Lying About
Rwanda's Genocide
·
As a fellow who wrote a book
contending that the current president is a serial prevaricator, I often am
asked by conservative critics: So did you ever call Bill Clinton a liar? My reply: Yes; I am a
nonpartisan accuser. But I'm not talking about the obvious lies. Back in those
days, I did say that Clinton's lies about his affair with intern Monica
Lewinsky were wrong and serious--but not worth impeachment. (And now they seem
puny when compared with the assortment of untrue statements George W. Bush
deployed to grease the way to war.) But what was more outrageous was a lie
Clinton told about one of the greatest failures of his presidency: his inaction
regarding the Rwanda genocide of 1994.
Why revisit this today? Two
reasons. First, this month marks the tenth anniversary of the start of that
horrific event, in which half a million people, mainly of the Tutsi minority,
were slaughtered over three months by Hutu extremists, in one of the most
time-efficient massacres of the 20th Century. Second, the National Security
Archive, an independent, nongovernmental research institute that collects and
analyzes government records, recently released a report that provides more
evidence for the case that Clinton lied to the people of Rwanda.
That lie came four years
after the genocide. During a 1998 presidential tour of Africa, Clinton stopped
at the airport in Kigali, Rwanda, and issued an apology. Sort of. Speaking of
those nightmarish months in the spring of 1994, he said, "All over the
world there were people like me sitting in offices who did not fully appreciate
the depth and speed with which you were being engulfed by this unimaginable
terror." He acknowledged that the United States and the international
community had not moved quickly enough in response to the horrors under way. To
emphasize his sorrow, he said, "Never again."
Clinton seemed to be taking
responsibility, but actually he was making an excuse. He had inadequately
reacted to the genocide, he said, because he had not really known what had been
happening in Rwanda. That was a disingenuous cop-out.
The National Security Archive
report, based on documents the group obtained, notes:
"Throughout the crisis,
considerable U.S. resources--diplomatic, intelligence and military--and sizable
bureaucracies of the U.S. government were trained on Rwanda. This system
collected and analyzed information and sent it up to decision-makers so that
all options could be properly considered and 'on the table.' Officials,
particularly at the middle levels, sometimes met twice daily, drafting
demarches, preparing press statements, meeting or speaking with foreign
counterparts and other interlocutors, and briefing higher-ups. Indeed, the
story of Rwanda for the U.S. is that officials knew so much, but still decided
against taking action or leading other nations to prevent or stop the genocide.
Despite Rwanda's low ranking in importance to U.S. interests, Clinton
administration officials had tremendous capacity to be informed--and were
informed--about the slaughter there."
The report, written by
William Ferroggiaro, documents the pre-genocide warnings and concurrent reports
of the massacre that Clinton's administration received. The National Security
Archive, under the Freedom of Information Act, requested copies of the
Presidential Daily Briefs for this period. The PDB is a highly classified
document written for the president. (The current Bush administration refused to
let the House and Senate intelligence committees even look at an August 6,
2001, PDB that mentioned Osama bin Laden and hijacking when the committees were
conducting their 9/11 investigation.) These PDBs would show precisely what
Clinton read each day about Rwanda. But the Archive's request for the PDBs was
denied. It did, however, obtain copies of the National Intelligence Daily,
which is also classified but has a wider circulation. NIDs are distributed to
several hundred government policymakers six days a week. It is a fair
assumption that they often reflect what is contained in the PDBs. And the NIDs
gathered by the Archive indicate that the administration was aware a genocide
was occurring in Rwanda. An April 23 NID referred to a negotiation "effort
to stop the genocide, which relief workers say is spreading south." The
April 26 NID item on Rwanda, entitled "Humanitarian Disaster
Unfolding," reported that the "Red Cross estimates that 100,000 to
500,000 people, mostly Tutsi, have been killed in the ethnic bloodletting"
and that "eyewitness accounts from areas where nearly all Tutsi residents
were killed support the higher estimate."
But Clinton did not have to
depend on the top-secret PDBs or NIDs to learn that there was a genocide
transpiring in Rwanda. As the Archive notes, "beginning April 8th, the
massacres in Rwanda were reported on the front pages of major newspapers and on
radio and television broadcasts almost daily, including the major papers read
by U.S. officials and policy elites." And at that time human rights
activists in Washington--who had close relationships with national security
adviser Tony Lake and staffmembers of Clinton's national security council--were
pounding on the doors of the White House demanding action and suggesting
options. The United States could have provided logistical support to the small
U.N. peacekeeping force in the region. It could have deployed jamming devices
to block the radio transmissions of the Hutu leaders coordinating the
slaughter. It could have pressured France and Belgium to use their influence
with the Hutus. It could have merely spoken out.
In the first weeks of this
tragedy, human rights advocates urged Clinton to issue a clear and forceful
declaration that a genocide was happening and that the killers could expect to
be tracked down and tried for crimes against humanity. But the Clinton
administration dithered for weeks over whether to use the G-word, for doing so
would have compelled the administration, under international law, to take
direct steps to stop the killings. But after the disaster in Somalia, Clinton
had no stomach for becoming involved in another messy conflict in Africa. In
public, he had more to say about the caning of a young American in Singapore
than the murders of hundreds of thousands in Rwanda.
As the National Security
Archive report points out, Clinton was being pressed by prominent individuals
to take action. On April 21, Rwandan human rights activist Monique
Mujawamariya, whom Clinton had welcomed to the White House five months earlier,
implored him to act against the "campaign" of "genocide against
the Tutsis." She argued that the United States had "a moral and legal
treaty obligation to 'suppress and prevent' genocide." Members of Congress
lobbied Clinton as well. On May 13, Senators Paul Simon and James Jeffords sent
a letter to Clinton criticizing his lack of "leadership" and
declaring "swift and sound decision-making is needed." They urged
Clinton to impose sanctions, establish an arms embargo, and boost the U.N.
forces in Rwanda and allow them to intervene more directly. "An end to the
slaughter is not possible without this action," they wrote.
The National Security Archive
report notes, "Although stated policy was that Rwanda did not affect
traditional vital or national interests before or even during the genocide,
considerable resources were nevertheless available and employed to ensure that
policymakers had real-time information for any decision they would make. In
sum, the routine--let alone crisis--performance of diplomats, intelligence
officers and systems, and military and defense personnel yielded enough
information for policy recommendations and decisions. That the Clinton
administration decided against intervention at any level was not for lack of
knowledge of what was happening in Rwanda."
Four years after the
killings, Clinton told the Rwandans (and the world) that he had not tried to
stop the genocide because he had not known what was truly occurring. Ignorance
was not the reason. It had been a political decision. Clinton was fibbing to
the survivors of genocide. And this deceptive remark sparked practically no
outrage. Today, ten years after the Rwanda massacre, the inaction of the United
States and the world community should not be forgotten, nor should Clinton's
untruthful excuse.
*********
DON'T FORGET ABOUT DAVID
CORN'S BOOK, The Lies of George W. Bush:
Mastering the Politics of Deception (Crown Publishers). A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!
The Library Journal says, "Corn chronicles to devastating effect the lies,
falsehoods, and misrepresentations....Corn has painstakingly unearthed a bill
of particulars against the president that is as damaging as it is
thorough." For more information and a sample, check out the book's
official website: www.bushlies.co
http://www.thenation.com/blog/156079/lying-about-rwandas-genocide#
Rwanda Genocide:
Honoring the Dead Without Honoring the Lies
On
April 7 the United Nations began its annual commemoration of the anniversary of what we know as the
1994 Rwanda Genocide, when as many as one million Rwandans were slaughtered in
100 days.
The
ceremonies raise several questions for all those who contest the received
history of the Rwanda Genocide: How to honor Rwanda’s dead without honoring the
lies?
And,
how to honor six million more Congolese dead, but not commemorated, in the
ongoing aftermath of the Rwanda Genocide when Rwanda’s war crossed its western
border into neighboring D.R. Congo?
Though both tell the received
history of the Rwanda Genocide; the BBC and Wikipedia mark
its outset not on April 7th, as the UK, UN, and Rwandan officialdom do, but on
April 6th, when, in 1994, the assassination of Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundi President Cyprien Ntaryamiratriggered the ensuing panic and
violence that grew into the horror of the next 100 days and beyond. The two presidents
were flying home from a conference between east and central African leaders in
Tanzania, held to discuss ways to end violence between ethnic Hutus and Tutsis
from Burundi and Rwanda, when their plane was shot out of the sky over Rwanda’s
capital, Kigali.
How Rwanda Judged Its Genocide - Africa
Research Institute
Since 2001, the gacaca community courts have been the
centrepiece of Rwanda’s justice and reconciliation process.
Nearly every adult Rwandan has participated in the trials,
but
lawyers are banned from any official involvement. Human
rights organisations fiercely opposed the use of gacaca for
trying genocide cases, on the grounds that it fell short of
international legal standards of fairness. Much criticism
reflects legal rigidity towards the unprecedented challenges
confronting post-genocide Rwanda – and a limited
understanding of the aims of the community courts. Gacaca
was inevitably imperfect, but also highly ambitious and
innovative. While the full impact of the process will not be
apparent for many years, gacaca has delivered benefits to
Rwandans in the spheres of justice, truth and democratic
participation. Other societies confronting the aftermath of
mass conflict could learn much from Rwanda’s approach to
local justice.
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