Summary of the Article Bystanders to Genocide PDF

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Bystanders to Genocide SAMANTHA POWER SUMMARY

In the course of a hundred days in 1994 the Hutu government of Rwanda and its extremist allies murdered some 800,000 Tutsi and politically moderate Hutu.

Why did the United States not do more for the Rwandans at the time of the killings? Traditionally, there have been three explanations: that the US did not know what was happening, that the US knew what was happening but didn’t care or that regardless of what the US knew there was nothing to be done. According to Samantha Power, the author of the article, the U.S. government knew enough about the genocide early on to save lives, but passed up countless opportunities to intervene. In Power’s opinion, Clinton and his government had to ignore public reports and internal intelligence and debate in order not to appreciate that genocide or something close to it was under way.

The UN Mission sent to Rwanda to help implement the Arusha Accords between Hutus and Tutsis was shaped by only 2’500 troops. The mission had very low priority for the UN and lacked medicines, ammunition and vehicles. Few of the soldiers had the kid they needed to perform their tasks.

The crisis erupted after the plane of the Rwandan President, a Hutu called Habyarimana , was abated. This was used as a pretext for starting a genocide against the Tutsis. In the following hour, Uwilingiyimana, a moderate who had become the new President of Rwanda after the death of Habyarimana, was also killed.

The non-intervention of the US has to be understood in the aftermath of the peacekeeping operation in Somalia, which went totally wrong and ended with the corpse of an American soldier being dragged on the streets of Mogadishu while the images being shown on TV. The US suffered from three weaknesses when reacting in front of the Rwandan Genocide: ●

some diplomats had repeatedly threatened to pull out UN peacekeepers in retaliation for the parties' failure to implement the Arusha peace treaty. This was precisely what radical Hutus wanted in order to carry out their killings freely

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the US trusted too much Rwandan officials, several of whom were plotting genocide behind the scenes. The US were too optimistic

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those who knew well the situation in Rwanda were too much used to these kind of violent outbursts to consider the Rwandan Genocide to come as something different, at least at first

The war between Hutus and Tutsis that had been stopped by the Arusha Accord restarted. At that time there were people dying because of war, politically motivated murder (moderate Hutus) and genocide.

According to Samantha Power, the US would have done better if they had sent troops on the ground or if it had agreed to Belgian pleas for UN reinforcements. The American direct action could have taken place under the framework of the UN or with the approval of the Security Council. Clinton could have received the backing of the Republican Senate. Moreover, the US could have used their technology so as to jam the radio transmissions between the killers of the Tutsis or stop the emission of hate messages. The US were very reluctant throughout the crisis to use the term genocide when talking about Rwanda because it had implied an obligation to intervene....