john young in saint augustin florida. this is two hours.

so, i mean as a kind of overview just to refresh everyone's memory here, we started with an overview of the history of it. rwanda. this tension was precipitated by the withdrawal of the colonial powers in the 1950s and 1960s such that there was tension for the next 20 and 30 years erupting into violence. becoming pretty severe starting in 1990 with the invasion of

uganda of the rwanda patriotic front. this violence escalated through the early 1990s. there were preprisal killings i r rwanda. that brings us to our topic of genocide and the u.s. and international response to the genocide. we will talk tonight about the kind of narrative of the genocide itself. what happened between late 1993 and the middle of 1994. the genocide itself taking place over 100 days between april 6, 1994 and mid-july -- early to mird july of 1994. we do this through a number of books that our students have been exposed to. maybe we should talk about them.

so we have sam ana powers, a problem from hell which is an interview of the u.s. response to genocide beginning with arm evenia and nazi genocide. we've also read for tonight romio de laris and his account in the piece keeping force in the united nation's force in rwanda. a canadian general, never saw combat from before this time. accepted this command in late 1993. found himself in a genocide of epic proportions in 1994 and a unique witness to this whole thing. we've read power and de laris

and writings from sources. victims and perpetrators the genocide. that's where we're left tonight. we've also encountered on on an aesthetic level through film and other things. i think this leaves us to talk about from an intellectual and emotional standpoint, the u.s. response and international response. >> one thing i would just add to that is obviously during the course of the semester we've confronted you with quite a few different texts, ideas, themes, issues and challenges. obviously some of them have been quite difficult and quite wrenching but really, i think, we've seen the course progressing to the time where we would spend, you know, two solid weeks on the rwanda genocide because of its implications for policy in the 21st century because so many of the issues we've confronted crystallize here.

there's obviously no sense in weighing one genocide as more significant than the other. but the growing role of the united states as a world power, and the way the genocide in rwanda unfolds have put us in a situation where many of the issues we've grappled with during the semester we have really been in front of you. >> in a way, the rwanda genocide is the climax of this source. this is the most obvious genocide since the nazi genocide. it's an obvious case. it fits the definition. people were singled out, targeted. there was an attempted exterminati extermination. if they had not been successful in their military endeavors to retake the country in 1994, this

might have led ult naetly to full extermination. in a way it's the most complete of all of the genocides. the pace of genocide is frigh n frightening that in 100 days, 800,000 is kind of the official toll or the toll that is accepted. maybe more than a million. it's uncertain exactly how many people were killed but a frightening number of people were killed. this genocide also produces some serious emotional residents as we've seen also already. we've all felt the emotions of this topic. i think rwanda brings a lot of this to the floor particularly the role of frustration as we counter the international and u.s. soresponse so to this. we stood helplessly by.

as you've read de lare and these authors. as you read power. how have you experienced this frustration. what has been your experience as students with this. tiffany. >> de lare, every time he says we could have done this but we didn't do this. every time he mentioned i tried to get this through. nobody reacted. the reaction was we're not going to worry about it. we won't have the resources. we can't let you do that. it's so frustrating. they had one opportunity after the next to intervene and they never did. >> okay. other responses. yeah, eddie. >> half measures like -- they didn't make true on their promises. especially the international community when it came in regard to mid-may when he called for

reenforcements around 5,000. the un agreed on it but none of the countries sent men. they all argued who should sent the men. when it came down to just logistics. it wasn't even about the lives, it was the logistics. the money and resources they koe allocate to the problem. gentleman i think that's an excellent point. we're talking about resources that -- given the collective resources that could be martialed by the united states, by france, by really any european country that might have had a stake in this. of course belgium sent some people. what was actually sent, what was actually provided by a pittance. that was exaggerating it really. they sent damage vehicles that showed up not in working order

with manuals in the wrong languages without parts needed to repair the vehicles needed to be repaired. of course, the number of people and what should have been sent. >>. david. >> for me the most difficult aspect of everything. as you mentioned there were so many logistical and technical problem that's weren't addressed by anyone at all until they were notified -- until they realized there was a problem. the most difficult thing for me was the empty leadership that came from the supposed leaders. >> right. >> they seemed to be only basing their mission on this symbol of international intervention and the principal that we're going to be monitoring and see what we can do but there was no wait. there was no practically applied leadership to those promises. ultimately when you have that

comes is that you need to do something about this. it can't just be words. you can't base anything in symbolism because it means nothing when it comes to the actual ground affects. >> who in particular would you call out for this or the force behind the rhetoric. >> it was the john -- not john but bobo -- >> right dr. bubu. the cameroon guy who was the original -- >> the one who was really in charge of the entire mission. >> de lare's contacts in new york. their response was always whenever he would give them a report from the field and typically with political leadership is you want to trust the people in the field giving feedback because they are the ones that are actually in the physical situation but they didn't regard anything he had to say. their response was no, you're

straying from the bounds of your mission. i think ultimately that was -- to me, it was the most concerning. >> it's so striking to de lare how frequently people he's appealing to are playing defense. they seem to be looking for ways to actively avoid what he's calling for or what seems to be compelling based on the circumstances. >> often this is out of self-interest. one has to of course analyze motives and take a lot of things into account here but it seems that at times people who should be in sight site 20 clsh 20. we look back and at blatant self interest that seems to be happening or the careerism is particularly concerning. >> to build off of your points and david's points how out of

touch everybody seems to be. he acknowledges that in the beginning when he talks about the peace keeping manual is written for a post world war ii manual. i think when you see the inaction but completely out of touch with what's going on on the ground. even in cambodia, there was the disbelief because that's was not what the modern world was supposed to be. >> right. so what they do -- david raised this point and you raised it again. they do this kind of symbolic show of aide, right? >> never is this more striking than, i think, mad el inn's statement after the pull-out where they reduce the size off

troops opt ground somewhere from 4,000 to somewhere around 270 people in the country of rwanda which is the size of maryland with a population of 10 million people or something like that. 270 peace keepers. she says this is a quote that they are to have a quote they have to have a small skeletal operation to quote show the will of the international community. we're not going to tolerate the killing of civilians so we are going to leave people in the country to show that we have a will. it comes across as completely empty rhetoric. andrew. >> speaking on leadership, what really bugged me was the fact that they always said that even any real force would take time

like with the bombing. we had to find the plane and then we had to fine the clearance but when france decided to send in the turquoise -- operation turquoise they were there like that, you know? so that was very frufrustrating they had the capability and there was this bureaucratic paper work to go through. >> or even more frustrating, once the ut decided to get involved to aid the refugee crisis, 1.7 million fleeing into zyere. at that point, you know, all sorts of aid was marshals. i guess this was a band-aid on the aorta. we're going to do something at

this point but in de lair's words. what's the title. >> too much too late. >> too much and far too late. it really lynnings rings very hallow. >> one of the most interehinder things was the fact that you only had a very fall number of leaders -- de lair was the force commander and he had no poll -- before that the political commander got sick owe he couldn't couldn't come in. you had this unexperienced jep who was supposed to deal with ground work and deal with -- one of the quotes was -- >> what page are you on? >> 106. >> of power or de lair. >> de lair. this writing i think goes with

the conversation we're having where he says i also thought that planting the flag would serve the same symbolic purpose was my flag rising. in kanere. he says we were still having endless administration and resource problems. later he says colonel did not have paper to write with. they had been denied for budgetary reasons. it is maddening i was forced to fight a war over office supplies. it was a struggle to get soldiers in the first place. the fact that they don't have resources to maintain a decent living style.

these are failures. >> accept for the belgians. how did they get nice quarters and end up in the situation that they were in. >> it was written in their contract. >> yes. their contact with the united nations that they had to be housed in brick and mortar buildings. this was not for the comfort or the soldiers. it was to put on a good show in front of africans who were inferior people in their eyes t. was a blatant show of colonialism. that hadn't disappeared in the 1990s even though they had been gone for 35 years. >> i think what'sfru frustrating about this is the denying to resources. all they had to do is sign off on them. when it comes down to where de

lair is going to be housed he wants him to be in this nice mansion because he is the force commander and has to keep up appearance. it's ridiculous that he's willing to spend those resources to keep up appearances but not on the resources that they need to be effective in rwanda. >> when we're talking about the bul belgium -- i struggled on how they wanted to partake with the un just to help out rwanda because they said up the political landscape that allowed this genocide occurred. as i'm reading the book they want to have their own houses spread throughout the town which is a logicalal nightmare. you'd rather have all of your

soldiers defenning each other. i don't understand what he were doing back in ree wawanda. they didn't seem like they had a moral reason to be here. they just wanted to come and cause a problem. i think it's also striking coord the sense of superiority they had and if not a blank check, but the ability to resort to violence. his ability to sort of negotiate in this delicate moment and again, right, the legacy of all of this just weighs so heavily on the circumstances. >> matt raises a very important

point here. that is this legacy that the belling yons has makes it puzzling. they instituted the system of identity cards. once they left and rwanda people had to register. this was -- this identification card the people had to carry was really a signal for persecution. the government placed quotas on certain professions, teachers, government ministers, physicians and people in other professions could not be -- only a certain percentage of them could be tutsi. they kept in place this relic but at the same time, when people find out the belgians are

coming in, they are concerned because this is the entrance of their old depressor. there are strange motivations going on all over the place. de lair talks about that. how concerned he is they would react inside the country. what i was going to say is i think it's important to note that the un when we say this was a un kind of mission, that almost sounds like the whole weight of the un member state was behind it but that's not obviously the case. he writes here when he sent -- >> there are more more obstructionists than there are those aiding. >> when he dinsends it in, he s most countries didn't have positives or negatives or any comments.

they probably didn't even read it accept the countries he points out is belgian, canada had concerns about using their own troops so it was almost as if the un were kind of seeing -- you could imagine them saying we are going to go to rue oned r wand rwanda. it has the un name on it so being part of that organization, a total failure and void of leadership. >> elizabeth sorry we passed you over. >> that actually brought me to another question. how convince are they in the global complacency and the french's idea to remove the upper echelons of the government. >> the local community has been so complacent up to this point. the frechbl see this was a green

flag. we can go in. we have this contract. we need to appear superior. >> it was rally disturbing how the colonial legacy has maintained in africa through global complacency that has been there for generations, years, hundreds if of years and how it's not looked at as such in a modern era because we see ourselves as a modern people. the leg acies of slavery in a modern time and how reluctant we are to face that:the frenchs were getting their old friends out. >> right, exactly. the french are constantly supplying the rgf and supplying that government in the first place. they are getting supplies in.

they are getting weapons in. part of the story that is not well known about you. >> aub salubsolutely. that's created tension between rwanda and france. >> it's interesting. in the context of french politics at the time the decision to intervene takes off. you know, there's a couple of key events. one is when nelson mandela sortly after being elected as president of south africa begins to urge that there needs to be action and intervention. we know that internal french government sources are anxious at that point that the that part of the continent will now demonstrate leadership and they see it as they need to step in and intervene. in the french system you have a

president and prime minister. at this moe moment, a got a internal discussions mon the leadership that hey, we're the party with the heart and this is an opportunity to demonstrate that they are, again, cost calculating and aggressionive action at this moment can demonstrate that we have these moral commitments. it's interesting too. some of this taps into comments that professor young made and david and andrew refers to. when the scope of the genocide becomes increasingly clear by early june that is when you start to get a constituency in the developed world for intervention. one of the real tragic dimensions of this ends up being

that significant ben efisharyies of this. consequences of this lead to the displaced camps in ziere at the time the legacy of that continuesed to destabilize the entire region. >> as he says about this and this is in the power book where he is quoted. my mission was to save rewounda. their mission -- he is speaking about the international mission. their mission was to put on a show at no risk. right? unfortunately, i fear this is actual too often the case with international aid in general. >> uh-huh. >> but particularly in this case, right? these are not oe opportunities nor so many people in the international community that we are doing something about the tragedies that are occurring in africa. let's send diplomats and

political figures. president clinton makes it there a few weeks aof the genocide has stopped. these are photo ops but there's no risk involved in any of these things. delair and very few others are left with the entire burden of risk through this entire story. >> drawing from this idea sort of in ters of the intervention i found myself by his colleagues constantly bring up the fact that there are so many other issues going on in terms of the global community trying to face former oyugoslavia in particula. it was so hard to read that and think what were they doing in the former yugoslavia and bosnia

amounted to nothing de lair says i can't help that yugoslavia maybe somebody outside of rwanda would have cared. there's almost this sense that it came to nothing. rwanda got so little attention from the global community and meanwhile the global community and people from the un are saying yeah but we're doing all of this great stuff in the former yugoslavia and we know, of course, that wasn't the case. >> if you go on in that passage, i mean this comes directly to the united states. i certainly remember 1994 exactly what i was doing at this time. it was a pivotal moment in my life. i personally was preparing to go to africa at that point. i was a freshman in college. i was exactly where some of you are, you know? declare says as it happened, the ree wand

rue and y rue and youa was having a hard time knocking the south african elections and american figure skater tonya hearting's criminal charges off the front pages. it struck me that this is the 20th anniversary year and there have been multiple specials on tonya hearting and nancy karrigan this year, too. i don't watch a whole lot of television but when i turn on the bbc, i see stuff with rwanda. when i turn on american television, i don't see anything. this is terribly concerning, i think, that 20 years on something as big and fundamental to international identity is this still takes a backseat to the tonya hearting/nancy

kerrigan soap opera that happened 20 years ago. another story that received attention is curt cobain's death. that also was on too. in the film he may have caught that reference. june twelfth is the murder of nicole brown simpson so the o.j. simpson saga. >> well, nothing will displace that. >> internaty, too, i w in africa during the trial of o.j. simpson. it was all over the news in south afr aicca the entire time it wad going on. even there people talked about rwanda more than in the u.s. >> it was our oscar apestorius. >> yeah, i guess so. >> i think power encapsulates that really well. he mentioned that one of his

main missions was to get media feedback on the crisisesicrisis >> he had mark doil sending out stories on his satellite feed. >> we really gave no attention to this whatsoever. it's also interesting because our interest was reflected in our government so powers mentioned if we would have put up more of a flight about going over to rwanda our government would have followed what we wanted. >> at this point i was really struck in the power -- in hear n -- her analysis. it ties into something that there's a recognition on the very top members of the american

government in materials of policy making that there will be no costs for failure to take action. one of the things that becomes so central to american policy and the way it develops and unfolds and failed to intervene in any meaningful way at all is the calculations that are ultimately made and the way the policy process unfolds. it gets dominated primarily in the white house. it gets -- they don't defer to the pentagon. they give the pentagon's voice on the danger of any intervention. some of that is a legacy of s m somalia or back to vietnam. >> the way that process unfolds, you know, in essence, the sort of silence of the american people and american interest groups looms so hard.

it's interesting compare this to the dar 4 for example, a decade later, even though it is not getting massive amounts of attention across the news, where it is getting attention is among certain key political constituency in congress, in the african-american community that begin to exert pressure on the state department and white house and just as critically in congress. there you end up with pressure effectively opt government to take a more forth right posture. i don't know if aggressive is the right word. so there we get the united states government in september of 2004, identifying the events in dar four as genocide calling it unequivocally in fact even before the united nations does so. i this it goes to the lack of political will that there is

no -- there is no political pressure mobilized really in any way. now, h now, i think one of her main points leadership could have mobilized. that presidents don't have responsibility simply to be buffered in the wind by sentiment on the ground. >> i think it was de lair mentioned or power that the only rwanda historian in the united states who actually was able to know what was going on was a private party person. a quote from power on this. just to show that they there was no will on the part -- of course congress will respond to constituents. on page 375 of power, we have patricia shrader, a democrat of

colorado saying there are some groups terribly concerned about the gorillas. this, of course, is a reference to the gorillas in the mist. the movie that came out in the 80s. this was film partially in rwanda. this is the heartland. there are some groups typically worried about gorillas that something will happen to them. it sounds terrible, she says but people just don't know what can be done did the people. right? so, i mean, it's just horribly brutally tragically ironic that we have these interest groups in the united states in 1994 who were calling their congressmen and saying please proteblgt tct silver back gorillas but 800,000 people are killed by mashety at

the same time anyway. >> one thing that stood out to me was 1994 when they first got reports that cia intelligence predicted the ability of a genocide happened. it talks about how they didn't encourage him to study rwanda and how it mentions -- >> they couldn't find information. >> how his knowledge of rwanda was a small back that she picked up and gave to him. the whole concept bf colonialism to take the time to slightly understand what they were going into. by the time he got there it was like oh, crap, this is a lot more serious than everyone else is. even off the fact he came back b -- my feeling was the

disbelief that how -- the circulation of no desire or interest because of proximity. >> it builds upon itself. it's this vicious circle for sure. >> i was going to talk about constituency groups. what i got from powers was that the u.s. leaders use what she calls micro victories by focusing on people like the rue and youa academic. it was kind of weird to see how -- >> metaphor of a doll that a child protects its doll. it doesn't have this global vision of everything that is going on around. >> it was frustrating to use these micro victories to validate their semi inaction in

there. >> the physical isolation of the country, the un and isolation of his troops in the field and other groups within there. i thought it might have contributed to the lack of will. nobody wanted to listen to him. he couldn't communicate. >> at one point he couldn't get through the airports. lonl i logistics do not allow him to travel around without serious danger. he cannot contribute to anyone without access to a phone. isolation a very important theme here. >> i think it is ironic. he is sitting here with one satellite phone. he gives it to the bbc guy, get the story out. you would think with all of the foreign countries not wanting to

send troops in there in fear of something happening to them, you would think the outside countries are trying to get to him and make contact but it's like people are saying, yeah, he's over there. they don't seem too worried about him. >> here is his wife and children stuck in canada in québec city desperate to find out. this is one of the haunting things about the de lair book is this -- it's not frequent but sporadic attention to his situation at home. it's never fully resolved. i mean, psychologically this destroyed de lair. these regretted about his family and about the hell he put them through, right, over and over again here just bleeds through at times into the narrative in a way, some of the most hart

breaking stuff because it's so readily identifiable, i think. >> there was that one government figure that went to de lair's wife just the way he started the senten sentence. it was almost as if he died nobody would have noticed almost. it was like oh, that problem is done. >> i fear that's all too accurate. at least that's the per spespec. power backs him up. i think it's probably true. >> another frustration with this is one of the excuses that the american government gives for not being involved but they don't want another mogadishu. they lost what, 14 men? >> 18 marines. >> they lose 18 marines in

mogadishu but in rwanda they lose 14 men. >> is this the same phenomenon repeated in rwanda really? of course there's the intervention. this is a chapter 7 intervention in somalia. they break out into anarchy fighting between war worlds in the early 1990s and interventional aid marshals itself to try to diffuse the crisis to get aid to the people who need it. we have almost street to street or neighborhood fighting in mogadishu between war lords. the international community rallies. the united states gets involved. i think i was a senior at the time when this was happening.

>> it was december of 1992. >> that's exactly what i would have been. it date me. >> not as much as it dates me. >> i remember better than i do. i remember my u.s. history teacher in high school had this political cartoon that showed sapt a santa claus on a sled with his elves having machine guns. that's kind of the international perspective on somalia that this place is worth -- if santa claus is going to pay attention to this, right, than we should, too. there was actually a will there until the tragic events of

which -- >> october of 1993 in an effort to relief another part of the fint vengs forces f the pakistanis who were there. u.s. forces get into a fight with forces in mogadishu. 18 get killed ultimately. this had repercussions unfortunately that they stripped these bodies and desecrated them. mutilated them. dragged them behind vehicles through the streets of modadishu with the cameras of the internainte international community rolling. this became a paradigm of course, for what happens or a

lesson for what happens when the international community tries to intervene in the developing world or more specifically in africa, right? this becomes a caricature of africa. of course the chapter seven intervention is going on in the former yugoslavia as well. as we talked about this this class is a different situation. >> just about to finish the point how this is related to 9/11. people like osama bin laden were watching the events unfold in mogodishu and the perspective was the western world does not have the will to fight. when they are punched in the mouth, they will turn around and walk away. so the idea was if they punch them in the mouth they will not retaliate. the punch in the mouth ultimately was 9:0011.

>> that message was perceived. >> that was part the plan. he knew about this via intelligen intelligence. >> the political context about somalia is also very important. november, 1992, president bush loses the intersection to if clinton. >> we're in that that it's late november. there are images and the story is coming back that the food aid is simply sitting on the dock in mogodishu are being exploited by criminal gangs and using it for political purposes. what i also vividly member about that and the somalia situation

is that u.s. sources came ready for combat. they crawled along the beach. at that point there was no combat but they were filmed up close and personal by cnn cameras. i remember there was this odd moment of cnn showing cameras and people in the faces of u.s. soldiers coming ashore. it gives it this way strange feeling. i think it becomes -- the perception of the american people is we will be there. we will sort this out. the good guys from the bad guys, deliver the food and this will be easy. of course during the summer of 1993, it becomes increasingly complicated. from a policy making perspective, i think we do ourselves a disservice if we underestimate how many somalia looms in people's minds because what starts to develop within the white house and the policy

making process is the notion if there is an insufficiently un effort we will be called to pick up the tabment so that's why you get things like presidential decision directed 25 authored by richard clark that outlines minimum criteria before the united nations will agree to participate in anything whatsoever. clark says these are the strict guidelines for u.s. participation but in fact until we prove a mission led and funded by others where the united states plays a per peripheral roll, so the hurdle to get over becomes extremely high as we move through the events and string of 1994. yeah, elizabeth. >> just a couple of points.

i think the under funding of the un's relief to rwanda is outlined in the beginning of delair when he talks about going to the offices in new york -- they are sexier than the peace keeping effort. the dpko. the unicef reaches out to children. that's something people are familiar with. when you have these peace keeping efforts that go into rue on , rwanda we know children can be taken and educated in the way we want them to be educated. the second point was we were very much -- the aid there was reflecting a cold war aid

mentality where we did the derl berlin air lift and we're not participating the motivations that these people have. i think that that refers back to my point about them being out of touch and knowing what is happening in developing nations because they have only developed with what's going on in the developed world. >> they don't even know what's happening for de lair. he was down to having a glass of water a day to wash himself. he says there was an odor he had picked up. most of his rations went bad. he didn't even have food t. he would try to get more resources

and then be denied. this is like the -- he's expected dwhsh they come in to be all proper and stuff and have this front for it. seep not allocating enough resources in general to him just to actually survive. not even to help out but for them to actually survive in there. the madness where he says we're at the end of our water supply and he says you need to get three competitive bids to fill those bids. >> in that situation. >> i just need 20,000 liters of water that can be brought in easily. >> i'm not a huge proponent of the un. i don't think they are an extremely effective body but i think that is seen in the inability and give them resources because you need competitive bids. theys peop

these people don't have clean drinking water and they have to go through bureaucratic red tape to survive. it's bizarre. >> this is just the disconnect that happens over and over again where the people of new york do not understand or make any effort to understand what's going on in rwanda. there's being it. >> this is a complete failure of the international community but i think we have this idea that we can blame the un and de lair says this is a failure of the member states, not the un itself. this is uncommitted as dave was saying earlier to an ideal but only going halfway. >> it gets in the way as a result of that.

it gets in the way of things that might have been done without -- >> it will always be trouble given the circumstances on the ground. the un becomes an enabler fore the pull out given that belgium, after they lose their soldiers zie to pull out. ins the calculation of the rg dprks that f, that if they killed a few belgium people they would withdrawal. >> this is one of the most damming peaces fieces for the international community here. she pointed out that belgium didn't want to pull out and be the sole bad guys. what did they do. >> they asked everybody else to leave with them. >> yeah.

let's call up the united states and tell them we don't want to be the only ones pulling out the here and turning chicken so to speak, right? so let's put pressure on the entire un, this whole operation is botched and going nowhere and dangerous and so, now, let's pull out -- let's pull everybody out. the u.s. buys this. i mean this is our ally. they don't have a invested interest in rwanda. they begin to put pressure on the un to put out. they are instrumental on the decision to leave. it's really us pressure that causes that. this is one example how it is the constituent members of the un perhaps -- the organization as i think elizabeth pl puloint that there's this bureaucratic

tape that just gets in the way. bureaucracy is the enemy to all progress. leon trotski, i think he's right in this situation. even more, i think jason's point is valid that it's the individual member states. perhaps we need to point the finger most strongly at the united states here and say they are the ones that precipitated the shameful acts that the international community had. >> it's so striking. we know the belgium prime minister early on appeals to secretary christopher and says exactly what you are saying and a couple of other people noted, we can't be the ones who are seen as leaving rwanda to some fate and we jump right on board and say we will support that to pair down the force and veto any

effort to expand it and have any more prominent effect. it is a couple of weeks where de lair is getting signals that belgium is thinking of taking a more aggressive role. he is completely unaware -- in a series of private conversations and a closed door april 15th meeting, the united states is making it clear that there will be no expansion of the international role. again, it sees in part to reflect the experience of somalia but i think it has more issues than that. >> i think that's probably the most troubling thing with that is that the international community can't agree on aid and supporting it but the only thing

they can agree is abandoning the country. that's the only thing that gets their full commitment. >> which is the easiest and most problematic thing to do in the first place. tiffany. >> i did want to talk about what surprised me and stood out to me too was the complacency of canada. its inaction because it volunteered de clair to be part of this mission. >> doesn't send out of their own troops. >> wouldn't provide any other troop besides him. they forced him to pick through a list of people who had no experience in french or rwanda. >> what does this say? this always struck me. i'm not a military person. i don't perhaps understand the mentality but what does that say about de lair other commendable or critical? what can we say about him given the circumstances that he places himself in here? what's going on with de lair and

his own motivations? do you want to comment on that, tiffany? >> well, at the beginning he's hoping this will be really good for his career. it will be the first time he will be on the ground. up to some point his men have been involved in peace keeping but he hasn't exactly been to the different peace keeping missions. for him he sees it as a step forward with his career. after he is actually involved in this, he decides, he realizes that he has to do this for the ree rwanda, not just myself. it is a mission for rwanda. >> the acronym if you recall, it was una, the united nation's aid mission for rwanda but unfer

doesn't really work so he takes the mi in mission and takes out the f. he's really committed to that word for. he is a complex individual. i think having this is very full and very long account is helpful in kind of -- he charted very well the complexities of this thing on the ground and in his own personal motivations enter into this. i think that is very helpful in envisioning this thing from a holistic perspective. >> you had a comment. >> it kind of goes back to what we were talking about. he says he got a phone call from an american staffer. he doesn't even know who they are and what they do. >> what page are we on. >> 499. >> he tgoes he told me his estimates said it would take the death of rwanda to justify

the death of an american soldiers. i mean that's what it is. it puts pedestal higher. that's not the idea behind human rights. that's what the united nations is for. >> this is a very important point. what else is going on there? what really is going on there that this american bureaucrat calls up de lair with really no clue of what he has faced on the ground. his own skpeer yaenexperience a we're just running some numbers here. we need your opinion or your assessment of things. de lair is really confused by this. well, we're just running some cal laces that risculations tha soldier we lose -- that's the

equivalent of losing 885,000 people of rwanda. what does that indicate about attitudes, about bureaucracy, about this whole process that we're studying tonight. elizabeth. you had a pretty passionate response to that. >> sorry. it goes back -- what struck me most is the colonialistic attitude and that superior attitude that the west has to africa because ait is a developing nation and we didn't see any economic gain from being in rwanda. even the people, we didn't see them as economically worth while to invest in. i think it so plays up on the western ethno sent rix that has permeated for centuries and

reinforces that you will get this phone call and say here is what we decided.

>> what other issues stood out to you as you read these books, tiffany? >> like i said, just the way he refers to the west as the "white west" when honestly that pretty much isn't true, anymore, if it ever was true. so the fact that people think of themselves as juxtaposed to rwanda to where the white was to basically black africa is inherently racist and had a severe effect on the way they reacted to this happening. >> so, yeah, this is a very good point.

how does race as a phenomenon enter into this? i mean, of course, we have ethnic tensions. this is not racial tension. it is ethnic tension. you have the hutu and tootsi. but race as a phenomenon certainly plays a role in all of this. >> when the soldiers arrive, they were starting to say, like, racist comments to the people there. right away, tioned standing at a meeting there, that he didn't have any tolerance for race and everybody had to stop there. they had to really look at the people as people instead of looking at it through racial linds. >> absolutely. sure. >> alf. >> the idea for them to solve their problem, like africans to solve their own problems, i feel that is inherently racist,

people think they can solve their problems better. >> that one is tricky. it is a good point, given that this is a debate within africa itself and has been for some time now, going all the way back to independence, particularly over the last 20 or 30 years. there is a will inside of africa, certainly, for the international community to get out. it does get exploited. at the same time, there is this dialectic, this interest action between the rhetoric coming out of africa and the rhetoric that into the makes it international parlance here. would you like to comment on that? >> i was going to talk about the whole concept of race in post

colonialism because it plays on the other side. the other white u.n. peacekeepers came in and had this somewhat attitude of race, it was displayed on the hutu side as well. when it came into coming into contact with the peacekeepers, 18 of them died because the hutus were racist and had prejudice about the white people coming back into their continent. >> sure. this goes both ways. jared you had a comment? >> whenever we were discussing kosovo in that they are like us. we have the same religion as them, predominantly in the west, we are christian, they are christian in rwanda, but they are not like us, they don't look like us, so the countries like france, the u.k. that could have done something didn't. >> even after a lot of the information about what's happening on the ground in rwanda starts to leak to the

left, there are news fooges and things like this is making it to the west. of course it doesn't compete with nancy cancer began and tanya harding and o.j. simpson and what not, but people start otice this, and the u.n. gives him a directive to try to cut costs. right? you are spending too much money. which is untrue. he's operating on a shoe string budget. he says this is absolutely absurd. we were spending dr -- do you remember the figure of what they were spending in the former yugoslavia? he says millions of dollars a day. a day. and he had a $50 million budget for the entire year in a situation that was just as complex in its own way as what was going on in bosnia. so i think you raise a good point here. s race an element of this?

the information weighs in on that. >> the tutsi and the hutu. >> i think the hutu understanding, or their ability to understand how deeply that went prevented them from realizing how far this genocide could occur. we asked, could this have been prevented. i think it could have been prevented if it had been in their minds that it was a possibility. then they would not have gone -- if they knew this was a possibility, either they would not have gone in at all, or they would have gone in with the proper personnel to mitigate this. >> it is striking how often that dolaire but also others are stunned by the deep polarization and vitriolic hate propaganda

and how that catches them off guard. so frequently it seems they are dealing with a fairly traditional state and then a fairly traditional rebellious army. it is effectively a question of negotiating the distribution of offices, right? so which people from the hutu side and which tutsis will be in which offices after the government originally accords are enforced and put in place? they seem not to understand that. i was struck by this point that samantha power makes on a number of occasions which is that there is a failure of imagination, an incomparpt to truly perceive and appreciate in some genuine and deep way the capacity for evil, not just within individual human beings, but within specific particular contexts. >> this touches on a theme we have dealt with throughout this

course. the fact that genocide is unbelievable. everything from the beginning of the semester talking about louie lemkin confronting brandeis, and he gives him details of what's going on in europe with the nazzies and the jews, and he says, "i don't believe you." "i don't believe you" or something like that or "i can't believe this." he says, i'm not saying you're lying. i just can't believe this. i cannot wrap my head around this. as a result of this, i really can't act, right? this is not just a failure of imagination as zuckerman puts it on the part of the international community on the ground. even as we talk about ellie weisel being deported. they are dumbfounded that these

jews in 1944 don't know what is going on with their people elsewhere in europe. how can you not know what happens to jews in 1944, right? there is this quote from the book "machete season" which we have read, of course, and this is innocent irwel ovisa who is a tutsi survivor of this talking about the hate broadcasts on ktlm, the propaganda channel. she says, "what they said was so cleverly put and repeated so often" meaning the hate broadcasts, the propaganda, that s as well, we found them funny to listen to. that's a tragic irony, of course, right? they were clamoring the cockroaches -- the word the hutus used for the tutsis -- for

us, those witty words were hilarious. the song for the hutus getting together to wipe out all the tutsis, we laughed out loud at the jokes. same for the hutu 10 commandments that vowed to wipe us out. we didn't listen anymore. so it stemmed to the victims, right? it is unbelievable. genocide as a phenomenon is unbelievable. the amount of bodies. the staggering numbers, the staggering amount of brutality that goes into this in all of the cases we have looked at. it is unbelievable. that people could do this to people is unbelievable. and that leads to the failure of imagination.

comments, elizabeth. >> another samantha powers forward to the dolera book, when she mentioned "doche the beetle" in ellie weisel's. she said he was told repeatedly as he pleaded for troops that he was looking at the situation in a simplistic fashion, which i think highlights what you were saying. like -- >> they are not going to kill. that's too simple. >> yeah. and they got all this talk, but we're there now, so it's not that big of a deal. and you are thinking that it is going to be way worse than it actually is. after he has repeatedly said "this is, like, you have no idea what's happening here." and drew and i were talking about it during the break. and it is out of touch, yes, but willful ignorance. you just are turning a blind eye -- not you, but the u.s.

government and the u.n. are turning a blind eye because they just -- like you are saying, they can't believe it. because it is modern. i thought that was ironic they are telling him this was -- they were looking at it in too simplistic a fashion. so he's looking at it the way it needs to be seen. the people that were looking at reporting on it were not looking at it in the way it needed to be. >> the international response insists by turns that either your view of this is too simplistic or it's too complex.

on both counts they are wrong, right? but but it's not. you are right about it being very prim different. and brutal. the fact that these people killed mostly with machetes or clubs or rudiment ri instruments. screw drivers. in some cases. i can't even fasth l i don't mean -- i can't even fathom what that must have been like. but at the same time the international community fails to appreciate the imagination of the hutus who were planning and leading this. at the same time they have this sophisticated understanding of international politics. they calculate and know that if they do something similar to mogadishu, the will of the international community is going to chicken out. that it is not going to be sufficient. they are not going to have sufficient back bone to stick it out.

so what strikes me is both the simplicity and the complexity of this and the failure of the international community to appreciate both of those things. >> he knew by january 10th. hat's when jean pierre and the enteraumay member -- >> just to recall this, this is an informer that he has, high place, among the leadership of the tutsus, and these militias that are organized to kill, right? he gets really good information from them. so go ahead. >> he gets good information from them. there is a quote here. he says he and others like him were ordered to have drells under their command, make lists f the tutsis and their various communes so that when the time came the tusis or the -- as they

called them, the word means cock roach -- could easily be rounded up and exterminated. along with this, he finds weapons cashes that are going to be distributed to these communes locally within the next couple weeks. this is four months before the genocide. so he already has his wealth of knowledge. he already knows what's going on. nera city.e cable to that's the information as well. one of his men is shown one of the weapons cashes, which is right underneath one of the buildings ironically, that he was visiting earlier that day. so he gives him the information. he expects that he is going to rid these weapons cashes, not even asking for permission k because it is part of his mandate anyway, that's why he calls it chapter 6 1/2. he is trying to protect against crimes against humanity. he does that, and they deny him.

this is months in advance. this is vetted information that he has, and it is on the ground. they don't trust him for it. >> not only do they deny the -- n, they tell >> they tell him that he has an informer among his ranks giving . clue about the genocide that -- i have a hard time understanding the motivation here

>> there are times when he gets information if these hutu politicians who steam to know about the actions being taken in his office even before he does. discussions among bureaucrats. he said i knew my office was leaky as a seive. it was kind of freaky to see that placed before me. these are some of the challenges. >> and he's further ircompromised by the fact that at that time rwanda has a seat on the security council. so the representative of the interim comboft, the hutu he says there will be no support for a mission because the mission is inherently vulnerable. he's getting all that information.

it goes back to his point before that he is sitting in this isolated way, right, with no real -- he certainly doesn't have a mastery of information on the ground. >> the terrible brutal ironies of the situation are almost breathtaking in their scope. >> i think also what's shocking is they approved his mandate -- chapter 6 1/2, they knew he put that clause in about crimes against humanities. he was obligated by that mandate to do it, but because they ordered him not to, he was torn between the mandate i vowed i would do, to prevent crimes against humanity, which i know are going to happen, or do i follow the orders of my superiors. the fact that -- he's -- i think he is partially responsible for the fact that he goes and goes along with the superiors instead of staying to his mandate, even -- h he has the

>> i had a comment, but it was lost in there. >> i think we can focus on, a lot of the conversation has turned on the question of prevention at this point. what could have been done to prevent this. the juxtposition of what could have been done, the hindsight that we have now saying if only dolaire had been given 5,000 troops, if only he had been given vehicles that actually worked, if only he had been given enough ammunition or if the belgiums had been able to sort out who was going to pay for the ammunition so they had sufficient for their needs. with the pose

inability of the people on the . ound >> he says, as a global community, it is clear that we develop multidisciplinary and senior leaders to fill these forced commander billets. so for this to have been a success, he needed every resource available. he needed all the contacts available. he didn't seem to care for the job. the point he makes about humanists, that's the most important thing. he talks about,ia, there are

these logistical failures, failures among the bureaucrats, but ultimately the failure was the ability of not enough human beings being able to care about the dying rwandans enough where they were willing to make risks. >> particularly at the senior level. the key failure is at the ighest level of leadership >> that spoke volumes. it is nice to talk about prevention and not letting these things happen again, but if no -- everyone is

pointing fingers at one another. -- it's not amounting to anything, and that's unfortunate.

>> so other countries are coming in there, and they don't know what needs to be done. i just coming back to how he thinks the united states was going to solve it. and everything was leading to the exact opposite. but even if we cared enough to get involved, we don't know what they need, and we don't care. >> it seems he wants to keep coming -- everybody wants to keep coming back to this point. he rightly pointed out, 5-14 comes back and says "i believe the missing piece of the puzzle was the lack of will from the united states and france to move this imploding nation toward democracy and lasting peace. there is no doubt these two

countries possess the solution to the rwandan crisis." it seems there that the -- a key piece of that is his argument that the recognition early on that the united states was simply not going to deliver or not going to commit in any appreciable way, right, becomes significant piece of the story. >> why does dolaire think that the united states would have been key to this? do you want to speak to that? >> we were the super power at the time. the u.n. head quarters was there. -- it suggests that we would kind have led the way given a few troops and that would have at least showed that this super power is willing and kind of got more of the western powers nvolved.

>> look what happened three or four years before this. >> to juxtapose perhaps even more shocking and helpful for juxtaposin than rwanda and yugoslavia. that would have shown that he was capable of taking them on a breathtaking scale. there is another chapter in power that we haven't looked at that covers this, right? but in the case of kuwait, there as a political will.

cake away everything, but give us cheap gasoline, right? if you hurt the price of our oil, then we're really going to et involved. >> stand up there in pentagon briefings, talking about, the sudis are ere, the here, they involved all these middle eastern countries. there is a broad coalition of people involved in this. and it was legitimized. this is where president bush is saying, this is a new world order led by the united states. i think dolaire is coming at it pr that perspective to some extent and saying, this could have been done in rwanda and none of this would have happened and a million people would still

have been alive and enjoying their families and probably on the road to democracy as a political system here. >> i think the failure to act comes back to alisa's point, too, is that so often it is kind of stumbling and bumbling and sort of ignorance on the ground. it is sort of extraordinary that you know, i think it is samantha power that quotes anthony lake who is a national security power who said there was never a high-level discussion at all about the rwandan crisis. i think it was -- who talked about when he meant with clinton, k 1994, clinton passed over rwanda almost without comment, and it was almost more concerned about the united states support to chair unicef. it never emrninged as a priority until this sense of urgency

emerged in late june of, in needs to be a reaction. there needs to be something that we due do. then the reaction we take is essentially indifferent to it compared to the situation on the ground. there is clearly emerging in the camps a human rights problem, but what would have been the pursuedent situation would have been moving those people back to rwanda as quickly as possible. >> i think he wanted the united states to lead as well was because of the cape yanlt, as you mentioned, when it comes to the radio station. like they are calling out the names of these mod -- moderates. three capabilities, and it comes down to the united states, and they have the technology to jam this radio station or destroy it, bomb it. they showed, especially in the gulf war, that they can have precision attacks. >> tomahawk cruise missiles.

>> surgical precision. so they can do this technology. and that's hour, too costly. we have to worry about that plane being up in the air, they could shoot this down. $8,500, we just cannot stomach that cost. even he was called out. kill delay. they wouldn't jam it because -- like you said, they are spending illions of dollars >> this is one of those cases where the misplaced values are trodded out there. i guess the question is, does freedom of speech extend to identifying the locations of individuals so you can kill them. is that how far freedom of

speech should go? i defy you to find a moral ground where you can justify that. but that was used as an effort, as an excuse not to do something really fairly simple and cost effective to prevent the loss of human life. >> i think in positive terms, it becomes kind of an excuse. >> it seems clearly you can make the case what's going on in that context the speech constitutes what would be restrictsed under the context of clear and present anger. it is kind of like how they read

in late april or early may where they say, look, we can reach the standard of intent. also their policy recommendations is that the convention requires us to then act and intervene effectively ill tarledepsh militarily. the genocide convention doesn't obligate you legally to take action. i also think it is important to take -- again, we go back to this failure of imagination how frequently impoff riched the policy standards are about what can be done, and as well, the analysis of what's ultimately happening on the ground. even dolaire portrays this where he's clearly thinking, ok, what are the negotiations among the

main players. how do you prepare the accords when it seems that what's emerging in front of him is an emergs of slaughter and burn. >> i think why the united states were looked upon and certainly our budget has a lot to do with that. also it comes down to, if you look at the rhetoric that comes down to the american little leaders, it is almost as if we are inviting the world to look at us this way. the founding principles of the nation say are not just life and liberty for americans, but that people have a right to this. so the political spectrum is that we are supposed to be these moral and constant world leaders. so it comes down to the fact that the rest of the world is looking at us saying do you mean

this? because if you mean this, this is an opportunity for you to demonstrate that. >> i think it is permiere which touches on this. there is a moment where there is a switch that's thrown where there is this deep sense of american guilt at a feeling of hypocrisy, a failure to do nything. in the post genocide rhetoric it seems the americans are most often at pains to express their sense of guilt that we sort of failed ultimately to live up to the principles and play the role. >> uniquely placed given -- >> he's apologized a number of times. >> yeah. >> for his own behavior. so power points out here we have a polished president whose used to making apologies, and he was, i guess, the right man for the job. again, ironically, right? tiffany.

>> we haven't really discussed the religious aspects of this. rwanda is pretty much everything we've read, a roman catholic country. >> both hutus and tutsis. they have a shared religion, shared language. this is one of the things that mystified people about them and led people to believe there could be a solution that was fairly painless. these people actually share a lot. go ahead. >> so the context is that shortly before this is happening in rwanda, you see in latin america and el salvadore, there is basically a genocide there, and the local church supports the people as opposed to the government which is slaughtering el

salvadorans at the time. my question is, what was the sponse of roman catholics in america at the time, so the -- >> or at least -- >> yes, allowing this to happen. even inside churches. >> the holy family church. >> what is the roman catholic church's -- what's their response to this in the vatican? do they declare these people martyrs? do they do anything at all in response to an aid for what's going on in this? is there any repercussion for the priests that get involved in this? >> this has been, of course, one of the scenes that the tribunals held, both locally and internationally. there has been a focus on these priests and nuns, other church figures who were involved in this. several responses.

>> there is a special communication from the u.n. where the pope has asked you to specifically find this -- i think it was a group of polish nuns to go do that. that's the only thing i read about the catholic response. >> that's another staggering element to this. is that the u.n. amir is tasked with this overwhelming responsibility in the early stages of the general site side to get out all ex-patriots. so they go into the furtherest into s of the country these schools, catholic schools, monestaries in some cases, and pull these people out, right? if you've seen the movie hotel rwanda, there is this kind of heartbreaking scene where all of these people show up at the door tep at the hotel mikolim where they were saving people, hiding people, and you have these priests and nuns and other

religious figures coming in with their orphans, bringing them in their arms, and then they are told, you need to give these kids up and leave. and you see these rwandan nuns separating from their european counterparts. and all the europeans get on the buses, head to the airport and leave. that's almost unbelievable again. hat given the kind of vocation of someone in that position that this could happen. i don't know if it is the pressure of the moment, the misunderstanding of, you know, what is really going on here. the political pressure is brought to bear on them. the fact that soldiers with guns are telling them get on the bus, leave these people? but i've never been able to quite understand that whole sequence of events.

that's certainly haunting. >> ex-patriots in general, france, belgium, even the u.s. had 300 marines on the ground. and dolaire states while they are doing this, "i have enough men right now." if we all combine forces right now to stop this. we have 5,500 troops combined. soldiers were ground in to other places and not allowed to land n bengali, he had enough forces, the communication wasn't there. they couldn't get all these people together. they are made up of multiple countries. you have bangladeshis who

don't speak the same language as anybody. it is almost com cal where he says, you know, i communicated with these people in french and these people in english, and they had to, in turn, communicate with these people in a different language, so the failure of communication on multiple levels with the diplomatic sorts of efforts he's trying to make, too. he cuts to the chase, given that he's bilingual. he has to translate. here he is this general overseeing operations on the ground, but he gets involved in the most basic clerical functions, which is part of the roblem, right? >> they didn't have any method of communicating over distances.

>> they had no way of disseminating their information. he said, i wish i could get this majority of rwandans is that don't want to see this happen, but it is like i have a bullhorn, and everyone else can talk right next to each other. >> the fact that a u.n. force cannot communicate nearly as well as the entere amwe. given that in this house on this street you will find some tutsis hiding out, you need to go and kill them. he can't communicate with anyone. >> his radios don't have encrippings capacity. so they are being broadcast in the clear.

it is extraordinary. >> i think you have that moment where you have belgium, french, italian troops on the ground. ou have 300 american troops in burundi. you have a force, but you come back effectively to the whole mogadishu situation and the kind of relationship that the great powers take typically with the u.n., which is that they will not subordinate their soldiers under the command of, you know, . officer from another nation so there is the sense that they are sit thrg with this capacity to create the safe areas that dolaire is demonstrating or demonstrate force on the ground in sufficient ways to cow and terrify the hard liners who now effectively ve got a blank check. one of the things we know happens from april 16 to may

13th or 14th, the leaders of the radical government are quite deliberately testing international reaction. they are trying to see just how much latitude they will ultimately be given by the international community and what they can get away with. they begin to recognize that no one is going to stomach a larger ommitment. and people will let these events unfold. and the only real -- >> they do this in africa once in a while. 50,000 people die. >> right. right. we have just a few minutes left. we will probably need to wrap up with some details here. >> just off of that point, not only did the ex-patriots signal to the leaders that nothing was going to happen, but they, like, use these points, right, as kind of when the ex-patriots get

pulled out, and all the rwandans are under the sum sthun that the u.n. is going to help them as well. they round up all the rwandans that have been waiting there. i think that touches on both the simplistic way that elizabeth was talking about earlier that there were gangs with machetes, it is also highly sophisticated in that they are using u.n. response as a means to gather people in one area. we saw that in the film, too. i thought that was an -- >> i didn't really have a comment. i was just sitting here wondering, because this -- after rwanda, what happened with the political will to intervene? we had a decision in libya. we had the excuse for war in -- the excuse from war in iraq was to save people from saddam hussein, so you could say that also is a paradigm. i'm wondering with all the different problems we discussed,

and it is certainly capable of happening again in the future. so my wonder is, if our interest seems to be -- when i say "our" it seems the senior leadership interest seems to be in symbolism only for the purpose of appearing to not be totally indifferent to it, that's meaningless. if it is meaningless, it is not going to last as a viable political option. so what's -- is the future that we don't get involved? the only other alternative is to make sure these types of actions don't happen again by doubling men like dolaire's budget, by having the personnel needed. that's the only alternative. the current path is just going to result in more failure if we are not interested in having these concrete broad strategies that take into account istorical and pens and papers. >> there clearly was greater

rhetoric. it was invoked in kosovo. in both those instances, you can make a case that intervention came late in the game. >> and dar fewer as well -- and darfur as well. >> and in darfur. the united nations summit effective live ratifies this notion. there are 170 signatories to it that there is a responsibility to protect the snalm community as a response to protect people and we are not just simply going to give blanket protection to he old traditional idea of sovereignty. this is invoked again in the ase of lib -- libya. the emphasis is looking more toward, looking more toward predictors. mange, we can identify circumstances on the ground that are ripe for genocide.

therefore what you need to do is be able to see those coming, and then intervene in ways perhaps not necessarily in the form of a litary force, but maybe just then greater sensitivity to responding on the ground. for very real political reasons that preventive action has to be the place where the emphasis goes. because once all hell breaks loose, i think there is a view that most democracies right now, their attitude is going to be, "we're going to not get involved, unless there is some clear identifyable national interest that makes it essential for us to ultimately intervene. i think the legacy of the united states in the two most recent wars, iraq and afghanistan, have certainly sobered the american public opinion.

>> they have zapped the will. i think there was greater will a decade ago for this. that may have been the height of this kind of interventionist streak that happened after rwanda. my great fear now is that things are happening rapidly in placies s like syria, and as we have seen in the news today, ukraine, , i don't is escalates know if we have the will for that. o ahead. >> i can't happen to -- i can't help but wonder what that must have been like for the tutsis waiting.

which basically speaks to the fact that the western world was saying, it doesn't matter, you don't mapter. we're going to take out the people that do. >> even if they have close personal ties to you. even if these are the people that have raised you as orphans from early in life. we're going to separate. one of the things we have said in here in other classes earlier this semester is that genocide ay's s -- you know, chino title of his famous book, "things fall apart with genocide." the ties that bind things together, genocide is primarily about breaking things apart like family structures. yet the failure of humanity in rwanda demonstrates that a lack of humanitarian will to stop genocide and a misplaced focus on withdrawing things like

withdrawing ex-patriots does the same thing in and of itself. it separates the orphans from the church figures who have raised them. it cuts people off from dies that are really important. and that is one of the great tragic ironies. >> and for bystanders, and also in reference to dolaire, who was the hutu moderate, the message has become entirely -- the initiative is entirely with the murderers. >> dolaire has to be entirely reactive. >> any calculation by people made on the ground who might be voices of reason, you just think, there they are killing those people. there is no umbrella of any kind of support. you now disappear or lay low or start singing from the sheet of music from the most radical elements.

>> we have two minutes, plabe three. concluding comments. what do we take away from rwanda and where do we go from here, so to speak? >> on page 517, like the very middle. >> i'm already there. >> dolaire, i think he sums up the whole future of the world's will very simply. the concept of human rights assumes that all human life is of equal value. risk reward presumes that our lives matter more than those we are atemming to save. for me, i think that's how it is going to go. we will keep promoting human rights, but we're worget more than those people so we're not going to risk our own people to try to change things. >> it is human nature. like i talked about in class before. it is our inability to reconcile

our differences. that's really what it comes down to. genocide seems like it is a symptom of mume nature. people not being able to get over their differences. this international debacle. i won't even say it is an international community working together, it is an international debacle. everybody has their own reasons for doing something. >> or not doing something. >> there is always this ulterior motive. until that is gone, you are going to see genocide, still. you can motor vate people or try to make them go. the only way you can actually trullly motivate people is to directly affect them. if it touches them at home on their front yard mblings that's the only time you will get people to act. in they are in the bubble of here, and something it happening over there, and most people don't even know where it is from. i remember the boston marathon. ey are chetch unanimouses --

chechnyans that bombed the boston marathon, and people were calling to attack czechoslovakia . [laughter] >> people think something that involves this international community doesn't affect them, but it does. >> david, last point here. >> perfect. >> last year there was an event, a refugee week. >> refugee awareness week. >> yes, we were on a panel for that. >> they were on an event brought in several panelists -- did anybody go? i didn't see anyone at this particular event, they brought in several refugees from around the world, butan, i believe, cambodia, and a gentleman there from rwanda, and i remember he was talking about how happy he was when he got to the united states because he had a refugee -- he had a plane ticket from

the united states that brought him there, and he said how happy he had felt to go to the united states and he felt he had been uplifted by that. he said he was really proud of that, that the united states would make that effort. i'm gladd him, i said, to hear that. but the question i asked, was what more could we have done so ou wouldn't have had to flea your country. his words were so he will consequent. he said, the united states is a great country, and a great country can do both. sol my question is, are we that great country? comes back to the point that we made tonight, the will to do that. you. >> you're watching american history tv, all