Press Release.............................. UNESCAP News Services

Date 7 April 2004
Press Release No: L/12/2004

THE SECRETARY-GENERAL
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MESSAGE ON THE 10TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE GENOCIDE IN RWANDA
7 April 2004

The genocide in Rwanda should never have happened. But it did. Neither the UN Secretariat, nor the Security Council, nor Member States in general, nor the international media, paid enough attention to the gathering signs of disaster. Eight hundred thousand men, women and children were abandoned to the most brutal of deaths, as neighbour killed neighbour and sanctuaries such as churches and hospitals were turned into slaughterhouses. The international community failed Rwanda, and that must leave us always with a sense of bitter regret and abiding sorrow.

Ten years later, we are still trying to pick up the pieces. In Rwanda itself, the United Nations is doing its utmost to help people recover and reconcile. We are present throughout the country -- clearing mines, repatriating refugees, rehabilitating clinics and schools, building up the judicial system, and much else. In Tanzania, a United Nations criminal tribunal has handed down pioneering verdicts, including the first to find a former head of government, and journalists, guilty of genocide, and the first to determine that rape was used as an act of genocide. With these and other steps, the United Nations is doing what it can to help Rwandans, especially the young generation who are the future of the country, build a new society together.

But are we confident that, confronted by a new Rwanda today, we can respond effectively, in good time? We can by no means be certain we would. And the risk of genocide remains frighteningly real. That is why I have decided to use this anniversary to announce, before the UN Commission on Human Rights, an Action Plan to Prevent Genocide involving the entire UN system. We cannot afford to wait until the worst has happened, or is already happening, or end up with little more than futile hand-wringing or callous indifference. The world must be better equipped to prevent genocide, and act decisively to stop it when prevention fails.

The minute of silence being observed around the world at noon on 7 April, the International Day of Reflection on the Genocide in Rwanda, is an opportunity to be united in a way we were not ten years ago. I hope this minute will send a message that will resound for years to come - a message of remorse for the past, and of resolve to prevent such a tragedy from ever happening again. May the victims of the Rwandan genocide rest in peace. May our waking hours be lastingly altered by their sacrifice. And may we all reach beyond this tragedy, and work together to recognize our common humanity.

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