ABSTRACT
Adelman, professor of Philosophy at York University in Toronto, notes in his introduction that
This chapter begins with a puzzle. Presumably, the United Nations and all our multi-lateral institutions were created, at least in part, to prevent another Holocaust. Yet an extremely large well-publicized genocide was carried out in 1994 in an economically poor and militarily weak Third World country, Rwanda, while UN troops were present. Further, the legal government and the rebel army in the Arusha Accords had jointly given the UN responsibility for protecting civilians and disarming non-military personnel who were largely responsible for actually carrying out the mass murders. This chapter outlines the information, communication, structural and other factors that undercut the UN’s ability to intervene in and stop the genocide in Rwanda. (pp. 289-290)
The chapter is comprised of the following sections: Introduction; UN Peacekeeping in Rwanda; Early Warning; The Information Available; Direct Observations; Communications; Structural Problems; Shadows; Coincidence; Timeliness; Toward a Comprehensive Explanation for Failure; Normative Factors; and Conclusion.
