Rwanda, 1994. Mortars and artillery fire swoop down on children, women and men of the Tutsi ethnics. UN blue helmets are posted not far away, with the purpose of protecting the civil population. But the Security Council doesn't give the green light to intervene. Meanwhile, the head of peace-keeping operations at the UN remains silent and, reportedly, even refrains from passing on warnings about the impending genocide in Rwanda. Outcome: 800,000 Tutsis killed.
Srebrenica, 1995. The troops of General Radko Mladic start their 'ethnic cleansing' in this Muslim enclave declared 'safe area' by the United Nations and placed under the protection of 400 blue helmets. But the Security Council doesn't give the green light to stop the slaughtering. And once again, the head of peace-keeping operations at the UN doesn't say a word. Outcome: from eight to eleven thousand Bosnian Muslims tortured and killed.
The head of peace-keeping operations at the UN happened to be Kofi Annan, who subsequently was appointed Secretary General of that institution, and now has been pulled out from his retirement to negotiate a political settlement of the Syrian crisis.
The decision to choose Mr. Annan to lead the negotiations with the Syrian regime can be called into question in the light of the manner in which he fulfilled his mandate during the two aforementioned massacres. For both in Rwanda and in Srebrenica, Mr. Annan was expected either to prevent the carnage, or else to openly put on notice the international community that he had not been given the means of fulfilling his mission. He actually did neither.
Let us admit, however, that Mr. Annan may have learned from his past failures as head of UN peace-keeping operations and would henceforth behave in a more responsive and assertive manner. Some of his statements after the two aforementioned tragedies lend support to that assumption. Indeed, in 1999, being already UN Secretary-General, he apologizes for the UN inertia in Rwanda and Srebrenica and subsequently declares: 'The cardinal lesson from Srebrenica is that a deliberate and systematic attempt to terrorize, expel or murder an entire people must be met decisively with all necessary means.'
The occasion soon arrived for Mr. Annan to put in practice his newly found assertiveness: in November 2000, China's central government dispatched troops to Tibet to repress street demonstrations. The troops fired live bullets against the civilian population.
What was Mr. Annan's reaction? Well, answering to a journalist, he declared: 'The question raised is not in the UN agenda.'
It's true that Kofi Annan was approaching the end of his first tenure as UN Secretary General and had his eyes riveted on his reelection. He was thus eager to avoid a Chinese veto against his candidature.
Mr. Annan's baggage helps to understand the manner he handled his recent Syria mission.
The first thing he did, upon arrival at Damascus, was to declare that 'further militarization [of the conflict] would make things worse.'
All too naturally, that statement triggered off the anger of the Syrian opposition, whose members and supporters are being brutally murdered by a regime that lavishly utilizes all military means at its disposal to annihilate the rebellion.
That assertion, in fact, was not a masterpiece of diplomatic shrewdness. Why refrain from brandishing the possibility of military action as a means of putting pressure on a regime that has proven to understand only the language of force?
It would have been more appropriate to state that a diplomatic solution undoubtedly is preferable to the military option and should thus be given a chance, but without precluding the possibility – as Mr. Annan did – of eventually resorting to more forceful means should negotiations fail.
Not less importantly, that assertion was in contradiction with the lesson that Mr. Annan himself claims to have drawn from Srebrenica. Indeed, one cannot declare in 1999 that an 'attempt to terrorize, expel or murder an entire people must be met decisively with all necessary means,' and then, in 2012, rule out the use of force to stop a regime from continuing to kill and torture civilians.
Before leaving Damascus, Mr. Annan made another bizarre statement: he said that he was 'optimistic' as regards the chances of success of his mission, adding a few days later that the response of the Syrian regime to his proposals was 'thus far' disappointing.
Had his aim been to secure an extension of his mandate – even at the price of creating false hopes – he would not have acted differently.
There remains only one brushstroke missing in the picture for it to be complete, namely: that a coalition of the willing decides to circumvent the Russian and Chinese veto and comes militarily to the rescue of the Syrian people without the imprimatur of the Security Council. Mr. Annan would have then the leisure to denounce that operation as 'illegal' – as he had qualified the dislodging of Saddam Hussein.