President criticises UN failure on human rights

THE President, Mrs Robinson, has begun her third visit to Rwanda with a forceful critique of the UN's failure to counter human rights abuses.

International institutions "appear to be stricken with inertia and paralysis when confronted with the recurrence of the very evils which led to their foundations," she told a women's conference here yesterday.

This was in spite of a number of positive achievements since the second World War, she said, such as the creation of international courts and procedures for investigating disappearances, torture and other abuses.

In the afternoon, Mrs Robinson met trauma counsellors who have been trained by Trocaire. A visit to a house building site sponsored by Irish Aid was cancelled due to rain. Later, she had a private meeting with the Rwandan vice president, Mr Paul Kagame, who is widely regarded as the real power in the government.

The President, whose name has been linked in recent days to the vacant post of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said institutions must be developed which can "deter, anticipate, prevent and terminate" gross human rights violations.

"While we cannot stop wars and may be unable to foresee or fore stall outbreaks of violence on a massive scale, honouring the commitment to human rights requires us to respond to... the deep international concern about gross violations," she told delegates attending yesterday's session of the Pan African Conference on Peace, Gender and Development.

The credibility of the international community's attachment to human rights was intimately bound up with its ability to respond effectively, she warned.

The President singled out the scandal ridden UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda for particular criticism. It "cast the international community under a cloud" by moving only "slowly and not very effectively" against genocide suspects, she said.

The new UN secretary general, Mr Kofi Annan, last week sacked the deputy prosecutor and registrar of the tribunal after an internal inquiry revealed massive incompetence and over spending. Mrs Robinson called for full support for Mr Annan's attempts to resolve the fiasco.

The President refrained, however, from criticising the Rwandan authorities, who have detained 100,000 genocide suspects without trial for up to three years, mostly in overcrowded and inadequate conditions.

"I'm aware of the extent of your problems here in Rwanda, but I'm also aware that I'm not an expert," she told the conference.

She also omitted a reference to the prison crisis in her prepared script.

Mrs Robinson, whose visit is widely seen here as a vote of confidence in the current government at a time of growing violence in the country, was introduced to delegates as "a great friend of Rwanda, the first president to express solidarity with us after the genocide".

The attendance of more than 300 women included a number of leading African politicians and politicians' wives, as well as European and American visitors. The conference was held in the national parliament building in Kigali, its walls still pock marked by shell and bullet holes from the fighting in 1994.

The President also called for a "new partnership" between the developed and the developing world to address Africa's debt problem and provide access to Western markets.

Warning against any temptation towards "aid fatigue", she urged western countries to focus on priority issues such as health, basic education, the reduction of poverty and environmental security.

Strengthening the leadership role of women could play an important role in securing peace. Increasing education opportunities for girls was the key to enabling women to attain leadership positions.

The challenge, the President continued, was for women leaders to "make a difference". This would involve a different approach to leadership, which was empowering rather than hierarchical, and about influencing others more than exercising power.

In spite of huge suffering, brutality, conflict, war and violence, "people in the end yearn for peace and recovery. At some time, a chance for peace and reconciliation emerges. We must seize that chance courageously and quickly. If we miss that moment, it may be lost and with it lives, hopes and a dynamic for peace.

At Trocaire's offices, she was given a presentation on the agency's trauma counselling programme.