Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 9. januar 2014 / Time Line January 9, 2014
Version 3.58. Januar 2014, 10. Januar 2014
01/09/2014
The Rwanda "Genocide Fax": What We Know Now
New Documentation Paints Complex Picture of Informant and his
Warnings: First Publication of "Rwanda20yrs" project by U.S.
Holocaust Memorial Museum and the National Security Archive
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 452
Washington, DC, January 9, 2014 -- Twenty years ago this week, the
commander of United Nations peacekeeping forces in Rwanda (UNAMIR)
wrote a "Most Immediate" cable to his superiors in New York that
has come to be known as the "Genocide Fax." Dated January 11 but
received in New York at 6:45 p.m. on January 10, the fax from
General Romeo Dallaire cited information from "a top-level trainer"
for a pro-regime militia group known as the Interahamwe, and warned
of an "anti-Tutsi extermination" plot.
Three months after this warning, Interahamwe members took the lead
in the 100-day genocide of at least half a million members of
Rwanda's Tutsi minority, along with tens of thousands of "moderate"
Hutus. The massacres took place against the backdrop of a war that
pitted the Hutu-dominated regime against Tutsi-led insurgents who
had invaded the country from neighboring Uganda.
Over time, the "genocide fax" became a symbol of the failure of the
international community to prevent mass killing in Rwanda. In reply
to the fax, U.N. officials rejected Dallaire's request for
authority to raid suspected arms caches, and instructed him instead
to consult with government leaders tied to the Interahamwe. It was
one of several turning points when the United Nations, backed by
the United States and other powers, failed to take action that
might have prevented the genocide.
Thanks to new documents, including evidence submitted to the
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), it is now
possible to piece together a much fuller account of the man who
inspired the "genocide fax" and how and why UN officials and other
decision-makers responded, or failed to respond, to his warnings.
For example, the documents posted today include the
never-before-published statement given to tribunal investigators in
2003 by the widow of the "genocide fax" informant.
Today's e-book and op-ed in the New York Times by Michael Dobbs are
the first publications of a joint "Rwanda20yrs" project
co-sponsored by the National Security Archive (at George Washington
University) and the Center for the Prevention of Genocide of the
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
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