But the question isn’t, “If you’re Clinton, what should you do about Rwanda?” It’s “If you’re Clinton, what would you do about Rwanda?” It’s not a matter of “We behaved badly in the past therefore we should behave badly in the future”. It’s a matter of “We behaved badly in the past therefore we will behave badly in the future”
:rolleyes: Please. The whole idea of a historical hypothetical like this is “what would you do differently”.
I’d ask Germany and Belgium to step in and fix the mess they prolonged with the ruling party. It was long time civil war in the making that they helped fester for the sake of expediency.
Yes, but I wouldn’t really do anything differently if I were President Clinton. Rwanda is just too logistically and politically difficult for me to intervene in, were I President Clinton. There’s no freaking benefit in it for me, and the American people don’t even know where Rwanda is, let alone care if some Rwandan tribe is killing another Rwandan tribe. Besides, I’ve already got troops committed in Bosnia, and who knows if that peace is going to hold, and I’ve got the Republicans who won’t agree to a budget deal, which is what most Americans do care about; I’ve got the Independent Counsel’s office on my ass, and I’m gearing up for a reelection campaign. I just don’t have the time to worry about Africa right now. Let some other country deal with it if it’s so terrible. Let France or Belgium or whoever worry about it.
Even if they were inclined to do so, do they have the power projection ability? Rwanda doesn’t look very accessible from Europe.
Brilliant solution is inherent in this. If the US successfully prevents a genocide and has a fairly brief “feel-good” intervention, your reelection is assurred and you can campaign on “I saved one million Rwandans” line and use the moral force to strike an advantageous deal with the GOP.
The problem is that genocide is only obvious after the fact. If Clinton had sent in a major military force in 1994, we wouldn’t be saying he stopped a genocide because there wouldn’t have been a genocide. And without the actual genocide, people would argue there hadn’t been any reason to send in a major military force.
Who knows? Maybe Clinton deserves the Nobel Prize for the millions of people who weren’t killed in Yugoslavia during his administration.
By the time Clinton would decide on anything mass murders would have begun (as it began almost immediately after Habiyama’s plane got shot down).
Most of the nations around it couldn’t shoot down a pigeon.
Ever heard of Srebrenica?
While I do realize and never lose sight of the fact that the true evil resides with Serbs for what happened, when I consider international community (namely, EU and US) the case of Srebrenica reminds me of Rwanda in that the intentions were crystal clear, the target unaware of such an extreme possibility and UN was on the ground, not even couple of kilometers away and had great relationship with the killers (as to appear impartial). So, what gives? You don’t want to know the answer and I don’t really like to spell it out.
Whoever looks at these examples should take only one lesson from this - if the situation is such that a call is made upon UN, EU or US it’s too late, you’re already dead.
Also, I do realize how lucky I am to live in Canada especially since I learned how to manage to hold two or more contradictory ideas at the same time (e.g. that you, as a person here, are one thing and you, as a person over there, are nothing).
In Philip Gourevitch’s book he talked about how Albright and Clinton actively encouraged other countries to not be involved, including not even helping the African Union with logistical support. I haven’t really heard this from other sources so not sure how true it is.
I understand that the genocide devolved so rapidly, but the the US should absolutely have intervened. When Obama gave similar reasons (to protect civilians) with Libya I wholeheartedly supported the decision.
I was sat in on a few hearings at the genocide trials in Tanzania in December, and reading on the subject, along with hearing the testimony and judgements completely changed my view of certain international conflicts. I also lost a lot of respect for Clinton and Albright.
I sat behind the wife and children of Idelphonse Hategekimana when they convicted him of genocide. It was creepy…
We knew it was a genocide from the beginning.
We knew what was happening every step of the way. Not only did we not send troops in- we took troops that were on the ground already, and pulled them out. The killings were well organized. During a period of weeks a command structure reaching from the very top down to neighborhood leaders was mobilized. Thousands of machetes were distributed. Public radio explained in clear terms what was going to happen. The victims knew well in advance that they were going to be murdered by their neighbors. After the initial slaughter, genocidaires worked methodically, house by house, murdering those who were left. They kept killing, in an organized and systematic way, for three months. There was no mystery. There was no great misunderstanding. Everyone in the country knew what was happening. Families sat waiting patiently, hearing on the radio as the death squads moved closer and closer to their homes, with nothing left to do but to wait for their neighbors to kill them and their children.
Let’s look at the chronology here. The plane got shot down on April 6th. On April 7th, the deputy to the US Ambassador described the killing as “genocide” and clearly differentiated it from political violence. In the initial days, Dallaire requested 5,000 troops. 3,300 Belgian, French, Italian and American troops- who were on the ground and knew what as going on- were evacuated. At this point 32,000 were dead.
On April 15th, Madeleine Albright, under pressure (from freaking Belgium) agrees to pull out most US troops. By April 16th, the New York Times was reporting. (64,000 dead.)
On April 16th, the Human Right Watch called it “genocide.” (72,000 dead) April 21st, the US and UN Security council votes to pull troops out. By April 27th, Dallaire has only 250 troops and no support. He’s still trying to protect people. (140,000 dead.) On April 27th, everyone from the Pope to Czechoslovakia is calling it genocide. (160,000.)
On April 28th, the State Department dances around when directly asked to use the word genocide (160,000) By May 1st, they had decided not to (200,000) On May 5th White house refuses Dallaire’s request, including a plan to jam radio signals (232,000) By May 13th The UN finally decides to do something, but the US works to scale down their plans (296,000) Subsequent plans to intervene were so bungled by bureaucracy that troops did not arrive until July (something that, oddly, didn’t happen in Libya) (328,000)
May 25th Clinton confirms the US’s decision not to intervene (392,000)
Now the genocidaires were free to complete their task. Knowing that their situation had been thoroughly debated and the world decided to leave them free to finish their work, they continued. House by house, town by town, they systematically killed men, women and children. By June 22nd, 616,000 people were murdered. By July 17th, more than 800,000 had died.
Excuse me while I go throw up.
Nothing. None of our business.
And then what?
It would’ve been interesting to see liberals defending an alternate Clinton occupying an African nation, especially once 2003 hit.
So if you saw a woman getting raped or a man getting murdered would you just shrug and walk away saying “Nothing. None of my business”?
And I’m not a liberal thus I do not have to face a contradiction of this sort.
Making analogies and ethical links between nation states or institutions of said states (which are amoral at best) and individual actions is rarely helpful whether it’s economics or war. But if you insist, the better analogy would be hearing a neighbor getting raped, so then I go in, kill everyone, take their money, set their house on fire, then rape the girl and invite my friends to partake as well. When asked why I did this I’d call it a humanitarian intervention.
Individually, most people don’t help others in violent situations unless they personally know them. Most people aren’t Batman.
The principle of reciprocity is also at work. In the early 20th century would it have been acceptable for a nation or coalition of nations to bomb and occupy the U.S. to prevent our mistreatment of women and minorities? What about during the civil war? 600,000 soldiers dead, who knows how many civilians were burned and starved.
Ignoring all that and just focusing on Rwanda and assuming everyone involved on our side are angels, how are you going to invade and occupy and stop the crazy people without killing as many as were killed in the massacres themselves? Using a machete to cut someone up takes a lot of energy. Imagine going house to house and cutting up other humans all day as they fight back and beg for the lives. That’s some serious, deep seated hatred. And as soon as we show up the resistance will be fierce. We’d still be there sorting the mess out.
States and institutions do have moral duties
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That analogy would only work if I advocated nuking Rwanda or carpet bombing it.
And that is evil.
Everybody was mistreating women and minorities back then.
Nonsense. They killed so fiercely only because the Tutsis were largely defenceless, once there is actual opposition, they will fly and hide like rabbits.
Why do people assume that the presence of US troops would have halted a massacre? Suppose we sent in troops, and took sides in the civil war (as in Somali)-probably a few hundred American soldiers would have been killed-and the massacres would have continued.
Unfortunately, tribal wars have to burn themselves out-no outside intervention will halt them.
It’s a thread about genocide, so I’m not going to hold back on the Nazi comparisons. Was the Nazi genocide against the Jews a “civil war?”
The UN had armed troops and support on the ground at the time. If “a genocide is happening right now in front of our face” is not a time for those troops to act, what exactly is? Heavily armed troops, with the equipment and logistics to, at the very least, establish a safe zone and transport trapped civilians to it (remember, the arms they were up against were largely machetes), were ordered to just sit around watching. It’s as if we had armed troops hanging around a largely unarmed Auschwitz and decided to have them play Monopoly all day in front of the lines to the gas chambers.
It is important to note that even in their ineffectual role, the UN troops played a role in slowing the slaughter. The killing started off relatively slow, and increased with each step the international community took to distance themselves from the genocide. The killing began in earnest when it became clear that nobody was going to stop them. In the first month 160,000 had been killed. By the end of the second month, around 400,000 had been killed. It was when everyone pulled out that the genocidaires were able to kill the most efficiently, with another 400,000 killed by July 17th.
After the genocide, we had little logistical, military or political obstacles keeping us from setting up and protecting refugee camps that largely functioned to keep Hutu refugees safe from reprisal, despite the continued instability and violence. I’m not sure how you can argue that we could effectively provide safety and security to Rwandan people in July, but would have been completely unable to do it in May.
Rwanda was no more a “tribal war” than WWII was. I have no idea when it comes to Africa we throw all understanding of politics aside and resort to “Oh, those black people just can’t stop killing each other over their silly tribal prejudices,” as if black people are somehow motivated by different incentives than the ones that drive politics the world over.
Hutu and Tutsi were political categories, loosely based on a “tribal” affiliation that had more to do with class than anything else. Hutus and Tutsis speak the same language, practice the same religion, live intermixed on the same land, and intermarry fairly freely. The difference is not a tribal difference, but rather something more along the lines of caste. Anyway, this difference was formalized and given political power by the modern state for modern political purposes. Its like the differences between Black, White, Colored and Asian in apartheid South Africa- sure, there is some “tribal” basis, but what makes it really meaningful is the power of the politics behind these categories. Did apartheid South African hate each other from irrational prejudice? Not really. They hated each other because that hate was structured into their political power. And modern politicians used those political categories to the fullest they could be exploited.
Nor were they fighting about random tribal prejudice. The killing was largely about the same “whose political group is going to be in power” conflict that exists in every country, and on the individual level there was a land grab element, as land and food strapped people contemplated how much easier life would be in Africa’s densest country if their neighbors weren’t there. Many, many Hutus were included in the slaughter- sometimes with some weak justification of suspecting them to be “sympathizers,” but often with no real reason at all rather then bumping off the guy on the farm next to you would give you a bit a more space.
FWIW, I don’t think any western power involved has stuck to their resolve and said “You know, goddammit, we made the right choice in Rwanda.” Everyone, almost universally, agrees that they did the wrong thing. I’m surprised how many people feel free to look back and conclude it was the right thing to do, when I don’t think any of the people actually involved and who actually made those choices would agree.
Except unlike Somalia the Interhamwe were basically machete wielding nobodies who would get mowed down like rabbits in an actual battle.
Actually, the combatants in Somalia did get mowed down at a fairly outrageous rate —to the American fourteen killed, there were somewhere up to three thousand Somali casualties. No, seriously. The number of UN/Western/whatever soldiers killed if they engaged in outright combat to protect civilians would probably have been substantial.
That said, it would have been worthwhile. Sovereignty matters, but stopping mass murder clearly matters much more. It’s also worth remembering that the world’s best chance to stop the genocide came before it had begun, when raiding weapons caches and shutting down the whole system of genocide might have worked — as Dallaire proposed, in fact. Canada, the United States, and the UN, among others, had more than enough intel that they knew perfectly well what was going on.
It’s also worth remembering how enough the remorse over Rwanda has been. It quite probably played a role in the amount of intervention in the Balkans, and it might conceivably have influenced intervention in Libya. Rwanda seems to have taught a lesson that really shouldn’t need teaching: if there’s about to be a genocide, and you don’t stop it, there will be a genocide. Shocking, right?