YouSaid · the spoken record

Carlsson

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16
first
2000-04-14
most recent
2000-04-14
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1
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un-security-council

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  1. “Mr. Carlsson: I think that the statement just made by the representative of Rwanda should be the last statement in this debate.”

    2000-04-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4127 (2000) · source

  2. “Headquarters should be prepared to pick up an early warning and to translate it into early action. The Inquiry's hope is that a United Nations action plan of this kind could provide concrete input to the World Conference against Racism next year. Finally, I want to express the hope that this report will contribute to improving the relations between Rwanda and the United Nations. I also hope that the recommendations will be taken on board in future discussions on the role of the United Nations in conflict situations.”

    2000-04-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4127 (2000) · source

  3. “This needs to be taken into account when planning operations, but also when discussing how mandates are implemented. The mistakes that were made by the international community in Rwanda were grave. We must make a determined effort to see to it that the same thing never occurs again. Preventing genocide is a duty; it is also an effort which goes beyond what is normally understood by prevention. The Inquiry therefore recommended that the Secretary-General initiate a specific United Nations action plan to prevent genocide. The idea would be for each part of the United Nations system to examine what concrete steps it needs to take within its mandate to be better prepared to prevent genocide. Political analysts, peacekeepers and humanitarian officers should all be trained to recognize the warning signs.”

    2000-04-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4127 (2000) · source

  4. “I very much welcome the work done within the Council on improving the protection of civilians, based on the report by the Secretary-General last year. I hope that this thematic emphasis will also add momentum when dealing with these issues in individual conflicts. I would like to mention two lessons from Rwanda in this regard. First, there can be no neutrality in the face of the threat of genocide or massive violation of human rights. The United Nations and its peacekeepers must react. Secondly, it is important to recognize that the presence of a United Nations mission, whether or not its mandates include the protection of civilians, will create an expectation among the civilian population that they will be protected by the United Nations.”

    2000-04-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4127 (2000) · source

  5. “This also depends on members of the Council receiving briefings from those officials most qualified to do so, be it the Special Representative of the Secretary-General, or the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, or the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Information on the human rights situation is often a key indicator of warning signs. This was so in Rwanda. Much has been said on the need to improve our capacity for prevention. Learning the lessons from Rwanda is a question of putting prevention into practice, of combining the will to act in time with the capacity to do so. Improving the protection of civilians is a key task for the United Nations. The Inquiry recommends that mandates of peacekeeping operations, where appropriate, explicitly include the protection of civilians.”

    2000-04-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4127 (2000) · source

  6. “There were warning signs, but these were not given the attention they needed. Much attention has been focused on the fate of the Dallaire cable, and it was discussed in detail in our report. I think the main lesson is the following: information of that magnitude, and clearly any information which relates to the threat to exterminate a population, should be shared with the Security Council as a whole and must lead to a firm reaction. Efforts have been made over the past years to improve the United Nations capacity for early warning. The Inquiry believes those efforts must continue. A key aspect is improving cooperation between departments concerned in the Secretariat. Another relates to improving the flow of information to the Security Council.”

    2000-04-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4127 (2000) · source

  7. “I hope that the panel that has been appointed to follow up on the Rwanda and Srebrenica reports will help in identifying these lessons. The real challenge will be to bring the lessons into the everyday planning for peacekeeping. Finally, on this point, I would hope that all Member States will use the Millennium Summit and Assembly to create momentum to deal with the problems facing United Nations peacekeeping. Member States will have the chance to see the political imperatives of making peacekeeping work and to solve the problems which have plagued peacekeeping efforts for so long. During the months leading up to the genocide, the United Nations, but also Member States and non- government actors, failed to really recognize the systematic horrors of what was being planned.”

    2000-04-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4127 (2000) · source

  8. “Mobilize the political will to provide the troops that the United Nations needs at short notice and show the same determination to exercise responsibility for international law, peace and security, wherever the crisis and whatever the continent. To the Secretary-General I would say, continue to focus on improving the Secretariat's capacity to plan and prepare peacekeeping operations. In recommending peacekeeping operations, tell the Security Council what the real needs on the ground are, how many troops, what mandate, how tough the task is. It is then the responsibility of this Council not to allow short-term budgetary or other financial considerations to overrule those needs. It must ensure that there is full coordination on the ground between different United Nations bodies involved and use the lessons learned from previous operations.”

    2000-04-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4127 (2000) · source

  9. “A key recommendation of our report emphasized the need to improve the capacity of the United Nations in the field of peacekeeping. The members of this Inquiry are not the first to say this, and unfortunately, we are not likely to be the last. But I would like to ask the members of the Security Council to take this point seriously. The United Nations remains the only organization which can bring global legitimacy to peacekeeping. The reverse side of that coin is that failed peacekeeping efforts cause devastating damage to the credibility of this Organization. To the members of the Security Council I would say, give peacekeeping operations the mandates they need. See to it that the resources provided fit that mandate.”

    2000-04-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4127 (2000) · source

  10. “A lack of political will to act is perhaps the most dangerous obstacle to United Nations efforts to bring about and keep peace and undermines the authority and legitimacy of the United Nations itself. One of the aspects of the United Nations role during the genocide which has caused most bitterness in Rwanda is the fact that a few weeks after the start of the genocide, the Council decided to reduce the strength of UNAMIR to about one tenth of the original number. This decision, and the lack of will to react firmly to the actions of the extremists, put Rwandan civilians and the remaining United Nations personnel at risk. It was a decision taken despite clear evidence of the horrors which were taking place in Rwanda, in the face of evidence of a genocide.”

    2000-04-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4127 (2000) · source

  11. “Some of these were massacred, others were at risk of being killed. The withdrawal of the bulk of the Mission left a lot of bitterness behind in Rwanda. I should also say that our report also included criticisms of UNAMIR and some of the troops in Rwanda. It is important also to say that those countries which did not send troops or materiel to Rwanda, including my own country, also share responsibility for what happened. It is a terrible fact that UNAMIR was never able to get the troops that it needed, neither in quantity nor in capacity. The Inquiry emphasized the need for the international community to be prepared to identify situations of genocide as such and to act accordingly. Political will is the key here.”

    2000-04-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4127 (2000) · source

  12. “As we wrote in our report, there was a lack of political leadership, a lack of military capacity, severe problems of command and control and a lack of coordination and discipline. In the report, we tried to identify in each particular case where the responsibility lay within the United Nations system. The United Nations had a peacekeeping operation numbering 2,500 personnel in Rwanda when the genocide started. They should have been able to prevent or at least limit the genocide. In effect, however, despite the courageous efforts of some of the United Nations staff in Rwanda, the force disintegrated. There were certainly acts of bravery by those in UNAMIR who stayed in Rwanda. There are people in Rwanda and abroad who owe their lives to the United Nations, but there were also those who were left behind when the United Nations left Rwanda.”

    2000-04-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4127 (2000) · source

  13. “This Council has the power to prevent some of the mistakes that were made in Rwanda from happening again. I hope today's discussion will help to mobilize will in this respect. The Inquiry found that the overriding failure of the United Nations was the lack of resources and the lack of political will to act. The United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) was often called an orphan operation, one that suffered from being created in the aftermath of Somalia. It was smaller and weaker than what was needed, and the mandate was based on an over- optimistic assessment of the peace process in Rwanda at the time. When the genocide started, the Mission was not working as a cohesive operation.”

    2000-04-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4127 (2000) · source

  14. “We visited France, Belgium and the United States. We spoke to a number of survivors of the genocide, the families of the 10 Belgian peacekeepers who were killed, members of the local staff of the United Nations in Rwanda at the time and other witnesses. They helped to provide us with the necessary, if painful, understanding of what happened. My colleague and I presented our report to the Secretary-General on 15 December last year. In the report we identified what we considered were the failings of the United Nations before and during the genocide and formulated 14 recommendations for the future. Today, I want to highlight the main conclusions of the Inquiry, but want to focus particularly on the forward- looking element of the report, its recommendations.”

    2000-04-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4127 (2000) · source

  15. “Our failure to do so is the reason we are here today. We had a responsibility to act and failed to do so. The question before the Security Council today is why, and what can be done to see to it that what happened in Rwanda in 1994 never happens again. The Independent Inquiry was set up at the initiative of the Secretary-General, with the acceptance of the Security Council. I was joined by two colleagues, Mr. Han Sung-Joo of the Republic of Korea, and General Rufus Kupolati of Nigeria. We had two main tasks: to establish the facts related to the role of the United Nations during the genocide and to make recommendations for the future. We visited Rwanda and other countries in the Great Lakes region. We visited New York several times and conducted in-depth interviews with key United Nations officials.”

    2000-04-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4127 (2000) · source

  16. “Mr. Carlsson: I am grateful for the opportunity to present the report of the Independent Inquiry into the actions of the United Nations during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. I am pleased that the report is to be discussed in substance in the Security Council, one of the main bodies to which the recommendations were addressed. I commend Canada's initiative to convene this meeting. It is now six years since the beginning of the genocide in Rwanda, six years since hundreds of thousands of men, women and children were brutally massacred by their own countrymen in only 100 horrific days. This was a genocide which took place before the eyes of the international community and before the eyes of the United Nations peacekeeping force. We, the international community, did not prevent, nor did we stop, the massacres once they had begun.”

    2000-04-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4127 (2000) · source