On Anniversary of Rwandan Genocide, Bill Clinton’s Words Ring Hollow

[Divernan]

3. I guess it just depended on what the meaning of "genocide" is.

But according to a review panel’s newly released transcript and declassified State Department documents obtained by Colum Lynch of Foreign Policy from the Holocaust Memorial Museum, the administration had been warned of the planned genocide more than a year prior.

“I must rebut rapidly. President Clinton did not want to know,” Lt. Gen. Roméo Dallaire, the U.N.’s Canadian force commander said. “I hold Clinton accountable. He can excuse himself as much as he wants to the Rwandans, but he established a policy that he did not want to know.”

Then-Deputy Chief of Mission in Kigali Joyce Leader sent Washington a cable warning that Hutu extremists with links to Rwanda’s ruling party were advocating the extermination of ethnic Tutsis. The Clinton administration scapegoated what they depicted as a broken down bureaucracy that failed, a claim still repeated by officials.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/04/05/rwanda-revisited-genocide-united-states-state-department/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=*Situation%20Report&utm_campaign=SitRepAprl2015

Exclusive: Rwanda Revisited

Former President Clinton said he never knew the extent of suffering during Rwanda's genocide. But America's diplomats on the ground knew exactly what was happening -- and they told Washington.