January 14, 2007

purposely failed attempts at the rwandan genocide

The UN however did not completely abandon Rwanda in 1994. There were economic sanctions placed on Rwanda. They restricted visa issuing, and shipping or aircraft transport of goods, (UNRC). However, not all nations followed the economic sanctions. France supplied the Hutus with weapons and even trained some of the militia. One incident, there was a shipment of guns on an aircraft that was confiscated by UNAMIR. However, the French government argued that it was legal and the UN was forced to give up the shipment. Another incident was Mil-Tec Corporation Ltd, from the UK, sent arms worth $6.5 million, (Vinogradov, wikipedia).

The UN also sent peace keeping forces. A small peace keeping force was sent to Rwanda by Canada. The leader of the forces then was General Romeo Dallaire. When ten UN peace keepers were captured and killed, Dallaire asked for reinforcement. During that time the US attempted to remove its forces and convinced Belgium to do so as well. However to be able to do so, the US and Belgium must go through the Security Council. After the meeting was called to order, the UN Security Council voted unanimously to reduce the force to a token number. However, European troops did arrive, but only to evacuate western refugee. The UN tried to assemble more peace keeping forces from African nations. By then, approximately a million people were killed, (ushmm, Ferroggiaro, Power).

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