IN San Francisco of June 1945, the United Nations (UN) Security Council stated that it had the responsibility to never allow a genocide to take place anywhere in the world.
This was less than a month after the so-called Jews claimed to have had six million of their people killed in Hitler’s Germany.
Although there was no proof to these many Jews being massacred and the pictures of the dead are mostly of German casualties, claims alone were enough for US, Europe and the UN to intervene on behalf of the Jews by way of fighting against Germany, displacing the Palestinians, imposing the settlement of the Jews in Palestine and enforcing their continued existence in that region.
The massacres of Zimbabweans, on the other hand, that took place at Chimoio and Nyadzonia in Mozambique during the liberation struggle were true and the images and remains of the Zimbabweans killed by the Ian Smith regime stand as evidence.
The genocide in Rwanda was not doubtful at all.
The situation had gradually deteriorated over the decades and reports of these tribal conflicts that led to the killings were known to the UN.
However, the UN, under Kofi Annan, chose not to intervene in Rwanda just a day after their President had been assassinated.
As we once looked at in previous series, the US was also active in Somalia during this period.
US troops had been overpowered and some of their beat-up corpses were dragged around the streets in 1993.
These images were publicised and the US found it humiliating.
Bill Clinton thus chose not to intervene in Rwanda because he feared a similar defeat and a further decrease in popularity towards US foreign policy.
The likes of Pagasora who had high governmental seats said clearly they were planning to launch an apocalypse against the Tutsis, but all this was ignored. Pagaosora was removed from his post and replaced by Madame Galath who became the Prime Minister.
She did not support Hutu extremism and when the situation escalated, she was killed for being moderate.
Before she was assassinated, she asked the US diplomat called Miss Leader to hide in her house because they were neighbours.
Before long, she was shot by Hutu extremists who made up the army that was supposed to guard her.
Despite the assassination of the President and the Prime Minister, the UN and the US chose not to help.
Ten Belgian soldiers were arrested and killed with the hope that this would persuade the whites to leave and it did.
Ghanaian soldiers who were UN peacekeepers were also arrested, but these were set free.
By April 8, the massacres were in full swing and ID’s were checked before the killings.
Guns, machetes and axes were distributed to the Hutus and propaganda was spread through the radio.
The Tutsi rebel army, RPF, then went on an all-out offensive from the north, fighting their way to the capital of Kigali.
The US evacuated 257 of its citizens and all embassies were closed.
The Belgians sent soldiers to save their citizens.
The US landed 300 marines, the French 5 000 paratroopers and the Belgians
1 000; all with instructions to rescue whites and not to evacuate ordinary Rwandese.
On April 10, the UN Ambassador, Madeleine Albright, expressed the UN decision not to intervene in Rwanda.
This they had been advised by the US.
Only the Nigerian UN Ambassador, Ibrahim Gambari, argued intervention.
He said it would be callous if the UN was to cut and run.
It would also be contradictory to the spirit of the Charter of the UN Security Council which has the responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security for everyone in the world, including Africans like the Rwandese.
Like Barbara Jean Lee, the black woman who became the sole US member of Congress to speak out against the use of force following the 9/11 attack on the US, Gambari was the sole voice of reason, but was not listened to.
The fate of the Rwandese was thus sealed and they were on their own because even the 2 500 peacekeepers already in Rwanda were to be pulled out.
Therein lays the hypocrisy of the UN Security Council which is ever so swift to assist the US and her allies such as the settler Zionist Government in Palestine and yet they ignore African problems such as this one.
The leader of the peacekeeping unit, a whiteman called Dallaire, was enraged by the UN decision because he could see that the situation on the ground was bad and getting worse.
His deputy, a Ghanaian called Anyidoho, simply refused to leave and abandon his brothers in their time of need.
From this time onwards, it was Dallaire, Anyidoho and less than 450 African troops left to defend the Rwandese against the terror they were facing.
They had no guns, just a self-imposed mandate to defend their African brothers with their lives.
Among these was the heroic Senegalese soldier Captain Mbaye Diagne.
He personally was behind saving about a thousand Rwandese from death and personally taking them to safe zones by his own wit and courage.
Meanwhile, the Hutu extremists were making more radio speeches that radicalised the Hutu people.
They claimed the Tutsis were foreigners trying to enslave them and now was the time to end this feud by killing them.
They called Tutsis rats and moderate Hutus cockroaches and sellouts.
Only the Red Cross had remained in Rwanda and they still received supplies, unlike the UN peacekeepers who were completely abandoned by their organisation.
When six patients of the Red Cross were killed and some footage publicised, first in Geneva, the extent of the genocide began to be comprehended by the West which had since ignored the verbal reports.
The Hutu extremists felt embarrassed and spared the Red Cross, giving them free passage which would save the lives of about 70 000 Rwandese victims.
It is important to note that the victims were not exclusively Tutsi, but also sympathetic Hutus and Twas who refused to join ranks against the Tutsis.
On April 21, a Rwandese woman named Monique managed to escape to the US where she appealed for help from the US Government.
She was told insensitively by Anthony Lake, the National Security Advisor to President Clinton, that the US has no friends, only interests and the US has no interests in Rwanda.
He added that they were not willing to send US troops to Rwanda so that they come back in coffins.
The US went further to discourage people from referring to the conflict in Rwanda as genocide because this would require for them to act.
The rest of Europe and the UN joined the US in downplaying the extent of massacres by saying calling the killings in Rwanda genocide was exaggeration.
The RPF had learnt from its experience from Belgium and had become distrustful of foreign intervention, even by the UN.
This led to clashes with UN forces which led to the death of Captain Mbaye who caught a RPF shell to the head while driving to the UN station.
It was not until July of 1994 after the RPF, led by the now President of Rwanda Paul Kagame, took over Kigali and managed to stop the heart of the genocide.