Some of the recommendations are addressed to the present Government of Rwanda, which is a Government of National Unity contrary to its portrayal in the editorial as ruled by minority Tutsi . The report also recommends that the international community pay reparations to Rwandans for its enforced moral, political, and diplomatic impotence that made the genocide possible. Apologies and reparations are woefully inadequate in the face of genocide. However as the report correctly points out, this is the very least that the world owes Rwandans in general and the survivors of the genocide in particular. To argue that to do so would set a precedent for the West to be a scapegoat for developing countries internal conflicts, preventing people there from taking responsibility for their actions, is not only illogical but unfortunate in the extreme.
Genocide is never an internal matter.
It is an international responsibility. In an attempt to deny or avoid this responsibility, officials played word games in 1994, which produced the acts of genocide formula that the Security Council adopted. The OAU Eminent Personalities report asks for reparations. The Times editorial talks of restitution and makes the ludicrous connection that this would be tantamount to colonialism. I do hope these word games do not lead us to acts of reparations in the end.