Lessons from Rwanda

That the CCR call on the Government of Canada to endorse and promote these conclusions:

1. The international community should endorse the recommendation of the Secretary General to deploy a U.N. peacekeeping force in the Kivu region of Zaire for the purpose of providing security to the relief effort for Rwandan refugees in Zaire.
2. In the delivery of aid, local aid delivery agencies should be involved as much as possible, and local resources used as much as possible.
3. The United Human Rights Commission must have the capacity to investigate on its own initiative the human rights situation in any country in the world and to report its findings to the Secretary General of the United Nations, the Security Council and the public.
4. The UN Human Rights Centre should deploy human rights monitors throughout Rwanda to report on human rights violations if they occur, and as a means of establishing confidence for repatriation, where they do not occur.
5. The international community should promote democracy and respect for human rights throughout the world, without distinctions based on culture or region.
6. The United Nations needs a permanent deployment headquarters which can function immediately to bring together and service a peacekeeping force whenever the United Nations Security Council decides to create one.
7. The United Nations should ask member states to allocate peacekeeping forces to the U.N. on a contingency basis. The contingently allocated forces should be in a state of readiness to be called on immediately whenever the Security Council decides to create a new peacekeeping force.
8. United Nations peacekeeping forces on the ground should be mandated and instructed, as a humanitarian duty, to intervene and use force if necessary to protect innocent civilians under attack in the areas where the forces are operating.
9. The international community should contribute to the establishment within Rwanda of a functioning social service system, civil administration, police network, and judiciary. It is urgent that a system of justice be established in Rwanda so that all perpetrators of past atrocities can be brought to justice.
10. The international tribunal on crimes in Rwanda should be made functional on an urgent basis.
11. Canada and other members of the international community must contribute to the bringing to justice of Rwandan criminals against humanity, wherever they may be found, by prosecuting them where they are found, extraditing them for trial in Rwanda or extraditing them for trial by the international tribunal on Rwanda.