DATE=11/1/1999
TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT
TITLE=ATROCITIES / SCHEFFER
NUMBER=5-44662
BYLINE=JOE DE CAPUA
DATELINE=WASHINGTON
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: A top State Department official says the
Rwandan genocide in the mid-nineties taught important
lessons on how to respond to humanitarian crises.
David Scheffer - Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes
Issues - spoke at a recent conference (10-29/29) on
preventing and responding to atrocities. The event -
sponsored by the State Department - was held at the U-
S Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. V-O-A's
Joe De Capua reports.
TEXT: David Scheffer says the United States was the
first major Western government to admit that mistakes
were made in responding to the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
/// SCHEFFER ACT ///
We have learned much from those mistakes. But I
would be the last to represent that we have
developed a perfect response mechanism to
atrocities today. Indeed, the purpose of this
conference is to understand how much still needs
to be done to improve our collective abilities
to stop and prevent atrocities.
/// END ACT ///
He says too much attention, in Washington and the rest
of the world, was paid to reviving the peace accords
in Rwanda - and not enough to regional ethnic
violence.
/// SCHEFFER ACT ///
Indeed, perhaps the loudest warning signal that
went unheeded was the tens of thousands of
Tutsis slaughtered in Burundi during a few short
weeks in the fall (late) of 1993. Occurring at
the same time as the murder of U-N troops,
including 17 U-S soldiers in Somalia, the
Burundi massacres barely registered in
Washington. I have long suspected that the
international community's collective gasp of
disbelief and detachment from the reality
unfolding in Burundi, in the wake of the
massacres there, must have sent an implicit
signal to the extremist Hutus in Rwanda that the
shooting gallery was open, free of charge.
/// END ACT ///
Nearly one million Tutsi and moderate Hutu were killed
in Rwanda, before a rebel army drove out the national
army and extremist militias.
The ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues says it
is now known that violent humanitarian catastrophes
may require unconventional responses. He says there
must be a more determined effort to focus political
will on the importance of human survival.
/// SCHEFFER ACT ///
Atrocities or the imminent unleashing of them
scream out for immediate, imaginative and bold
actions. We have a motto in the Office of War
Crimes Issues at the State Department: Timing is
Everything. That motto is deeply imbedded in our
minds after years of work demonstrating time and
again that unless we act quickly enough to try
to head off (prevent) or end mass killings and
wanton destruction, the opportunity is lost.
The cost of mopping up will far exceed what
would have been required to face down the
masters of the killing fields at the earliest
possible stage.
/// END ACT ///
The State Department official says he was recently at
a massacre site, which he did not identify. And he
says while walking through it, something became
imbedded in his shoe. It was a human tooth.
/// SCHEFFER ACT ///
What had happened, it was raining quite hard.
And the rain was pounding the earth exposing
bone fragments and real bones, full bones and,
of course, the tooth. I certainly thought at
the time that I am tired of stepping on this
stuff. That I would rather have these
individuals standing alive in front of me and
not have had them experience what they
horrendously had to experience.
/// END ACT ///
Mr. Scheffer has made several recommendations to help
prevent atrocities. He says reliable information on
potential crises should be gathered and disseminated
much more quickly. And he says speedier decisions
should be made at the United Nations on multi-lateral
military action. (Signed)
NEB/JDC/KL
01-Nov-1999 11:24 AM EDT (01-Nov-1999 1624 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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