UNITED NATIONS—The UN General Assembly elected Rwanda, Argentina and Australia to the 15-national Security Council on Thursday for 2013 and 2014.
Rwanda and Argentina were unopposed in their bids for the Africa seat and the Latin American and Caribbean seat, but needed to win a two-thirds majority of the 193-member General Assembly.
Rwanda won 148 votes and Argentina won 182 votes.
The last time Rwanda was on the council was in 1994-95. That coincided with the 1994 genocide in which 800,000 people were killed when the Hutu-led government and ethnic militias went on a 100-day killing spree, killing Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
Australia beat out Finland and Luxembourg for the first of two seats available in the "Western European and Others" group with 140 votes.
Another round of voting is taking place to decide who wins the second seat. Cambodia, Bhutan and South Korea are also competing for one available Asia-Pacific seat.
The countries leaving the council in December are Colombia, Germany, India, South Africa and Portugal. The five current council members remaining until the end of 2013 are Azerbaijan, Guatemala, Pakistan, Togo and Morocco.
