Kwibuka23: Was UK part of the conspiracy?

Editor, RE: “Why the Genocide against the Tutsi should stir global conscience” (The New Times, April 12). “A Member of Parliament for north Devon in the British House of Commons once got to his feet to ask the UK Foreign Minister on an urgent issue. Would he instruct the British delegation at the United Nations to raise immediately, in the Security Council, as a threat to peace, the killing of members of the Tutsi Tribe by the Rwanda Republican Government, as a violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide…does the Honourable Gentleman not feel that Her Majesty’s Government should be doing more to stir the conscience of the world against these barbaric acts?” The Genocide (against the Tutsi) was also condemned by the philosopher and historian Bertrand Russell who called it “the most horrible and systematic human massacre we have had occasion to witness since the extermination of the Jews by the Nazis.” All this was in December 1963. Come April 1994, Her Majesty’s Government acted exactly as it did in 1963, it not only refused to honour its solemn treaty obligations under the 1948 Genocide Convention, it worked hard below the radar to ensure the UN force in place in Rwanda was pulled out of the country infinitely facilitating the plans of the genocidal government of Rwanda, which had been established in the French Ambassador’s residence in Kigali. Worse still, London has become a safe haven for génocidaires on the run and the British government’s official media organisation, BBC, is now among the go-to outlet for the deniers and revisionists of the Genocide that their government was content to allow to be implemented. We, Rwandans, are grateful to Dr Andrew Wallis and many other British citizens of good conscience who have accepted the risk of being sidelined from their mainstream and opprobrium in order to help bring the truth out into the open. Thank you Dr Wallis. Mwene Kalinda

Opinions

Kwibuka23: Was UK part of the conspiracy?