I am afraid that I do share that concern. I regret to say that, but I do not think that we have learned the lessons. There are serious situations around the world that we are almost turning a blind eye to. I remember hearing at first hand from friends of mine who had gone to work in the refugee camps on the Tanzanian border, when the refugees were flooding over at a rate of thousands or even tens of thousands a day, about the bodies from the genocide floating down the River Ngara. In spite of the evidence in front of our eyes, the world did not call it a genocide at that point and no action was taken.
That leads me to my second point. We can ignore intelligence, but if we ignore what is in front of our own eyes, what hope is there? We have to act much more quickly than we do.
Thirdly, we had the resources. Expatriates were evacuated by well-armed western forces before the very people with whom they worked were slaughtered a few hours or a day or two later. There was the ability to do something, but we simply did not do it. That must never, ever happen again. The first responsibility of our armed forces is to protect this nation, but our responsibility as part of the international community goes wider than that. We must not be afraid to commit our forces to such action to protect people around the world if it is necessary.
Such action is more necessary than ever because of the increase in extremism around the world, whether in religion, politics or nationalism, which leaves minorities everywhere at greater risk. That is true even in democracies, because a democracy is the rule of the majority, unless minorities have the protection of the law—domestic law, ideally, but international law if domestic law is failing.
As we remember what happened 20 years ago, let us not be complacent in any way. Wherever there is conflict or the potential for conflict, there must be no let-up in the efforts to bring peace. We saw the tremendous fruits of that in South Africa, where the international community was engaged, and the devastating consequences in Rwanda when it was not.
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