United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda

The **United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda** (**UNAMIR**) was created by the United Nations Security Council in October 1993.  This was just after the end of the Rwandan Civil War.  UNAMIR's goals were to help put a peace agreement into place,  how well it was going, and support the new government.

However, on April 7, 1994, while UNAMIR was in Rwanda, the Rwandan genocide started.  The genocide lasted 100 days.  During that time, 800,000 people were killed; 2 million became refugees in other countries; another two million had to run away to different parts of Rwanda; and up to 250,000 women were raped.

The UNAMIR ended in March 1996.  Since the genocide, the United Nations has admitted that they  to  the Rwandan genocide.

## Overview of the genocide
In a genocide, many or all people in a group are killed because of their ethnicity, religion, or political opinions.  In the Rwandan genocide, members of an ethnic group called the Tutsi (*abatutsi*) were killed because of their ethnicity.  The killers were extremist members of another ethnic group called the Hutu (*abahutu*).  The Hutu killers also killed other Hutus whose political beliefs were not as extreme as theirs.

In 1994, almost all Rwandan people (85%) were Hutus.  From 1990-1993, the two groups had fought a civil war about who would control the government.  This war ended with a peace treaty in 1993.  The Rwandan genocide began that day.

## Background
There were not many countries in the United Nations that were interested in sending peacekeeping troops to Rwanda, even before the genocide started.  France was an ally of the Hutu-led government, and did not want to fight it.  Also, many countries thought there was nothing in it for them if they helped Rwanda.  Rwanda had no important natural resources, like oil or gold, and it was tiny.  For this mission, UNAMIR's mandate did *not* include stopping the genocide or protecting civilians.  At this time, UNAMIR soldiers were only allowed to shoot their weapons in self-defence, if somebody was attacking them personally.

## Work in Rwanda 
, asked the UN many times for more troops]]

Once they saw what was happening in Rwanda, the UNAMIR Commander, Roméo Dallaire, and Belgian peacekeepers asked the Security Council to give them more power and soldiers to stop the killings.  However, the United Nations member countries refused to change these rules for UNAMIR.

After ten of its soldiers were tortured and killed trying to protect the prime minister, Belgium pulled the rest of its soldiers out of Rwanda.p.&nbsp;308  
* Rwanda's current president has even accused France of helping the genocide happen.
France says it never did these things.

## End of the genocide
Together with the Ugandan army, a Tutsi rebel group called the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) fought the extremist Hutus.  Bit by bit, they took control of more parts of Rwanda.  Finally, on July 4, 1994, they took control of Kigali, Rwanda's capital city.

In 2000, United Nations Security Council admitted that it did fail to prevent the genocide.  They said that they could have helped stopped the killings, but they did not.

### Independent report
In 1999, Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, asked for an independent report about the Rwandan genocide.  He wanted to know why the United Nations and the world had "failed" to stop the Rwandan genocide.  The report said that the major failures were:

### Misunderstandings
Martin Dominque argues that world leaders may not have wanted to send troops to Africa because they had the wrong ideas about what African people are like.  If they thought African people were always fighting each other and always would, they would think the Rwandan genocide was no different.  The man said he thought that huge massacres of Tutsis were about to begin.  Finally, he told Dallaire where the Hutu militia were keeping many of their weapons.

In his fax, Dallaire said he wanted to take action and take away those weapons.  If the weapons were not taken away, they would be used to kill Tutsis.

The next day, he received a fax back from Kofi Annan, who was in charge of peacekeeping at the United Nations.  He ordered Dallaire not to take any action.  He told Dallaire that protecting citizens was not part of UNAMIR's mandate.  About three months later, the Rwandan genocide began.

## Related pages
*Rwandan genocide
* Genocide
*United Nations

## Notes
## References