by Judi Mcleod
april 5, 2004
It has to be the Lip Service Epic of all time: The one minute of silence the world will observe at 12 noon, april 7, the International Day of Reflection on the Genocide of Rwanda.
The International Day of Reflection on the Genocide of Rwanda originated with United Nations Secretary-General Kofi annan at a March 26 one-day memorial conference, in New York.
The conference began with annan "accepting blame" for the slaughter of 800,000 civilians.
"The international community is guilty of sins of omission," annan told the crowd gathered in the Big apple for the summit.
No kidding, Kofi!
Head of the UN peacekeeping department at the time of the Rwanda massacres which saw children hacked to death by machete, annan said he did what he could.
Like refusing to send more troops as requested by retired Canadian General Romeo Dallaire telephoning from the actual death arena? Or like keeping mum about how the Black Box flight recorder from a shot down 1994 aircraft was discovered in a locked file cabinet in the UN peacekeeping department?
In a speech that could have been delivered by Neville Chamberlain, annan said: "I believed at the time that I was doing my best. But I realized after (emphasis ours) the genocide that there was more that I could and should have done to sound the alarm and rally support."
Mouthing platitudes never makes up for lost lives.
It was 10 years ago that the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi were killed in a mysterious plane crash. "Before the wreckage even stopped smoking, the killing began," said CTV.ca in a Breaking News item. "Spurred on by hateful radio broadcasts. 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed in just 100 days."
Close to three million others were left homeless.
annan’s Lenten New York mea culpa came in yet another UN conference that has the same hollow ring as the 2002 Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development. In Johannesburg UN delegates dined on caviar, steak and lobster within mere miles of starving african children.
The New York memorial conference on Rwanda attracted the likes of UN sycophant Canadian Foreign affairs Minister Bill Graham, who told the assembly that the world has yet to learn many of the important lessons of Rwanda.
"Or, to put it more starkly, we have learned what we need to do but I suggest, colleagues, we lack the political will to achieve the necessary agreement on how to put in place the type of measures that will prevent a future Rwanda from ever happening again."
For readers beyond the borders of Canada, that’s "starkly", Liberal Bill Graham style.
Even as annan was receiving the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize 2001 for the Rwanda exercise, Gen. Romeo Dallaire was becoming suicidal after having watched, first-hand hundreds of thousands of Rwandans being slaughtered. Today, he says he cannot forget a massacre infused "in the pores of my skin."
The world-respected Canadian general, who led the peacekeeping mission into Rwanda in 1994, turned up at UN headquarters last week to give his take on the april 7 memorial.
"The principal objective is one, to not let the Rwanda genocide die, to let it disappear from the sights of the developed world in particular, because we tend to have a very short memory," Dallaire told CTV’s Canada aM.
He said the second goal is to take "a hard look at the prospects of such a terrible event happening again."
Dallaire, who had in Rwanda arrived three months before the massacre, reported directly to Kofi annan, who was then in charge of the UN Peacekeeping department. On site, Dallaire could see that a genocide was coming. He pleaded with the United Nations to send more soldiers and allow troops to shoot not just in self-defence.
But the Calvary never arrived.
On april 21, the Security Council refused to help and instead cut the 2,000-strong force to just 270 troops. Dallaire has said that a force of 5,000 could have stopped the blood bath.
Of himself, Kofi annan once said, "I’m not one of those people who believe you have to pound the table to be tough."
according to the Independent "When the first cruise missiles slammed into their targets in Baghdad, (annan) retired to his expansive 38-floor office at UN headquarters, sat at his mahogany desk and slowly smoked a cigar."
annan has declared april 7, 2004 the International Day of Reflection on the Genocide of Rwanda. There will be one minute of silence observed by the world at 12 noon that day.
Make that one minute of silence for 100 Rwanda days of hell, declared by the Lip-Service King of time immortal.
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
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