My deepest regret, during my years in government, was that the United States did not do more, earlier, to halt the genocide that engulfed Rwanda 11 years ago this spring. In Shake Hands with the Devil, Lt. Gen. Roméo Dallaire, who served as United Nations mission commander during the tragedy, describes close-up the events U.S. officials -- including myself as U.N. ambassador -- could only track through the distorting lens of distance and other crises. God knows how much difference it might have made, but I wish now that Dallaire had been able to dial me direct.Lots of Clinton administration officials, now that they are out of office, seem eager to state that their failure to do anything during the genocide in Rwanda is one of their greatest regrets.
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As I write in my own memoir, much that was clear to Dallaire was far less clear to policymakers in Washington and New York who were at the opposite end of the telescope, separated by layers of bureaucracy and trying to do the right thing in a dozen different areas at once. The bottom line, however, is both undeniable and indefensible. The major powers were willing to intervene in Rwanda to save their own citizens, but not in a timely way to save Rwandan lives.
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Over time, the world has become reasonably good at delivering food, water and medicine to places that don't have them, but only if people with guns are not standing in the way. We have not yet developed an effective and reliable system for preventing and stopping genocide. For that to happen, citizens everywhere must push their leaders to become serious about establishing and implementing that goal. It is not enough to wait for disaster and then cry "Do something"; it is unrealistic to expect the U.S. military to answer every call; it is useless to rely on troops that are undisciplined, outnumbered, ill-equipped or under-trained; and it is naive to think that simply calling something "genocide" will automatically trigger effective action to halt violence. Preventing and stopping genocides and lesser outbreaks of mass killing will require sustained leadership, significant contingency investments, global and regional planning, military and police training, fresh thinking about the sanctity of sovereignty and a consensus -- which does not now exist -- that the world has a collective responsibility to prevent people from slaughtering each other.
Albright just said it.
Former National Security Advisor Anthony Lake more or less said it.
Even Bill Clinton said it (in a predictably self-serving manner.)
One wonders what it is about holding office that makes people unable to do something about these sorts of situations when they are actually in power, only to turn around and regret their inaction when they are out of office.
In the next few years, I'll look forward to reading about the regrets that current Bush administration officials have for their failure to do anything about Darfur.
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