It was sent to U.N. headquarters in New York by Major General Roméo Dallaire, U.N. force commander in Rwanda. Dallaire urgently requested protection for an informant who outlined to him Hutu plans being made to exterminate Tutsis; to provoke and kill Belgian troops so as to guarantee Belgium's withdraw from Rwanda; and the location of interahamwe arm caches. Everything Dallaire's informant told him came true three months later.

General Dallaire received a reply the same day. It came from the desk of Kofi Annan, then head of U.N. peacekeeping. Dallaire was told the U.N. didn't agree with his plan to raid the arm caches and furthermore, he must inform the president of Rwanda what he had learned from the informant, even though it was the president's own inner circle that was planning the slaughter of Tutsis.

An excerpt from Philip Gourevitch's book, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families detailing how the famous January 11th cable to the U.N. was ignored and how individual Rwandans sensed the calamity that was coming.