United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan arrived here Friday after a two-day visit to Rwanda that became one of the most humbling of his long diplomatic career.
Annan was given a public dressing down by Rwanda’s foreign minister, roasted by members of the national assembly, boycotted by the country’s rulers and snubbed by survivors of a 1994 genocide he has said he tried in vain to prevent.
Rwanda was the fifth country on Annan’s eight-nation Africa tour.
The reason for the frosty reception there centers around the perception in Rwanda that, as head of the UN department charged with international peacekeeping in 1994, Annan did little to prevent the massacre of more than 500,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus by Hutu extremists.
All but 250 members of a UN peacekeeping force were withdrawn after the slaughter began April 6, 1994.
