MJC SBQ Secretary General in the Rwanda Crisis

History 8814; 9731/1 The Political Effectiveness of the United Nations, 1945‐2000 MJC PRELIMS 2014 [suggested answer] MJC/ History Unit/ September 2014 1 TITLE: The Secretary-General in the Rwanda Crisis QUESTION: How far do Sources A-E support the claim that Boutros Boutros -Ghali’s ineffectiveness as the secretary-general guaranteed the failures of the United Nations in Rwanda? Unpacking hypothesis: 1) In what sense were UN’s ‘failures’ in Rwanda, and in what sense was BBG ‘ineffective’ as an SG? Tangible vs. intangible failure/ineffectiveness? In theory vs. in practice? 2) WHY was BBG effective or not effective? Inability to influence decisions and take concrete actions? Interference or lack of support from member states because of political/economic considerations? (note that the Charter sets BBG as an administrator as well as an initiator and political figure) Introduction: Sources A, C and E support the hypothesis while Sources B and C challenge it. Source A supports the hypothesis as it reveals Boutros -Ghali’s acknowledgement of his inability to draw the appropriate attention to the SC regarding the significance of the developments in Rwanda. [role of SG in taking initiative to draw attention to SC any matters of importance] LIFT/INFER (Be concise. Do not quote extensively. Must pick up on the key points – especially if this is a rich source) EVALUATION OF CONTENT: CROSS-REFERENCES (C-R must match the key source evidence that you have pulled out. CK must have key details. E.g. Data, Event, Year, Outcome) EVALUATION OF PROVENANCE (If the speaker/author does not have vested interest in the speech/extract, then it is likely to be reliable. Pay attention to dates and the occasion.) CONCLUSION (Based on reliability – Provenance; and utility – how useful on its own in helping you to understand the H Considered Rwanda as ‘one of [his] greatest failures’ because: 1. Unable to ‘convince the members of the SC to intervene’ 2. ‘Not able t o understand from the beginning’ that a ‘genocide’ was happening. This suggests that his failure to bring to attention the genocide prevented concrete actions from being taken in Rwanda to prevent the escalation of violence. BG’s admonition of himself was justified when taking into consideration that despite being empowered to ‘ bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security ’ (article 99), he was unable to utilise this power. This can be seen in Source B which shows his inability to convince the SC to take concrete actions quickly – despite asking the SC to consider ‘forceful action to restore law and order and end the massacres’ on April 29, it was only on May 17 that the SC was able to While the interview which was held on 2004 could have attributed hindsight as 10 years had passed since the crisis, but the effec ts of genocide are