The United Nations has admitted to “toning down” a high profile report form its High Commissioner for Human Rights detailing genocide charges by a number of nations, amid threats from Rwanda and Uganda to withdraw from UN “peacekeeping” operations unless changes were made.
Rwanda continues to express anger over the report, which details the slaughtering of civilians and systematic rape of women in the region. The Rwandan government insisted there was not sufficient evidence of the allegations.
Yet a significant amount of the violence in Congo was actually carried by the “peacekeepers” themselves, and others were carried out as the UN forces stood idly by. The report was as much about the UN’s own failures as the crimes of international troops, and their willingness to “tone it down” for diplomatic purposes a clear indictment of its ability to oversee its own operations.
But it is the international forces that the attention now turns toward, particularly as Rwanda’s outrage raises questions of whether they will abandon their role in the UN’s Darfur mission. Uganda’s military has reportedly insisted their role will not change as a result of the report.