Feb 1994 'genocide fax' POD

To commemorate the 10th anniversary this yr of the Rwanda genocide, WI Gen Romeo Dallaire, Canadian Force Commander of the UN Assistance Mission in Rwanda, had his warnings taken seriously by his UN superiors (including Kofi Annan, then Under-SG for peacekeeping) about an impending genocide of the Tutsi population planned by Hutu extremists in the Rwandan govt ? Dallaire had in Feb 1994 received word from a high-ranking informant in the Rwandan govt of the extremists' intention to restart the civil war and use the renewed fighting as cover to systematically slaughter all Tutsis they could, including with massacres by the INTERAHAMWE militias, security and police forces, and stockpiling munitions for this end, while also attempting to undermine international support for the UN presence by attacking and killing Belgian peacekeepers (which occurred immediately after the genocide commenced, when 10 blue bereted Belgian paracommandos who'd been sent to bodyguard PM Agatha Ugwilyama (sp?) were disarmed and brutally murdered by Rwandan govt soldiers, after which Brussels cravenly withdrew the entire 440-strong Belgian contingent, which was the best-equipped in UNAMIR). After Dallaire had faxed this info to his UN superiors in NY, he requested authority for UNAMIR to undertake a disarmament mission thruout the city, raiding the arms caches identified by his informant, together with an increase in the size of the force from 2500 to around 4500-5000 and an expanded mandate from Chapter VI to Chapter VII enabling UNAMIR to use force other than in self-defence. However, Annan and Dalliare's immediate superior, Can Gen Maurice Barril, denied him permission to undertake such pre-emptive action, esp due to the continuing effects of the post-Somalia fallout within the UN, and also voiced their opinions that these warnings were an exaggeration. In April, the genocide began in full, when Rwandan Pres Juvenal Habyarimana's private plane was shot down by a SAM over Kigali, which was used as a pretext for the Hutu extremists in his govt to implement their plans for genocide and slaughter an estimated 800,000-1m ppl during the next 3 mths.

But WI Dallaire's warnings had been taken seriously, and he was allowed a broader mandate and an expanded force in order to pre-emptively disarm the GENOCIDAIRES prior to April ? There was 1 article in FOREIGN AFFAIRS from 2000, "The Path Not Taken" by Alan Kupperman, which stated that such an expanded UNAMIR in early 1994 could well have made a difference to the outcome of the genocide by establishing a robust PK presence on the ground in order to deter the Hutu extremist elements. Also, UNAMIR was a very understrength and shoestring-equipped force, with only the Belgian paras being well-armed, trained and equipped, while the other 3rd World inf contingents, from Ghana, Bangladesh and Tunisia, were very underequipped (including some contingents having inadequate uniforms, radios and ammo, and mechanically unreliable APCs) and poorly trained, so to have been able to undertake the disarmament mission envisaged by Dallire, perhaps there also needs to be a POD where UNAMIR when initially deployed is better manned and equipped ? Any thoughts ?
 
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