"Be careful … Genocide finding could commit U.S.G. to actually 'do something.'"

http://www.democracynow.org/2014/4/7/refusing_to_call_it_genocide_documents

"Declassified U.S. documents show the Clinton administration refused to label the 1994 mass killings in Rwanda as a genocide. One State Department document read: "Be careful … Genocide finding could commit U.S.G. to actually 'do something.'" At a press briefing in 1994, Reuters correspondent Alan Elsner asked: "How many acts of genocide does it take to make genocide?" State Department spokesperson Christine Shelley responded, "Alan, that’s just not a question that I’m in a position to answer." Samantha Power, who is now the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, described the U.S. inaction in her 2001 article, "Bystanders to Genocide." She wrote, "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." We speak to Emily Willard of the National Security Archive, and University of Wisconsin, Madison, Professor Scott Straus, author of "The Order of Genocide: Race, Power, and War in Rwanda."

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2 replies	Author	Time	Post
"Be careful … Genocide finding could commit U.S.G. to actually 'do something.'" (Original post)	Baobab	May 2016	OP
Ironically, in the 2000 campaign, W praised Clinton's staying out of Rwanda	Recursion	May 2016	#1
It was a rape of nanjing situation...	Baobab	May 2016	#2