The genocide in Rwanda will define for our generation the failure to intervene in the face of mass human rights abuses. The UN Security Council (the Council) was intimately involved in this terrible event, with the decisions it took from October 1993, when a peacekeeping mission was created for Rwanda, having a decisive effect on what happened. This article details the crucial meetings held by the Council in secret and informal sessions and describes how a serious assessment of the situation in Rwanda was simply missing. It shows how the peacekeepers of the Council's mission to...

The genocide in Rwanda will define for our generation the failure to intervene in the face of mass human rights abuses. The UN Security Council (the Council) was intimately involved in this terrible event, with the decisions it took from October 1993, when a peacekeeping mission was created for Rwanda, having a decisive effect on what happened. This article details the crucial meetings held by the Council in secret and informal sessions and describes how a serious assessment of the situation in Rwanda was simply missing. It shows how the peacekeepers of the Council's mission to Rwanda were abandoned during the genocide and how the efforts of these UN personnel to ease the suffering of the Rwandan people were ignored by the Great Powers.