Genocide In Rwanda 

     This article is from The Journal of African Conflicts and Peace Studies. This article outlines and explains how leaders ignored early warning signs of the Rwandan genocide. The article explains that it was communicated to the leaders that genocide at that present time was being committed. The leaders at the time ignored the signs and communications because it was easier to perceive what was going on as a “civil war.” Early reinforcement of the U.N. Assistance Mission in Rwanda could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives, but "group-think" precluded consideration of direct military intervention by the US and allied forces, though they were near Rwanda and rescued their own nationals.

           

     Some U.S. diplomats in Kigali began calling the killings genocide on the first day and directly communicated their views to the U.S. State Department in Washington, DC. Other reports from the U.S. Ambassador to Rwanda and the C.I.A. contradicted the reports from the U.S. diplomats. The surfeit of information served to cloud rather than clarify the situation. Leaders in the U.S. were getting conflicting reports and appeared to follow those reports that fitted the choice of the leaders in command.  In 1993, President Clinton had ordered U.S. forces withdrawn from Somalia after General Aideed's militia killed eighteen U.S. Army Rangers.

           

     General Dallaire, the commander on the ground who knew the situation best, was and still is, convinced that a robust UNAMIR mandate, plus reinforcements, demonstrating the international political will to stop further genocide, could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

Failure of political will, the U.S., the U.K., the U.N. Secretariat and the U.N. Security Council refused to act to prevent or stop the genocide. At least 500,000 and probably 800,000

people perished.