AmerCon : Genocide

In August of 2001, the National Security Archive published on the World Wide Web sixteen declassified
US government documents detailing how US policymakers chose to be “bystanders” during the genocide
that decimated Rwanda in 1994. The documents include those cited in the investigative account,
“Bystanders to Genocide: Why the United States Let the Rwandan Tragedy Happen”, by Samantha
Power, in the September 2001 issue of The Atlantic Monthly.

Power’s account is the result of a three-year investigation involving more than 60 interviews of US
policymakers and scores of interviews with Rwandan, European and United Nations officials. It also
draws on hundreds of pages of recently declassified US government documentation obtained under the
US Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by the National Security Archive’s William Ferroggiaro. The
documents demonstrate what US officials knew about the genocide, what options were considered, and
how and why they chose to avoid intervening in the slaughter.

The documents published show that:

Contrary to later public statements, the US lobbied the UN for a total withdrawal of UN forces in
Rwanda in April 1994;

Secretary of State Warren Christopher did not authorize officials to use the term “genocide” until
May 21, and even then, US officials waited another three weeks before using the term in public;

Bureaucratic infighting slowed the US response to the genocide;

The US refused to “jam” extremist radio broadcasts inciting the killing because of costs and
concern with international law;

US officials knew exactly who was leading the genocide, and actually spoke with those leaders to
urge an end to the violence.

Ferroggiaro, who is the Director of the Archive’s Freedom of Information Project, said “Until now, we could
only speculate as to what US officials knew about the genocide or what they were arguing in closed
diplomatic forums. Samantha Power’s account lays bare the motivations and perspectives of US
officials; the documents provide essential evidence of official inaction in the face of the slaughter in
Rwanda in 1994.” Ferroggiaro heads the Archive’s effort to obtain the declassification of all relevant US
policy documentation on the Rwandan genocide.

                                                                                  National Security Archive
                                                                                  George Washington University
                                                                                  The U.S. and Genocide in Rwanda 1994