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Eyewitness to a genocide : the United Nations and Rwanda
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Eyewitness to a genocide : the United Nations and Rwanda

Author: Michael N Barnett
Publisher: Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2002.
Edition/Format: Book : EnglishView all editions and formats
Summary:
Michael Barnett, who worked at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations from 1993 to 1994, covered Rwanda for much of the genocide. Based on his first-hand experiences, archival work, and interviews with many key participants, he reconstructs the history of the UN's involvement in Rwanda. In the weeks leading up to the genocide, the author documents, the UN was increasingly aware or had good reason to suspect that  Read more...
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Details

Material Type: Internet resource
Document Type: Book, Internet Resource
All Authors / Contributors: Michael N Barnett
ISBN: 0801438837 9780801438837
OCLC Number: 47971571
Description: xiii, 215 p. ; 24 cm.
Contents: It was a very good year -- Rwanda through rose-colored glasses -- "If this is an easy operation ..." -- The fog of genocide -- Diplomatic games -- The hunt for moral responsibility -- brief chronology of Rwandan conflict.
Responsibility: Michael Barnett.
More information:

Abstract:

Michael Barnett, who worked at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations from 1993 to 1994, covered Rwanda for much of the genocide. Based on his first-hand experiences, archival work, and interviews with many key participants, he reconstructs the history of the UN's involvement in Rwanda. In the weeks leading up to the genocide, the author documents, the UN was increasingly aware or had good reason to suspect that Rwanda was a site of crimes against humanity. Yet it failed to act. Barnett argues that its indifference was driven not by incompetence or cynicism but rather by reasoned choices cradled by moral considerations. Employing a novel approach to ethics in practice and in relationship to international organizations, Barnett offers an unsettling possibility: the UN culture recast the ethical commitments of well-intentioned individuals, arresting any duty to aid at the outset of the genocide. Barnett argues that the UN bears some moral responsibility for the genocide. Particularly disturbing is his observation that not only did the UN violate its moral responsibilities, but also that many in New York believed that they were "doing the right thing" as they did so. Barnett addresses the ways in which the Rwandan genocide raises a warning about this age of humanitarianism and concludes by asking whether it is possible to build moral institutions.

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