UN: Unanimously Adopting Resolution 2150 (2014), Security Council Calls for Recommitment to Fight against Genocide (16 April 2014)
SC/11356
Excerpt
Twenty years after the genocide in Rwanda, the Security Council condemned without reservation any denial of the genocide and urged member States to develop educational programmes to help prevent similar events.

Unanimously adopting resolution 2150 (2014), the Council called upon States to recommit to prevent and fight against genocide and other serious crimes under international law.
Through the resolution, the Council also called upon States that had not yet ratified or acceded to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide to consider doing so as a matter of high priority.

Jan Eliasson, Deputy Secretary-General, described the genocide in Rwanda as one of the “darkest chapters in human history” and said the world remembered with heavy hearts the international community’s collective failure to recognize and act on the warning signs of genocide. Through the events in Rwanda, the world had seen that genocide was not a single event, but rather a process developing over time and requiring planning and resources. That reality meant that genocide could be prevented with information and mobilization, as well as courage and political will.

“We must do more as a community of nations and as global citizens if we are going to live up to the promise of ‘never again’ and act upon our collective responsibility to protect,” he said.
Eugène-Richard Gasana ( Rwanda) stressed the need for “historical clarity” regarding the events in Rwanda, saying it was the world’s duty to remember that the genocide had been carried out due to systemic indifference. In the case of his country’s suffering, it was not a lack of information or resources that prevented action, but a lack of political will that left the international community paralysed in the face of the atrocities.

He continued, saying recent events in the Central African Republic, Syria and South Sudan could convince many that the United Nations was still struggling to match its normative principles with realities on the ground, and that the prevention of mass atrocities still had a long way to go.

Colin Keating ( New Zealand) was President of the Council in 1994 and said his country apologized for the international community’s failure and asked that New Zealand’s apology be formally inscribed in the records of the Security Council.

He continued, warning that if the international community truly wanted prevention to work, there must be political, operational and financial mechanisms for the Council and the wider United Nations system to achieve better outcomes…