A LACK of political will and reluctance by United Nations members to act on warning signs were blamed for the failure to stem the Rwandan genocide in 1994 and may fail to halt a new crisis in Burundi, a report said yesterday.
The report - The International Response to Conflict and Genocide: Lessons from the Rwanda Experience - is the first to provide a multinational evaluation of the response to the killing of an estimated 800,000 Rwandans.
"There were significant signs that Hutu extremist forces in Rwanda were preparing the climate and structures for a genocide of Tutsis and moderate Hutus," according to Mr David Tardif Doughlin, a principal author of the report. "But the states, international organisations and other parties ... ignored, discounted or misinterpreted these signs, indicating an inability of unwillingness to intervene.
Nineteen OFCD member donor agencies, the European Union, the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD, UN agencies and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies contributed expertise or funds towards the report. It took a year to prepare and cost $1 million.
France withdrew from the report's steering committee in 1995 after reading early drafts critical of its role.
"Humanitarian action cannot substitute for political action," was one of the key messages of the report.
It accused the Security Council of again sidestepping action as recently as this month when it asked the UN to prepare only for humanitarian action in Burundi despite fears of mass slaughter on a similar scale to Rwanda in 1994.
"Are we prepared for another genocide?" Mr Tardif Doughlin said in Nairobi yesterday.
The report described as "fateful" the Security Council's decision to withdraw most of its troops when killings began and said thousands of lives could have been saved if the force had been expanded.
The charities Oxfam, Christian Aid, Save the Children, British Red Cross and CAFOD described the report as "a broadside against world leaders' indifference to genocide".
Advocating prevention as better than cure, the report urges the UN to create a unit to provide early conflict warnings directly to the UN Secretary General.
It is critical of the international media, saying distorted reporting reflected inadequate knowledge of Rwandan culture.