That Rwandan Genocide thing they had trouble defining

Started by Calypso Jones, May 25, 2020, 08:12:33 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Calypso Jones

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2016/05/bill-clintons-shameful-genocide-denial

Remember during the movie Hotel Rwanda where we hear the Clinton admin official working her little brain trying to be consistent in using the term 'genocide' or even how to define it?

Christine Shelley....and then there is Madeline Albright.

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2016/05/bill-clintons-shameful-genocide-denial

...nobody in the United States government was willing to use the word "genocide" publicly. The United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide contains a binding requirement that countries prevent genocide, so acknowledgment of the genocide would have created a legally binding mandate to stop it. Even though internally, members of the Clinton Administration were referring to a genocide, publicly their spokespeople were under strict orders to refuse to confirm that a genocide was occurring, for fear that it "could inflame public calls for action."

"Be careful," warned a document from the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense's office, "Legal at State was worried about this yesterday – Genocide finding could commit U.S.G. to actually 'do something.'"

The resulting press conferences took Clintonian hairsplitting to its most absurd outer limits. Here, reporters try to pin down State Department spokesperson Christine Shelley and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright:
REPORTER 1: —comment on that, or a view as to whether or not what is happening could be genocide?

CHRISTINE SHELLEY: Well, as I think you know, the use of the term "genocide" has a very precise legal meaning, although it's not strictly a legal determination. There are—there are other factors in there, as well. When—in looking at a situation to make a determination about that, before we begin to use that term, we have to know as much as possible about the facts of the situation.

REPORTER 2: Just out of curiosity, given that so many people say that there is genocide underway, or something that strongly resembles it, why wouldn't this convention be invoked?

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: Well, I think, as you know, this becomes a legal definitional thing, unfortunately, in terms of—as horrendous as all these things are, there becomes a definitional question.

Finally, at the end of May, as hundreds of thousands lay dead across Rwanda, the Clinton Administration changed its policy and began using the term. But even then they took great pains to use a carefully-constructed legalism; while they would admit that there may have been "acts of genocide" occurring, they drew a distinction between these and "genocide," in the apparent belief that this would keep them from triggering the Genocide Convention.

Again, reporters tried to get a straight answer:

CHRISTINE SHELLEY: We have every reason to believe that acts of genocide have occurred.

ALAN ELSNER (REUTERS): How many acts of genocide does it take to make genocide?

CHRISTINE SHELLEY: Alan, that's just not a question that I'm in a position to answer.

ALAN ELSNER: Is it true that the—that you have specific guidance not use the word "genocide" in isolation, but always to preface it with this—this word, "acts of"?

CHRISTINE SHELLEY: I have guidance, which—to which I—which I try to use as best as I can. I'm not—I have—there are formulations that we are using that we are trying to be consistent in our use of.

Alan Elsner later described his incredulity at the Administration's non-responsiveness:

The answers they were giving were really non-answers. They would talk in incredibly bureaucratic language. In a sense, it was almost like a caricature. If you look at it now, it looks utterly ridiculous. These were all kind of artful ways of doing nothing, which is what they were determined to do.

Not only did the Clinton Administration adopt a policy of refusing to recognize the genocide, but it pressured other countries to do the same. Former Czech Ambassador to the U.N. Karel Kovanda recalled that his government was pressured by the U.S. not to use the term:

KAREL KOVANDA: I know that I personally had an important conversation with one of my superiors in Prague who at American behest suggested that they lay off.

INTERVIEWER: Lay off calling it genocide?

KAREL KOVANDA: Yeah. Lay off pushing Rwanda, in general, and calling it genocide specifically.

INTERVIEWER: So the Americans had actually talked to your government back in Prague and said, 'Don't let's call it genocide.'

KAREL KOVANDA: In Prague or in Washington, but they were talking to my superiors, yes.

There is much to be revolted by here. Despite Clinton's promise that he would never sit idly by while genocide was occurring, not only was he doing exactly that, but his administration actually perpetrated a planned act of genocide denial specifically in order to avoid having to prevent a genocide from occurring. As The Guardian reported, the Clinton Administration, "felt the US had no interests in Rwanda, a small central African country with no minerals or strategic value." Thanks to Rwanda's lack of minerals, the world's most powerful nation was content to let 800,000 people have their faces chopped off with machetes.

But even this underplays the Clinton Administration's responsibility. It's true that the U.S. government both deliberately refused to send forces to Rwanda and deceived the world about whether a genocide was occurring.

It's also true that both then and now, Bill Clinton pretended that there was too little information to come to any conclusions all while receiving detailed briefings on the genocide (as it was simultaneously splashed across the daily papers). But perhaps even worse, the Clinton Administration actually took affirmative steps to keep the United Nations from sending a force to Rwanda. As Samantha Power explains:

In reality the United States did much more than fail to send troops. It led a successful effort to remove most of the UN peacekeepers who were already in Rwanda. It aggressively worked to block the subsequent authorization of UN reinforcements.

Trump Won

Anti Social Distancing

Defund Police....start with former presidents' secret service.

Calypso Jones

Christine Shelley died in 2004. 

https://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x730809

DemocratUnderpants made it sound like that recording of her defining genocide in the movie was a good thing.  LOL
Trump Won

Anti Social Distancing

Defund Police....start with former presidents' secret service.

Tory Potter

Lt. Gen. Romeo Dallaire is still living with that betrayal.  :cursing:
"My luck is so bad, if I bought a cemetery, people would stop dying."
Mary Taylor (Fictional character on Coronation Street)

Calypso Jones

Quote from: Tory Potter on May 31, 2020, 12:06:56 PM
Lt. Gen. Romeo Dallaire is still living with that betrayal.  :cursing:

That movie made him into the biggest A'hole in UN history.   
Trump Won

Anti Social Distancing

Defund Police....start with former presidents' secret service.

Tory Potter

I never saw the movie, but he is an officer of distinction, a Senator of integrety and a survivor of PTSD.
"My luck is so bad, if I bought a cemetery, people would stop dying."
Mary Taylor (Fictional character on Coronation Street)