UN ROLE IN RWANDA CRISIS
(I) The role of the international community 
During the 1990s, the international community (OAU, UN, Belgium, France, Germany, USA and Rwanda's neighbouring countries, notably Tanzania) had taken upon itself an important and active role in implementing peace and democracy in Rwanda (see above). There were numerous prior warnings of the violence that erupted on 6 April (African Rights, 1994). Some observers point to detailed written plans that UNAMIR and some of the foreign embassies had seen before the massacres took place (Reyntjens, 1995). Despite all warnings, it appears, however, that the international community was caught unprepared when the massacres broke out. The inactivity, or rather inadequate or misdirected kind of activity, continued for several weeks after the massacres started. (This is discussed in detail in Study II.) 
This was partly due to the successful disinformation campaign by the leaders of the massacres, partly to the fatigue after the Somalia debacle (Guichaoua, 1995), but also to the fact that most foreign observers did not want to accept the killings for what they were. This was particularly true for the French, who had given their support to the Rwandese government and army all through the early 1990s. However, public opinion in France also cried out heavily against the massacre. Zaire also maintained good relations with the Rwandese interim government throughout the crisis and allowed it and its supporters after the RPF victory to settle in Zaire, keep their weapons and even to operate their radio from Zairian territory. In addition, Zaire, and particularly President Mobutu himself, reaped both diplomatic and economic benefits from the French - as well as the UN - interventions. 
The Belgians, who had played an important role during the Arusha process, contributed by sending the largest group of soldiers to UNAMIR. The murder of 10 Belgian soldiers on 7 April led, however, to a popular outcry in Belgium and to the almost immediate withdrawal of its soldiers from Rwanda and the UN task force. 
Most tragic of all, however, was the inactivity of the UN and its failure to meet expectations, including those of the citizens of Rwanda. After the arrival of UNAMIR, many Rwandese had high hopes. Those hopes were badly shattered, a fact widely repeated in many of the interviews made by African Rights and personal interviews in Rwanda. Discussions in the Security Council after Belgium announced the withdrawal of its troops continued throughout the period of the massacres, without any real conclusions. The Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Rwanda, Jacques Booh-Booh, his successor, Shaharyar Khan, and other representatives of the UN did not criticize the interim government over the whole period. Instead, they concentrated all their efforts on obtaining a cease-fire between the RPF and the Rwandese army. As the RPF had announced that it would not even discuss a cease-fire unless the killings came to an end, the persistence of the UN to attain a cease-fire without mentioning the massacres was futile. 
Thus, while the UN could not respond with any action on the ground, the OAU at least attempted to act more decisively. It was a step ahead of the UN in its analysis, and its public statements. However, divisions among the African countries did not allow for any real intervention. 
Although there were UN and OAU soldiers in Rwanda (albeit very few), they did not get an appropriate mandate and sufficient equipment and transport, which might have saved lives. A condem-nation of the massacres might have given moral support to the few who tried to stop the killings and a moral leadership role to the UN, but it never came. In the words of Ian Linden: 
The withdrawal of the bulk of the UN forces and the failure of the Security Council to re-inforce them and acknowledge that genocide was taking place cost thousands of lives and will be recorded as one of the most culpable and tragic of the UN's many mistakes on intervention (Linden, 1995). 
Although a decision to enlarge and strengthen UNAMIR to 5,500 men was taken by the Security Council on 17 May 1994, decisions on the financing of the force and on operational matters took until the end of July. By then, the French, pressed by public opinion in their country and francophone leaders of Africa, had decided to dispatch 2,200 soldiers to Goma and Bukavu in Zaire, from where they entered western Rwanda. Opération Turquoise started on 23 June. Much has been written about this intervention (See Study II). Suffice it here to say that the Security Council gave this unilateral military force UN status and a Chapter VII mandate (allowing it to use force) for two months until the enlarged UNAMIR force would take over. 
The French intervention was welcomed by the interim government, but strongly opposed by the RPF. However, the French came too late to have any sustainable effect either on the war or the massacres (Prunier, 1995). It is estimated, however, that the French, within the so-called Safe Zone they declared in the south-west of Rwanda, saved some 12-15,000 Tutsi. They also helped to provide relief to Hutu internally displaced persons in south-west Rwanda, some of whom stayed in the country after the French left, thereby saving Burundi from an additional refugee crisis (African Rights, 1994; Guichaoua, 1995). The French left Rwanda in August 1994, handing over their Safe Zone to Ethiopian UN troops. The UNAMIR mandate has since been extended a number of times - the latest to 8 March, 1996 - and the UN troops are still present in Rwanda, although their presence is increasingly opposed by the government. 

(II)
It was 10 years ago that the United Nations sent in a small military force of approximately 2,000 soldiers to Rwanda to oversee the implementation of the Arusha Peace Accords, meant to establish power-sharing between the Hutu-dominated government and the RPF. Originally based in Uganda and made up largely of the minority Tutsis, the RPF had taken over a significant part of the country and was threatening the capital. Several hundred thousand Hutu refugees had fled the RPF areas, and the sections of the Hutu government and military that organised the genocide were whipping up a frenzy of ethnic hatred. The previous year, tens of thousands, mainly Hutus, had been slaughtered in neighbouring Burundi in ethnic conflict.
On the eve of the genocide, the head of the UN force, Major General Romeo Dallaire, sent an urgent fax to his bosses at its office headed by the present secretary general of the UN, Kofi Annan. In the fax, he warned that mass slaughter was being prepared against the minority Tutsis and that he needed reinforcements. He was confident that, with just 5,000 troops under his command, the catastrophe could be averted. The orders he received in reply limited his troops to the protection of foreign nationals. After the murder of 10 Belgian soldiers, the United Kingdom sponsored a resolution at the UN that led to the withdrawal of all but 270 troops. US ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright was opposed to leaving even a skeleton force. Dallaire has written a book entitled Shake Hands With The Devil, indicting the UN and the world powers for allowing the genocide to take place. As he said recently, the slaughter “continued for a hundred days under the full glare of the international community.”

(III)US
Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who was secretary general of the UN in 1994, tried to relieve himself of any responsibility by saying in a recent interview that the UN peacekeeping office didn’t pass on Dallaire’s fax to him, just a report. Anyway, they got “telegrams like this all the time.” Citing the debacle that followed the US intervention in Somalia as a reason why the US didn’t want to intervene in Rwanda, Boutros-Ghali explained that during the Rwanda crisis the official policy of the US under President Bill Clinton was that it was not in their interests to get involved. The US determined that the UN would not intervene either, as the US contributed 30 percent of its budget.