Sudan expert Professor Eric Reeves from Smith
College, Massachusetts.
The need to act urgently in Darfur is not lost on Gareth Evans, president of
the International Crisis Group and one of the members of the group appointed
by Kofi Annan. Speaking just days before his appointment, Evans addressed the
B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation Commission as guest speaker at the University
of New South Wales, Sydney.
” ‘Never again’ we said after the Holocaust. And after the Cambodian
genocide in the 1970s. And then again after the Rwanda genocide in 1994.
And
then, just a year later, after the Srbrenica massacre in Bosnia. And now we’re
asking ourselves, in the face of more mass killing and dying in Darfur,
whether we really are capable, as an international community, of stopping
nation-states murdering their own people,” said Evans.
“How many more times will we look back wondering, with varying degrees of
incomprehension, horror, anger and shame, how we could have let it all
happen?”
Chaired by David Hamburg, President of the New York Carnegie Corporation, and
with backgrounds in human rights, diplomacy, peacekeeping and conflict
prevention, the diverse group will liaise with the Secretary-General’s Special
Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide Juan E. Méndez.
Mr Méndez, who was appointed in 2004 by Secretary-General Annan to be the UN’
s chief expert on genocide prevention has also spoken of the need to do more
to prevent repeats of Rwanda and Darfur.
`We cannot claim to have learned the lessons of the 1994 Rwandan genocide if
our action in the face of genocidal violence remains half-hearted. Action is
particularly needed in Darfur, where the threat of genocide continues to loom
large,’ he wrote in an article published on the eve of the 12th year of
commemorations for the Rwanda massacre.
The committee’s first meeting is scheduled for 19 June.
Committee Members:
* David Hamburg, President Emeritus of the Carnegie Corporation of New
York (Chair).
* Monica Andersson of Sweden, Senior Adviser, Department for
International Law, Human Rights and Treaty Law, Foreign Ministry of Sweden.
* Zackari Ibrahim of Nigeria, former Minister of State for Foreign
Affairs of Nigeria
* Roméo Dallaire of Canada, Canadian Senator and former Force Commander
of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda.
* Gareth Evans of Australia, President, International Crisis Group and
former Minister for Foreign Affairs of Australia.
* Roberto Garretón of Chile, former representative of the High
Commissioner for Human Rights for Latin America and the Caribbean and former Special
Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Democratic Republic of the
Congo.
* Sadako Ogata of Japan, co-Chair of the Commission on Human Security
and former High Commissioner for Refugees.
* Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, winner of the Nobel Peace
Prize and former Chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South
Africa.

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