Perry Anderson writes:

Not only did Annan refuse to allow any measures to be taken to stop the unleashing of genocide, he ensured that the fax informing him of what was in store did not reach the Security Council. Some eight hundred thousand Tutsi died in the ensuing massacre. Measured by consequences, the culpability of Kurt Waldheim, exposed for concealing his service as a German intelligence officer in the Balkans, was puny by comparison. Annan remained quite unmoved, until it became too impolitic to deny any remorse. The extent of his contrition is summed up by all he would say to Traub, after a long pause, about his part in the fate of Rwanda: ‘In retrospect, and this is also the culture of the house, we should have used the media more aggressively, and exposed the situation for them to see. Of course, at that time this organisation was media-shy.’ Translated: don’t blame me, I’m the one who became media-friendly.

(LRB 10 May 2007)

In little more than a decade, the UN has acquired an unprecedented global prominence. Kofi Annan’s career, as described by James Traub, illustrates the possibilities and the pitfalls of this new world role. Having risen through the ranks to become under-secretary general for peacekeeping, Annan made a timely intervention in the Bosnian conflict that finally broke the deadlock there, allowing Nato to intervene. This persuaded the Clinton administration that he should replace Boutros Boutros-Ghali as secretary general. But Annan’s tenure in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations also coincided with an even more striking failure of international will than Bosnia – the Rwandan genocide. Boutros-Ghali himself was slow to act, and acted clumsily when he did. But as with the Srebrenica massacre the following year, there was very little the UN could do when its members refused their support. Sometimes the ‘international community’ expresses its will through doing nothing.

(LRB 22 March 2007)

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