Early warning and response: why the international community failed to prevent the genocide.

The enormity of the genocide in Rwanda demands that it be subjected to searching enquiry and that members of the international community, collectively and individually, examine their own roles in the event. This paper draws extensively on Study II of the Joint Evaluation, and examines the effectiveness of international monitoring (early warning) and management of the Rwanda conflict. It is not intended to explore all the factors which together contributed to the genocide that were or might have been amenable to modification by the international community. The focus is on warning and response beginning with the start of the civil war in 1990, and culminating in an analysis of the international response to the genocide in April-June 1994.