Jacques-Roger Booh-Booh (born February 5, 1938) is a Cameroonian politician and diplomat. He was the Minister of External Relations of Cameroon from 1988 to 1992 and the head of United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR).
Early life and career
Booh-Booh was born in Manak, Cameroon. Working at the Ministry of External Relations, he was Head of the Department of African Affairs, Director for Asia and Africa, Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations, and Ambassador to Morocco, Greece and UNESCO. He was Cameroon's Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1981 to 1983 and its Ambassador to France from 1983 until he was named Minister of External Relations on May 16, 1988. He also wrote a book, published in Paris in 1982, called The Decolonization of Namibia: a Usurped Mandate.
The United Nations, restrained by the political interests of the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and reluctance of the international community, remained passive before and throughout the predicted genocide of some 800,000 (some sources estimate one million) people that took place from April to July 1994, finally ending around the time the predominantly Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front took the nation's capital, Kigali, on July 18, 1994. As the genocide was occurring, the UNAMIR peace-keeping force was reduced from over 2,500 to a mere 270 soldiers.
Booh-Booh was replaced as Special Representative on 1 July 1994 by Shahryar Khan of Pakistan.
In a colloquium held in the French Senate on April 4, 2002, Booh-Booh stated that claiming a genocide had occurred in Rwanda was "closer to the politics of surrealism than to the truth".