30 years after the rwandan genocide: the experience of uruguayan peacekeepers
Keywords:
Rwanda, Genocide, UNAMIR, Uruguay, United Nations peacekeeping operationsAbstract
The objective of this article is to recover the military experience of nine Uruguayan peacekeepers during the Rwandan genocide of 1994. We present historical aspects of the conflict and the biographical experience of the Uruguayan military in the United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR), aiming to provide a first-person perspective to one of the bloodiest events in history. In 2023, we interviewed nine military observers who were sent to Rwanda at the end of 1993, eight of them who were present in the country when the genocide broke out and decided to remain there until the end of the mission (one of them, Gral. Fígoli finished his mission in February of 1994). In addition to providing an unusual perspective of the genocide, such as that of the Uruguayan “blue helmet”, the participant’s testimonies allow us to understand more in depth the negative judgment that has been made of the UNAMIR mission at the international level.
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