In remarks commemorating the genocide in Rwanda 30 years ago, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock on Thursday called for increased vigilance in the face of crises worldwide.
Baerbock decried the international community's failure to act or prevent the killings in Rwanda while addressing the German parliament.
"It is important to react earlier if there are signs of escalating violence," Baerbock said.
The world cannot look away when there are warning signs, but must remain vigilant "all over the world, especially in the region with regard to the increasing escalation of violence in eastern Congo," Baerbock said.
She said that the lesson from Rwanda for her was "that we bear responsibility for our actions as well as for our inaction."
She argued that Germany had learned from the mistakes of the past and was now investing much more in crisis prevention and early detection than it had at the time.
"We provide proactive humanitarian aid to prevent worse suffering," she said. "It is also in our own interest to work for a world which strengthens the rule of law rather than the rule of the strong."
According to Baerbock, a second lesson from Rwanda is not allowing perpetrators to go unpunished: "If the victims and their descendants have the certainty that the perpetrators will not go unpunished, they will be able to forgive at some point."
On April 7, 1994 Hutu militias began killing the Tutsi ethnic minority after a months-long government-led hate campaign.
Within just 100 days, at least 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were murdered in the small East African country, with the victims often dismembered with machetes or burned alive.
Today, the genocide in Rwanda is also seen as a failure of the international community, which reacted late and hesitantly.