Transcripts For CSPAN3 Lectures In History 20141005

Science professor arthur vanden houten and Flagler College history Professor John young taught a class on the the rwandan genocide and the response by the u. S. And the United Nations. The professors placed particular emphasis on the slow reaction to the crisis from the International Community and how that then shaped 21st century Foreign Policy for many countries. This is about two hours. So, i mean as a kind of overview just to refresh everyones memory here, we started with an overview of the history of it. Rwanda. Talked about how the genocide was an outgrowth of 19th and 20th century rwandan history. There were tensions between ious as his cities ethnicities, various groups. This was exacerbated by colonialism the germans and the , belgians defining people by ethnicity. And 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 from uganda of the ruewanda Rwanda Patriotic front. This violence escalated through the early 1990s. There were reprise old reprisal killings in rwanda. That brings us to our topic of genocide and the u. S. And International Response to the genocide. Ok, so we are going to talk tonight about the kind of narrative of the genocide itself. What happened between late 1993 and the middle of 1994. Of course, the genocide itself taking place over 100 days between april 6, 1994 and midjuly, early to mid july of 1994. We do this through a number of books that our students have been exposed to. Maybe we should talk about them. We have samantha power, a problem from hell, which is an overview of the u. S. Response to genocide beginning with armenia and the nazi genocide. Chapters on cambodia, rewind up. We have also read for tonight,. Omeo dallaire his account in the peacekeeping force in the United Nations force in rwanda. For rwanda, excuse me. , a canadian general, never saw combat from before this time. Accepted this command in late 1993. Found himself in a maelstrom of Epic Proportions in 1994 and a unique witness to this whole thing. We have studied dallaire. We have read power. We have read a number of primary witnessesictims and and perpetrators of the genocide. Thats where were left tonight. Weve also encountered on on an aesthetic level through film and other things. I think this leaves us very well prepared to talk about from an intellectual and emotional standpoint, the u. S. Response and the International Response to this whole thing. One thing i would just add to that is obviously during the course of the semester weve 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, weve seen the course progressing to the time where we would spend, you know, two solid weeks on the rwandan genocide because of its implications for policy in the 21st century because so many of the issues weve confronted through the semester crystallize here. Theres 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 position where many of the issues weve grappled with during the semester are really in front of us at this point. It seemed appropriate to synthesize some of these ideas. In a way, the rwanda genocide is the climax of this course. This is the most obvious case of genocide since the nazi holocaust. Its an obvious case. It fits the definition. People were singled out, targeted. There was an attempted extermination. If they had not been successful in their military endeavors to retake the country in 1994, this might have led ultimately to full extermination. In a way its the most complete of all of the genocides. The pace of genocide is frighten ing. That in 100 days, 800,000 is kind of the official toll or the toll that is accepted. Maybe more than a million. Its uncertain exactly how many people were killed, but a frightening number of people were killed. This genocide also produces some serious emotional resonance, as weve seen also already. In this course already. In confronting this weve all , felt the emotions of this topic. I think rwanda brings a lot of this to the fore, particularly the emotional frustration as we encounter the u. S. And the International Response to all of this. We stood helplessly by. And let this happen. As yoution here at wer, howd dallaire, po have you experienced this frustration . What has been your experience as students with this . Tiffany. Anger. Ok. I marked it down every time he says we could have done this but we didnt do this. Every time he mentioned i tried to get this through. I told them this was going to happen, and nobody reacted. Or the reaction was were not going to worry about it. We wont have the resources. We cant let you do that. We wont let you do this. Its so frustrating. And angering to read that. They had so many opportunities, one after another, to intervene, and they never did. Okay. Other responses. Yeah, eddie. Half measures like they didnt make true on their promises. Especially the International Community. I think it was midmay when he called for reinforcements around 5000 men. The u. N. Agreed on it, but none of the countries sent men. They all argued who should sent the men. Send the men. When it came down to just logistics. It wasnt even about the lives, it was the logistics. The money and resources they koe could allocate to the problem. Eventually led to them not really responding at all. I think thats an excellent point. Were 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, but what was actually sent, what was actually provided was a pittance. And that is exaggerating it, really. They sent damaged 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 sent was paltry compared to what could have been sent and what really should have been sent, probably. David . For me the most difficult aspect of everything. As you mentioned there were so many logistical and technical problem thats werent 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. They seemed to only be basing their intervention on the symbol of international intervention. But there is no practically applied leadership to those promises. And ultimately when you have that it cant be just words. You cannot base anything on symbolism. The symbols mean nothing when it comes to the ground. How did they seem to call out for this weight or heft or force behind the rhetoric . It was the john not john, but the cameroonian . The u. N. Political attache, the one who was really in charge of the entire mission. Special representative. Contacts inires 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 didnt regard anything he had to say. Their response was no, youre straying from the bounds of your mission. I think ultimately that was to me, it was the most concerning. It is so striking in dellaire how frequently people hes appealing to seem to be playing defense. They seem to be looking for ways to actively avoid what hes calling for or what seems to be compelling based on the circumstances. Yeah, go on. Often this is out of selfinterest. 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 perhaps, and hindsight is 20 20, we can look it back at this and say, people should have acted differently, but the blatant self interest that comes across so many times, the careerism that seems to be happening so often is particularly concerning. Elizabeth . Yes, how out of touch everyone seems to be and dallaire even acknowledges that in the beginning when he talks about the peacekeeping manual is written for a post world war ii world, not a postcold war world. I think that it is reinforced when you see the inaction but completely out of touch with whats going on on the ground. We saw that in bosnia. We see that here. Even in cambodia, there was the disbelief because thats 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 aid, right . Never is this more striking than, i think, Madeleine Albrights statement after the pullout where they reduce the size of u. N. Troops on the 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 peacekeepers. And she says, and this is a quote they are to have a small skeletal operation to show the will of the International Community. Were not going to tolerate the killing of innocent civilians, so we are going to leave people in the country to show that we have a will, right . 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 find the clearance, but when france decided to send in operation turquoise, they were there like that, you know . So that was very frustrating, to show that they had the capability and there was this bureaucratic paper work to go through. Or even more frustrating, once the United States decided to get involved to aid the refugee crisis, which was mostly hutus, 1. 7 million hutus fleeing into neighboring, what aire, whatesire z is now the democratic republic of congo. At that point, you know, all sorts of aid was martialed. I guess this was a bandaid on an open wound of the aorta. Were going to do something at this point, but in dallaires words, what is the title of that last chapter . Too much too late. Too much and far too late. It really rings very hollow. One of the most interesting things out of dallaires book, the hindering fact, the fact that you only had a very small number of leaders. Dallaire was the force commander. He had no political until later, the very useless leader who came in. Before that the political commander got sick and he did not come in. There was no replacement for him. You had this very unexperienced general, who not only had to work with the political aspect of the country, but who was also supposed to do this preparedness and security grunt work, but at the same time, one of the quotes was what page are you on . 106. Of power or dallaire . Dallaire. This writing i think goes with the conversation were having where he says, i also thought that planting the flag would serve the same symbolic purpose was my flag rising. He says we were still having endless administration and resource problems. Later he says the colonel radioed back to say they did not have paper or pencils to write with. Requests for more had been denied for budgetary reasons. He says it is maddening i was forced to fight a petty internal war over office supplies. He talks about they did not have kitchens, food. They had to struggle with lodging for the soldiers. It was a struggle to get soldiers in the first place. The fact that they get there and they do not have the resources they need to maintain a decent living style. These are some of the most basic failures. Except for the belgians, of course. Why were the belgians quarters . Ce 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. They were not to be in tents. This was not for the comfort or anything like that of the soldiers. It was to put on a good show in front of africans who were inferior peoples in their eyes. It was a blatant relic of colonialism. The belgians were the colonialists and that hadnt disappeared in the 1990s even though they had been gone for 35 years. Tiffany. I think what was really frustrating about this is the denying of resources. All they had to do is sign off on them. When it comes down to where dallaire is going to be housed he wants him to be in this nice almost, because he is the force commander and has to keep up appearances. Its ridiculous that hes willing to spend those resources to keep up appearances but not on the resources that they need to be effective in rwanda. Yeah, yeah. Matt . When we are talking about when we are talking about belgium. I struggled on how they wanted to partake with the u. N. Just to rhonda with the because they set up the Political Landscape that allow this genocide to occur. Ir doing that the hutus and the tutsis had their identification guards and they laughed and said, basically, fend for yourself. And now they have decided they want to come back. As im reading the book they want to have their own houses spread throughout the town which is a logistical nightmare. Wouldnt you rather have all of your soldiers in one place defending each other . I do not understand what they were doing back in rwanda. They didnt seem like they had a moral reason to be here. They just wanted to come and cause a ruckus. It did not help really. I think it is also striking, coordinating the Different National groups within the force, the belgians with respect to their attitude toward the locals, the sense of superiority they had and if not a blank check, a broad writ to resort to violence. And they effectively complicated beyond measure 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. The legacy that the belgians have makes this very puzzling. The belgians were the ones that instituted the system of identity cards. Which shockingly, once the belgians left and rwanda became an independent, they kept in place. Rwandans had to register as hutu or tutsi or troi, although that was a really small group. Segment of the population. This identification card the people had to carry was really a signal for persecution. The hutu 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 oppressor. There are strange motivations going on all over the place. Right . David, do you want to respond to that . Dallaire talks about that. How concerned he is they would how the belgians soldiers would react inside the country. What i was going to say is i think its important to note that the u. N. When we say this was a u. N. Kind of mission, that almost sounds like the whole weight of u. N. Member states was behind it, but thats obviously not the case. He writes here when he sent there are more obstructionists than there are those into it. Yeah. When he sends it in, he says most countries did not comment, did not have positives or negatives. Any kind of comment to review. They probably didnt even read it, except, the countries he points out is belgium, canada had concerns about using their own troops. It was almost as if the u. N. Were just kind of seeing you could almost imagine them saying, ok, were going to rwanda and that is going to happen, whoever is in charge of that, they can handle it, that is not my duty. But it has the u. N. Name on it. A total failure and void of leadership. Elizabeth, sorry. We passed over you. That actually brought me to another question. How convinced are dallaire and power and the effect of the global complacency and the frenchs idea to remove the upper echelons of the government . I thought that was really interesting. Come in with operation turquoise. The local communities were so complacent. They saw this as a green flag. We can go in. We have this contract. We need to appear superior. I just thought it was really disturbing how the colonial legacy has maintained in africa through global complacency that has been there for generations, years, hundreds of years, and how its not looked at as such in a modern era because we see ourselves as a modern people. And so, these legacies of colonialism and slavery and all of that are persisting in the modern time, and how reluctant we are to face that. But this is the fault of the politics. To the colonial era, to even the earliest stages. Right, the french are getting their old friends out. The french are constantly supplying the rgf and supplying supplying the hutu government in the first place. They are getting supplies in. They are getting weapons in. This is part of the story that, i think, is not wellknown. The french are quite complicit in this. Absolutely. Thats created tension between rwanda and france since. As they move toward english as the official language and move away from the francophone dialects entirely. Its interesting. In the context of french politics at the time the decision to intervene takes off. You know, theres a couple of key events. One is when Nelson Mandela shortly 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 the anglophone heart of the african continent will now demonstrate leadership and they see it as they need to step in and intervene. But also domestic french politics plays a role. In the french system you have a president and Prime Minister. You can have situations where you have divided government. At this moment, you have a divided government. You have the socialist president. You have the neogaullist parties with the position of Prime Minister. And there are internal discussions among the french socialist leadership. They say, hey, were the party with the heart and this is an opportunity to demonstrate that they are, again, costcutting technocrats, and aggressive action at this moment can demonstrate that we have these moral commitments. Its 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 beneficiaries of this constituency into being the genesis theres themselves. This leads to the displaced persons camps in zaire, things like that. It continues to do stabilize the entire region. Dallaire has something to say about this. This is in the power book where he is quoted. My mission was to save rwanda. 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. Uhhuh. But particularly in this case, right . These are Photo Opportunities for so many people in the International Community that we are doing something about the tragedies that are occurring in africa. Lets send diplomats and political figures. President clinton makes it there a few weeks after the genocide has stopped. And these are photo ops. But there is no risk involved in any of these things. Dallaire and a few others are left with the entire burden of risk through this entire story. Shannon, you have had your hand up for a while. Drawing from this idea sort of, i found myself disgruntled s constantly bring up the fact that there are so many other issues going on in terms of the Global Community trying to face former yugoslavia s conflict in particular. I guess it is easy to see it in retrospect, but it was so hard to read that and think what were they doing in the former yugoslavia and bosnia amounted to nothing. It was virtually nothing at all. And still you read on page 349, dallaire says, i couldnt help but thinking, too bad the slaughter was not in yugoslavia. Maybe somebody outside of rwanda would have cared. Theres 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 u. N. Are saying, yeah, but were doing all of this great stuff in the former yugoslavia and we know, of course, that wasnt 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 . Dallaire says, as it happened, the rwandan genocide was having a hard time knocking the South African elections which of course were monumental. And it is understandable why that was a big news story. But then the South African , elections and american figure skater Tonya Hardings criminal charges off the front pages. It struck me that this is the 20th anniversary year and there have been multiple specials on Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan this year, too. I dont 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 dont see anything. This is terribly concerning, i think, that 20 years on even something as big and fundamental to International Identity as this still takes a backseat to the whole Tonya Harding, Nancy Kerrigan soap opera that happened 20 years ago. Another story that received attention was kurt cobains death. In the film you may have caught that reference. And june, i think it was june 12 is the murder of nicole brown simpson, so the o. J. Simpson saga. Well, nothing will displace that. [laughter] internationally, too, i was in africa during the trial of o. J. Simpson. It was all over the news in south africa the entire time it was going on. Wow. Even there people talked about rwanda more than in the u. S. It was our oscar pistorius. Yeah, i guess so. I think power encapsulates that really well. Dallaire mentioned that one of his Main Missions was to get media feedback on the crisis. He had mark doyle from the bbc sending out stories on his Satellite Phone. I think that was pretty much it. We really gave no attention to this whatsoever. Its also interesting because our interest was reflected in disinterest was reflected in our government. So, power mentioned if we would have put up more of a fight about going over to rwanda our government would have followed what we wanted. At this point i was really struck in power, in her analysis of this. It ties into something that that david said before, right . There is a recognition on the part of the very top members of the American Government in terms of policy making that there will be no political cost for failure to take action. One of the things that becomes so central to american policy and the way it develops and unfolds and fails to intervene in any meaningful way at all is the calculations that are ultimately made and the way the policy process unfolds. The policy process gets dominated primarily in the white house. It gets they dont defer to the pentagon. They give the pentagons voice on the danger of any intervention. A great deal of weight, some of that is a legacy of 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 large. Its interesting, it to compare if you compare this to the darfur 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 constituencies in congress, in the africanamerican community, in the evangelical 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 on the government to take a more forthright posture. I dont know if aggressive is the right word. So there we get the United States government in september of 2004, identifying the events in darfur 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, i think one of her main points though is leadership could have mobilized. That president s dont have responsibility simply to be buffered in the wind by sentiment on the ground. I think it was dallaire mentioned or power that the only rwanda historian in the United States who was adequate to know what was going on was a private party. That was the only reference, the only real Major Authority we had on rwanda at this point. There is a quote from power on this. Just to show that they there was no will on the part of Course Congress is going to 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 filmed partially in rwanda. This is the heartland for gorillas. There are some groups typically worried about gorillas that something will happen to them. It sounds terrible, she says but people just dont know what can be done about the people. Right . So, i mean, its 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 protect the the silver back gorillas but 800,000 people are killed by machete. One thing that stood out to me was 1994 when they first got pre1994, 1993 when they first got reports that cia intelligence predicted the ability of a genocide happened. It talks about how they didnt encourage him to study rwanda and how it mentions they couldnt find information. How his knowledge of rwanda was merely his assistant finding a small book that she picked up and gave to him the night before he left. That is the whole concept of colonialism rearing its ugly head where they did not 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 and tried, i guess, my feeling was the disbelief that how the circulation of no desire or interest because of proximity. It builds upon itself. Its this vicious circle for sure. Andrew . I was just meant to talk about constituency groups again, u. S. Leaders use calls microt she victories, but focusing on people like the rwandan academic who was out there and who was dead we spent more time trying to find her than anyone else. It is just kind of weird to see how there is this doll and the kid does not have this Global Vision of what is going on. Use this to validate their inaction or semi action. What struck me over and over isolation. Is his isolation from the troops, from the other troops and rwanda, the ngos. Listen to him. O and he could not really communicate. Orhad one Satellite Phone something . At one point he is cut off. He cannot get to the airport. He cannot get to the airport. Travelot allowed to around without serious danger and he cant really communicate inside the country except through access to his Satellite Phone. Communication, very important. Reallyought it was ironic where you have this case up where he has one Satellite Phone. He uses it for this bbc guide to get the story out. But you would think with all of the countries not wanting to and he loses contact it is like everyone is like, yeah, he is over there. They do not seem too worried about him. And here is his wife and children stuck in canada, desperate to find out. At times, this is one of the haunting things, i think about be dallaire book. Frequent, but sporadic kind of attention to the situation at home. It is never fully resolved. Destroyedcally, this his life. And these regrets about his family and the hell he put them andugh he writes over over again. It just bleeds through at times into the narrative. Some of the most heartbreaking stuff because it is so readily identifiable, i think. Governments that one s wife. O dallaire we are here to tell you that your husband is dead, but he is not. He was nott as if they would have been like, that is done. That is probably accurate. Spective. Power backs him up. I think its probably true. Another frustration with this is one of the excuses that the American Government gives for not being involved but they dont 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 theres 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. Thats 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. Thats 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. Were in that that its 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 peoples 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 thats why you get things like president ial 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. Outlined in the beginning of dallaire when he talks about going to the offices in new york they are sexier than the peacekeeping effort. The dpko. I think, and this is my interpretation, but the unicef reaches out to children. Thats something people are familiar with. And children are seen as less threatening. When you have these peacekeeping efforts to go into rwanda, we know children can be taken and educated in the way we want them to be educated. And then the second point was we were very much, in somalia and mogadishu, the aid there was reflecting a cold war aid mentality where we did the derl we did the berlin air lift and were not participating the motivations that these people have. For hijacking the food and selling it on the black markets rather than dispersing it to the people who needed it. I think that that refers back to my point about them being out of touch and just completely unaware of what is actually happening in developing nations because they have only developed with whats going on in the developed world. Or the postwar world. They do not even know what is happening for dallaire. They dont even know what is happening with him. He was down to having a glass of water a day to wash himself. He says, there was an order and odor our men had picked up. It was very distinct and they would remember it forever, basically. Most of his rations went bad. He did not even have food. He would try to get more resources and then be denied. Or they did not have the resources to go get it in general. And then when they come in to be all proper and stuff and have this front for it. I dont know, they are 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. And the madness, right, where he says were at the end of our water supply and he says you need to get three competitive bids. In that situation. I just need 20,000 liters of water that can be brought in easily. I am not a huge proponent of the u. N. In general. I dont 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. Are you kidding me . These people these people dont have clean Drinking Water and they have to go through bureaucratic red tape to survive. There are no firms on the ground anyway. Its bizarre. This is just the disconnect that happens over and over again throughout the dallaire narrative where the people in new york do not understand or make any effort to understand whats going on in rwanda. There is complete ignorance here, which is perhaps one of the most shocking elements of the whole story. Jason. This is a complete failure of multiple actions of the International Community, but i think we have this idea that we can blame the u. N. , and dallaire says this is a failure of the member states, not the u. N. 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 u. N. Backs or becomes an enabler for the pullout, given that the belgians, after they lose their soldiers decide to pull out. They had the calculation that if they killed a few builtins, they would pullout. It would be the collapse of the if they killed a few belgians, the belgian government would immediately withdraw troops and the whole mission would collapse, right . This is one of the most damning pieces for the International Community here. Power pointed out that belgium didnt want to pull out and be the sole bad guys. So what did they do . They asked everybody else to leave with them. Yeah. Lets call up the United States and tell them we dont want to be the only ones pulling out the here and turning chicken so to speak, right . So, lets put pressure on the entire u. N. This whole operation is botched and going nowhere and dangerous and so, now, lets pull out lets pull everybody out. The u. S. Buys this. I mean, this is our ally. They dont have a invested interest in rwanda. They begin to put pressure on the u. N. To pull everybody out. They are instrumental on the decision to leave. It is clearly u. S. Pressure that causes that. That point is extremely well taken. This is one example how it is the constituent members of the the u. N. Perhaps the organization, as elizabeth points out, that theres this bureaucratic tape that just gets in the way. Bureaucracy is the enemy to all progress. Leon trotsky, and i think he is right in this situation. Even more, i think jasons point is valid that its 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 Milk International Community perpetrated visavis rwanda. Its so striking. We know the belgium Prime Minister early on appeals to the belgian foreign minister early, early on appeals to secretary of state christopher and says exactly what you are saying and a couple of other people noted, we cant be the ones who are seen as leaving rwandans to some miserable fate, and secretary christopher jumps right on board with that. We will support that to pare down the force and veto any effort to expand it and have any more prominent effect. Or certainly any pressure for broader intervention by the first world powers. There is interesting, a couple weeks where dallaire is still getting signals that the belgians are thinking of taking a more aggressive role. Nothing comes of it. 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 seems in part to reflect the experience of somalia, but i think it has more issues than that. I think thats probably the most troubling thing with that is that the International Community and the response to everything, they cant agree on aid and supporting it but the only thing they can agree is abandoning the country. Thats 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 dallaire to be part of this mission. Doesnt send out of their own troops. Wouldnt provide any other troop besides him. They would not even let him pick from his own troops. 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 just dont i mean im not a , military person. I dont perhaps understand the mentality, but what does that say about dallaire, either commendable or critical . What can we say about him given the circumstances that he places himself in here . What is going on with dallaire and his own motivations . Do you want to comment on that, tiffany . Well, at the beginning hes 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 hasnt exactly been to peacekeeping missions his men has been to. For him he sees it as a step forward with his career. At the beginning. And then going into it after he , is actually involved in this, he decides, he realizes when he is going through the refugee camps, i have to do this for the rwandan people, not just myself. It is a mission for rwanda. Right. Which was the acronym if you recall, the acronym was una, the United Nations aid mission for rwanda, but unamfer does not really work as an acronym, so he takes the mi in mission and takes out the f. But yeah hes really committed , to that word for. Dallaire is a complex individual. I think having this 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. A kind of goes back to what you are talking about. How they all agreed about how this was not about getting involved, he had the phone call from a staffer webpage or are you on . 499. He told me his estimates said it would take the death of 400,000 soldiers. Does it take that many human lives to determine if we will get involved in another country . That is what it is. It puts them on a pedestal higher. Thats not the idea behind human rights. Thats 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 dallaire with no idea of what he has faced on the ground. His own experience, and says were just running some numbers , here. We need your opinion or your assessment of things. Dallaire is confused by this and says why . Well, were just running some calculations, Risk Assessment that for every soldier we lose, that is the equivalent of losing 85,000 rwandans. What does that indicate about attitude, about bureaucracy, about this whole process that we are studying tonight . Elizabeth. You had a pretty passionate response to that. Sorry. I mean, it goes back to what struck me the most, the attitude, the superior attitude the west has to africa. Because it is a developing nation. You did not see any economic gain from being in rwanda. Were notpeople considered to be economically worthwhile to invest in. I just think it so plays on the western ethnocentrism that has permeated for centuries. And it just reinforces it out of the blue. He gets the phone call and ok, this is what we have decided. So, were are not sending anybody we have sheets, we have graphs here. We need things to go well on powerpoint this is before powerpoint probably. Eddie . It shows that bureaucracy loses the value of life. Through logistics, they are just looking at numbers now. They really look at the numbers of death instead of looking at what is actually occurring on the ground. A disconnect. They are just looking at the numbers. Oh, one life here. It is all numbers to them. From a comfortable office. In a bubble. Staring at it on a computer screen. Yeah, yeah. You get to go home from the office and live in safety while dallaire is on the ground , confused. He is barely able to survive himself. He has barely any supplies for his men. David . The character of dallaire, how i regard him is he is unbelievably unfortunate because he is not ethnocentric or eurocentric