by Kristen Landreville

Michel Masozera escaped the 1994 Rwandan genocide, which killed 500,000 to 1 million fellow Rwandans – he was in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a nation that borders Rwanda to the east.

Masozera, an ethnic minority Tutsi, expressed dismay at the international community that failed to prevent the genocide, which targeted Tutsi and politically moderate, ethnic majority Hutu.

“The international community wasn’t helpful at all,” said Masozera, a University of Florida graduate who was 26 during the genocide. “Before the genocide, the so-called international community knew that the genocide was under preparation.”

Before and during the genocide, the United Nations actually had 2,500 peacekeeping troops in Rwanda monitoring the transitional government under a peace agreement between the extremist Hutu dictatorship and a group of exiled Tutsi, according to an International Media Support report. IMS promotes and strengthens press freedom and professional journalism in conflicted areas

However, once the genocide began, the U.N. Security Council lacked political will to strengthen the U.N. mandate.

“U.N. soldiers were here and left when the killings were happening,” Masozera said.

The U.N. commander of the mission, Canadian Lt. Gen. Romeo Dallaire, even faxed a report on Jan. 11, 1994 that warned of the risk of genocide. Dallaire said in the fax that an informant was instructed to register all Tutsi in the Rwandan capital in preparation for genocide.

Kofi Annan, who was the head of U.N. peacekeeping operations in 1994, received the message.

But he did not share the grave prediction with the U.N. Security Council, according to an Associated Press article covering an independent commission's report of the U.N.'s failures in Rwanda.

The genocide did not end until the Rwandan Patriotic Front, a group of exiled Tutsi, invaded the Rwandan capital in July 1994, according to the IMS report.

Five years later, U.N. Secretary General Annan issued a statement admitting the United Nations failed to prevent and stop the genocide, which had "no other reason than that they (minority Tutsi) belonged to a particular ethnic group."

Masozera cited recent genocides in Kosovo, Sierra Leone and Liberia as reason to believe the world does not learn from history.

“After the Holocaust, the world said ‘never again,’” Masozera said. “But still the world community is unable to prevent genocides around the world.”