Letter to The Guardian 6th April 2006.

John Reid asks why nearly 60 years after the Geneva convention is it so difficult to respond to disasters. He cites Rwanda, where in 1994 a UN force was already trying to avert a humanitarian disaster. Yet the UN security council failed to agree that genocide was occurring and declined to send extra forces that might have ended it. However, in the same year the security council did agree to a forcible intervention in Haiti by US forces which successfully reinstated the deposed President Aristide. This was the first intervention of its kind.

Later attempts to intervene by members of the international community did not get UN approval because, instead of "the responsibility to protect", it appeared to many that this could be used as a cloak for aggressive intervention. Thus the UN security council was unable to obtain a majority to support a resolution on military intervention in Kosovo in 1999, or in Iraq in 2003.

These two cases show the problems thrown up by the creditable decision by last year's general assembly to support intervention in appropriate cases. It is significant that Mr Reid did not cite Iraq as a suitable case for such intervention.
Jim Addington
Chair, Action for UN Renewal