New York - The UN Security Council yesterday backed Secretary-General Kofi Annan's proposal for an inquiry into how the UN reacted before and after the slaughter of 800,000 people in Rwanda in 1994.
Council President Qin Huasun of China, in a letter to the secretary-general, said: "Members of the council support your proposed course of action in this unique circumstance."
An estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were butchered between April and June 1994. The killings began the day after a plane carrying the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi was shot out of the sky on April 6th by a missile as it prepared to land in Kigali, the Rwandan capital.