A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide by Samantha Power

Author:Samantha Power [Power, Samantha]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: International Security, International Relations, Social Science, Holocaust, Violence in Society, 20th Century, Political Freedom & Security, General, United States, Genocide, Political Science, History
ISBN: 9780061120145
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Published: 2007-01-01T17:00:00+00:00

Rwandan bodies floating down the Kagera River.

Chapter 10

Rwanda: "Mostly in

a Listening Mode"

"I'll Never Be Tutsi Again"

On the evening of April 6, 1994, two years to the day after the beginning of the Bosnian war, Major General Romeo Dallaire was sitting on the couch in his bungalow residence in Kigali, Rwanda, watching CNN with his assistant, Brent Beardsley. Beardsley was preparing plans for a national sports day that would match Tutsi rebel soldiers against Hutu government soldiers in a soccer game. Dallaire, the commander of the UN mission, said, "You know, Brent, if the shit ever hit the fan here, none of this stuff would really matter, would it?"The next instant the phone rang. Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana's Mystere Falcon jet, a gift from French president Francois Mitterrand, had just been shot down, with Habyarimana and Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira aboard. When Dallaire replaced the receiver, the phone rang again instantly. Indeed, the UN phones rang continually that night and the following day, averaging 100 phone calls per hour. Countless politicians, UN local staff, and ordinary Rwandans were calling out for help. The Canadian pair hopped in their UN jeep and dashed to Rwandan army headquarters, where a crisis meeting was under way. They never returned to their residence.

When Dallaire arrived at the Rwandan army barracks, he found Colonel Theoneste Bagosora, the army staff director, a hard-line Hutu, seated at the head of a U-shaped table. Appearing firmly in command, Bagosora announced that the president's death meant the government had collapsed and the army needed to take charge. Dallaire interjected, arguing that in effect the king had died, but the government lived on. He reminded the officers assembled that Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana, a leading moderate, had become the lawful head of state. Many of the stonefaced officers gathered around the table began to snicker at the prospect.

Back in Washington, Kevin Alston, the Rwanda desk officer at the State Department, knocked on the door of Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Prudence Bushnell and told her that the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi had been killed in a plane crash. "Oh, shit," she said. "Are you sure?" In fact nobody was sure at first, but Dallaire's forces supplied confirmation within the hour. The Rwandan authorities quickly announced a curfew, and Hutu militias and government soldiers erected roadblocks around the capital. Radio Mille Collines, the Hutu extremist radio station, named ethnic Tutsi, those they called Inyenzi, or "cockroaches," the targets.

Bushnell drafted an urgent memo to Secretary of State Warren Christopher. She was concerned about a probable outbreak of killing in both Rwanda and its neighbor Burundi. The memo read: "If, as it appears, both Presidents have been killed, there is a strong likelihood that widespread violence could break out in either or both countries, particularly if it is confirmed that the plane was shot down. Our strategy is to appeal for calm in both countries, both through public statements and in other ways."A few public statements proved to be virtually the only strategy that Washington would muster in the weeks ahead.

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