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Morning News

CNN & TIME: Rwandan Genocide Survivors Accuse U.N. of Allowing Atrocities

Aired May 19, 2000 - 10:46 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: It was six years ago that ethnic tensions in Rwanda triggered a campaign of violence and mass murder that ranks among the worst of the 20th century. U.N. troops were in Rwanda when the massacres began, but peacekeepers did little to stop the bloodshed.

This Sunday, the CNN newsmagazine "CNN & TIME" talks to the families of two Rwandan victims. They accuse the United Nations and Secretary General Kofi Annan of failing to protect their loved ones during the genocide of 1994, and now they're demanding compensation.

Here's a preview from that report from correspondent Charles Glass.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHARLES GLASS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When Rwanda was bleeding, the world looked the other way. Later, the leaders who refused to help in 1994 said they were sorry.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, MAY, 1999)

KOFI ANNAN, U.N. SECRETARY GENERAL: The international community could not muster the resources or the will to come to the aid of the Rwandese people as quickly as we would have.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, MARCH, 1998)

WILLIAM J. CLINTON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We did not act quickly enough after the killing began. We did not immediately call these crimes by their rightful name: genocide.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GLASS: For at least two Rwandan families, apologies are not enough for genocide. They are demanding that the United Nations pay damages for failing in its commitment to protect their loved ones, murdered under U.N. protection.

Louise Mushikiwabo who lives in Washington lost her brother, Londo Andosingwa (ph), the only Tutsi member of the government. An eyewitness said that U.N. soldiers guarding him ran away.

LOUISE MUSHIKIWABO, SISTER OF GENOCIDE VICTIM: We want accountability, how can the world body that was created to precisely avoid this type of situation, acknowledge that they contributed and just do nothing about it, just, you know, apologize? Who is accountable?

Anonciata Kavaruganda was at home in Kigali on the morning government soldiers kidnapped her husband Joseph, the country's chief justice and tortured her and two of their children. She remembers that U.N. troops guarding them merely watched.

ANONCIATA KAVARUGANDA, WIFE OF GENOCIDE VICTIM (through translator): They told my husband when things go bad: call us. My husband called, no one came.

GLASS: That was the first of 100 days of murder that left more than 800,000 men, women and children dead. When the carnage ended, the United Nations came under pressure to explain why its 2,500 peacekeepers did not prevent it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GLASS: Lawyers representing the families say the United Nations made a commitment to protect the two politicians. U.N. documents show that the organization knew the men were specifically targeted for assassination two months before they were killed, but no one told either the Security Council or the two men.

KAGAN: And so, Charles, who do these families hold specifically responsible for the genocide?

GLASS: Well, the United Nations as a whole, but also the Department of Peacekeeping Operations in New York, whose head in 1994 was Kofi Annan.

KAGAN: Charles Glass, thanks for joining us and showing us a bit of your story.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com

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