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West âguiltyâ over Rwanda genocide
Tuesday, April 6, 2004 Posted: 7:42 AM EDT (1142 GMT)KIGALI, Rwanda -- Western powers bear "criminal responsibility" for Rwandaâs 1994 genocide because they did not attempt to stop it, the commander of the U.N. peacekeeping force in the country at the time has said. Oh, so Kofi Annan doesnât "accept blame" in this after all? Wasnât he recently quoted as saying: "I realised after the genocide that there was more that I could and should have done to sound the alarm and rally support." "The international community didnât give one damn for Rwandans because Rwanda was a country of no strategic importance," General Romeo Dallaire told a conference in Kigali marking the 10th anniversary of the slaughter. "Itâs up to Rwanda not to let others forget they are criminally responsible for the genocide," he said, singling out France, Britain and the United States. "The genocide was brutal, criminal and disgusting and continued for 100 days under the eyes of the international community." Hey, itâs not like Africa doesnât have one of these every fifteen stinking minutes. America, Britain and France all support the UN specifically so it can respond to these sorts of crimes against humanity. Rwandaâs genocide began on the night of April 6, 1994, after the shooting down of a plane carrying the Rwandan and Burundian presidents, who both died in the crash near Kigali. And the finger points directly at current Rwandan president, Paul Kagame, for ordering the shootdown. More African on African violence, anyone? Nearly one million Tutsis and Hutu moderates were butchered by Hutu extremists in 100 days of brutal and unrestrained violence. The 57-year-old Canadian Dallaire was commander of a small U.N. peacekeeping force already in Rwanda when the genocide began. Months earlier he had raised the alarm in an SOS to the United Nations. He suffered He told CNNâs Christiane Amanpour: "Rwanda was tribalism. They simplified it. Let black Africans do that and when they are finished weâll pick up some of the pieces. "I donât think thereâs any justification for what happened, it was a shameful episode for collective shame." Good luck in trying to see if Iâll bleed all over this one. Dallaire battled for a more robust U.N. peacekeeping mission with a mandate to stop the killings, but Security Council members voted instead to cut his force from 2,500 troops to 450 poorly trained and ill-equipped men. Dallaire said on Tuesday events in Somalia in 1993, when 18 U.S. troops supporting a U.N. peace mission were killed and one of their bodies was dragged through the streets, had created a "fear of casualties" in the West. Maybe it wasnât a "fear of casualties," you rotter. It might have something to do with a consistent pattern of corrupt and ungrateful responses to international peacekeeping efforts. Can you say, "Warlords in Mogadishu?" Rwandan President Paul Isnât this a classic example of "one hand washing the other?" Excuse me, I need to puke. The ironyâs a bit more than I can stand right now. Kagame led the rebel army which ousted the extremist Hutu government that planned and carried out the three months of mass killings initially ignored by world leaders. This sort of Western apologist crap merely legitimizes the acts of butchers like Kagame. No one forced the Hutus to perform mass amputations and gang rapes. They elected to make an abattoir of their own country and they alone carry the blame. Until sub-Saharan Africa comes to its senses and realizes that genocide, cannibalism and mass rape are not valid wartime strategies, they will not have the least moral claim upon any Western assistance. Northern Nigerian Islamists are spawning a new polio epidemic even as I type this. Try and blame me for that one, Dallaire! Posted by: Zenster 2004-04-06 |
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