Genocide Similarities in Iraq to Rwanda of the 1990's

Pope Francis encouraged all the competent organs of the United Nations, “in particular those responsible for security, peace, humanitarian law and assistance to refugees, to continue their efforts in accordance with the Preamble and relevant Articles of the United Nations Charter."

Archbishop Tomasi said in the various articles making up the Charter, it is foreseen “that there might be occasions in the life and in the relations between states when dialogue, negotiations, fail and large numbers of people find themselves at risk: at risk of genocide, at risk of having their fundamental, their basic human rights violated. 

“In this case, when every other means has been attempted, article 42 of the Charter of the United Nations becomes possible justification for not only imposing sanctions of economic nature on the state or the group or the region that violates the basic human rights of people, but also to use force,” he said. “All the force that is necessary to stop this evil and this tragedy.”

Archbishop Tomasi concluded by saying the situation in northern Iraq is similar to when Tutsi and Hutu in Rwanda were killing each other in the 1990s. “There were meetings, political declarations, but very little action,” he said. “And then, every year when we commemorate the almost one million people killed in that genocide, we make a kind of ‘mea culpa’  saying we have not done anything effective to prevent the killing of those innocent people. 

“God forbid that this may also be the same situation today in northern Iraq,” he said.