THE Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs, Ms Joan Burton, has welcomed a new report which is highly critical of the international community's failure to prevent the genocide in Rwanda in 1994.
The Government will study the report closely, she said, "with a view to drawing lessons for Irish and international responses to political and humanitarian emergencies".
The report says a lack of political will and a reluctance by UN members to act on warning signs allowed the Rwandan genocide to happen, and may fail to halt a new crisis in Burundi.
Despite signs that genocide was about to take place in Rwanda, "the states, international organisations and other parties ... ignored, discounted or misinterpreted these signs, indicating an inability or unwillingness to intervene".
The report, The International Response to Conflict and Genocide: Lessons from the Rwanda Experience, is the first multinational evaluation of the causes of and international response to any complex, humanitarian emergency.
Some 19 donor agencies contributed expertise or funds to the report.