Joint intervention on the Rwanda genocide and the need for a UN Special Representative on Minorities, to the UN Sub-Commission

12 August 2003

Thank you Madame.

This is a joint intervention on behalf of the Bahá'í International Community and Minority Rights Group International.

Next year will mark ten years since the unspeakable horrors of the genocide in Rwanda. At the time the United Nations acknowledged that it failed to fulfil its duty to protect the citizens of that country. Unfortunately, despite the enormous resources invested in expert enquiries, which produced clear recommendations, the lessons of that tragedy have still not been learnt, and the United Nations has still not put in place the necessary mechanisms to protect vulnerable ethnic and religious groups.

It is generally acknowledged that the problem with Rwanda was not a lack of available information - it was a failure to act on that information:

According to the exhaustive five volume report of the Joint Evaluation of Emergency Assistance to Rwanda, "Early warning was less critical in the Rwanda crisis than the willingness and ability to respond. Nevertheless, the failure to respond adequately was in part influenced by the failure to collect and analyse the data that was available and to translate this information into strategic plans".1

The United Nations disposes of human rights monitoring mechanisms which can draw attention to the persecution of vulnerable groups, which could lead to conflict. These include the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the Human Rights Committee, the Working Group on Minorities, and the various country and thematic Special Procedures. What is needed is to effectively link these human rights monitoring bodies with the conflict prevention and security activities of the UN.

The Independent Inquiry into the actions of the United Nations during the Genocide concluded that "it essential both to continue to improve the capacity of the organization to analyse and respond to information about possible conflicts, and its operational capability for preventive action. Further enhancement of the cooperation between different Secretariat departments, UNSECOORD, programmes and agencies and outside actors, including regional and subregional organizations, NGOs and the academic world, is essential." It also found that "The trend towards a more coordinated approach to the prevention and resolution of conflicts means that information must be shared with all parts of the United Nations system involved in such efforts ... Information about human rights must be a natural part of the basis for decision-making on peacekeeping operations, within the Secretariat and by the Security Council ... Human rights information must be a brought to bear in the internal deliberations of the Secretariat on early warning, preventive action and peacekeeping".2

The coalition for a Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Minorities, which includes the signatories to this intervention, plus the International Movement against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism, and FIDH, the International Federation of Human Rights Leagues, has consistently argued that such a Special Representative would play a crucial role of coordination between the human rights monitoring bodies of Geneva and the conflict prevention activities of New York. It has also argued that preventive diplomacy at an early stage, before tensions have developed to the point of no return, can be successful in preventing conflict, a conclusion which is borne out by the experiences of other conflict prevention mechanisms on the international level.

The Sub-Commission should re-affirm the clear linkage between human rights issues and conflict prevention activities within the UN, and the need for effective communication between the various bodies dealing with these issues. It should also urge the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, when it prepares its analytical report for the Commission on Human Rights next year on the mechanisms of the United Nations for the protection of minorities, to pay close attention to the debate on this issue which took place at the Working Group on Minorities this year. In particular it should examine very closely the need for a mechanism to prevent violent conflict involving minorities.

In this way the Sub-Commission will support the United Nations in marking this tragic anniversary by finally taking effective steps to prevent ethnic conflict.

Thank you Madame.

1 The International Response to Conflict and Genocide: Lessons from the Rwanda Experience, Vol. II, Copenhagen, 1996.

2 Independent inquiry into the actions of the UN during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, 15 December 1999.