Stockholm, Jan 26: UN Secretary General Kofi Annan today said the world had the capability but "lacked the will" to prevent the mass slaughters of the 1990s, in opening remarks here to the first international genocide conference in over 50 years. "There can be no more important issue, and no more binding obligation, than the prevention of genocide," Annan told 10 heads of state and officials of dozens of nations gathered for the three-day conference hosted by Sweden. The UN chief honed in on "especially shameful" cases of the international community's inaction, including ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia and the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. "The events of the 1990s, in the former Yugoslavia and in Rwanda, are especially shameful. The international community clearly had the capacity to prevent these events. But it lacked the will," Annan said.
He said those memories "especially painful" for the United Nations.
"In Rwanda in 1994, and at Srebrenica in 1995, we had peacekeeping troops on the ground at the very place and time where genocidal acts were being committed," he said. "Instead of reinforcing our troops, we withdrew them."

Bureau Report