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The US certainly had a hand to play, and did more then inaction to make the situation worse.

"Kagame is only in place at all because he serves a purpose

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/sep/12/americas-secret-role-in-the-rwandan-genocide

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/12/07/exposing-the-crimes-of-the-cias-fair-haired-boy-paul-kagame-and-the-rwandan-patriotic-front/

https://harpers.org/archive/2019/08/brutal-from-the-beginning-paul-kagame-rwanda/"

Links were provided to me from a fellow i was discussing with on matters related to kagame and how much a shite guy he was.

Of a horrific topic. I knew some stuff about it, but this report is stomach-churning. Holy Moses.

The West stopped ethnic cleansing in the Balkans. The UK stopped a civil war in Sierra Leone. France was helping fight against Islamic terrorists in Mali.

I agree its not always morality driven. In fact I’d say its mostly not - it’s mostly driven by self interest. But there has been times where interventions have had in part been driven by morals.

>Then Rwanda happens, all the western nations are frozen. Do they send in troops and get shit on at home and abroad about being the "world police"?

No that's fair enough - but I think the crux of the issue here is that France was already operating in Rwanda. Civil war had broken out a few years earlier and France were already there, supporting the government against the rebels, training them, supplying them, etc.

Then, government-sanctioned gangs start up the genocide and France just... ignores it, because they don't want the rebels to gain ground. Hell, the French govt were aware that the "Presidential Guard", who they had trained, were actively murdering civilians (page 327).

It's one thing to jump into another nation's affairs, but it's another thing entirely to do nothing when you've already jumped in.

Seriously.

One of the stories (Page xviii) is of a terrified woman being chased by a gang. She runs out and collides with a parked car that two French soldiers are sitting in, desperate for help. One of the murderers comes up, sees the French soldiers, sees that they don't move, and drags the woman off. Later, they "kindly acknowledge" the French soldiers with a "smile and a friendly wave".

> The US got roundly criticized for intervening in Somalia.
> ...
> Then Rwanda happens

For reference, those were only 6 months apart:

• Oct 3, 1993: Battle of Mogadishu ("Black Hawk Down")
• April 7, 1994: Rwandan genocide starts

The fact that so little time passed between those two events is highly likely to have played a role in determining the response to the latter.

Your description of the US (and the west in general) as a morality-driven force doesnt reflect the reality at all.

France implicated in/doing something bad in Africa?!?! How unexpected

Hasn’t this already been thoroughly documented?

The West is always in a damned if you do damned if you don’t in these sort of situations. You’ll have just as many people on one side saying its right to intervene to stop genocide / revolution / terrorism, etc than you will on the other saying its neocolonialism / tyrannical, etc.

The church in Nyamata is intentionally left like that. The Rwandan Government has taken out LOTS of money to upgrade certain sites of the genocide. They left Nyamata alone because of its rawness

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The problem at the time is that intervention was seen as neo-colonialist and bad. The US got roundly criticized for intervening in Somalia. People rightfully asked why the hell western troops were being sent to third world nations on peacekeeping operations which seemed to only produce collateral damage and bad blood between the occupiers and occupied.

Then Rwanda happens, all the western nations are frozen. Do they send in troops and get shit on at home and abroad about being the "world police"? Needlessly interfering with other people's problems. Perpetuating warfare by being in a place no one asked them to be in. They clearly were stuck in a catch-22, chose to try to downplay the genocide and hope it blows over so they could get out of having an occupying force overseas. Didn't happen and it looked bad.

A couple years later Kosovo happens, You see the USA and UN step up, they didn't want a repeat of Rwanda.

If you recall, Clinton later confessed his inaction was one of his biggest regrets? https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2014/02/bill-clinton-regrets-rwanda-now-not-so-much-in-1994 Woulda-Coulda. I hope we learn from history with enough gusto to practice peace, with force if necessary.

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I went to a Rwandan Church memorial in Nyamata in 2019. Hit harder than anything I have seen before anywhere because it was so fresh and in such an underdeveloped part of the world. They don’t have enough money to memorialize in any grand way but do the best they can. This church had pews and pews full of blood stained clothing. The doors and walls still had bullet holes. The outer door was still fragmented from a grenade. It honestly felt like they were still continuing to even clean up after the massacre.

There are obviously still fresh wounds and current political implications at play with regards to the events discussed in this article. Our priority here at this subreddit is to focus on the things that happened at least 20 years ago, and not those reverberating effects still occurring now.

With an event so closely tied to more modern politics and a story that clearly has some modern political implications the line between acceptable and rule breaking can be very blurry.

So we just ask that you try your best to ensure that the main focus here is on the past events (i.e. whether France was actually complicit in the 1994 genocide) and less so on the present events (i.e. how politicians might currently be acting regarding it). If you are unsure or have any questions feel free to contact the mods via modmail.

OMG that must of sound amazing especially the echos that you get when indoors

I'm not saying they don't have jobs I am saying those jobs themselves are a waste of time.