By the end of World War II, the United States (U.S.) became fully entrenched as one of the two most powerful countries in the world, along with the Soviet Union. There are countless responsibilities and duties that go along with being the most powerful and influential country in the world. The U.S. is charged with being the “world’s police,” making sure that the leaders of countries follow International Laws and do not mistreat their citizens. When World War II ended, the U.S. was one of the main countries that took part in the trials of the individuals involved with the Holocaust, and at the same time created a new type of crime called genocide, outlined in the Genocide Convention. The purpose of the Convention was to prevent another Holocaust from occurring (Steven 454), a responsibility that has been placed firmly on the shoulders of the U.S., whether our leaders like it or not. This responsibility has seemed to be ignored by the U.S., however. Throughout the last thirty years multiple genocides have taken place in places such as Cambodia, Iraq, and Rwanda without intervention from the U.S. If genocide is a violation of international law, than why did the U.S. sit back and let these conflicts transpire? The lack of intervention on the part of the U.S. is a complex one but money, special interests and political interests are the major factors as to why they chose not to interfere. The genocides in Rwanda will be used as a case study.
Before analyzing the Rwandan genocides and explaining why the U.S. chose to renege on their duty to police nations who commit international crimes, it is important to understand exactly how genocide is defined. According to the Genocide Convention of 1948 explained by Samantha Power, genocide is classified as
any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such:
A. Killing members of the group;
B. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
C. Deliberately inflicting on the group the conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or part;
D. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
E. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
The perpetrator must target a specific national, ethnic, or religious group in order for it to be considered genocide. The Genocide Convention was created to condemn, prevent, and punish any individual who participated in these types of mass killings (Steven 454). This definition of genocide has been met numerous times according to the United Nations, which includes Rwanda, Cambodia, and Iraq but nobody in the international community, not even the U.S., acted in any kind of timely manner to prevent the killings from occurring. This comes even after the Pentagon sent out a memo stating that “preventing genocide is a critically important priority to the U.S. Every nation has… the duty to investigate and, if appropriate, prosecute such crimes” (Steven 444). Why has the U.S. refused to live up to its so-called duty then? The genocide in Rwanda is a perfect case study to explore.
From the beginning of the 1900s, Rwanda seemed to have all the necessary ingredients needed for a genocidal conflict: a poor uneducated country, two distinct and different tribes who did not like each other, and constant power struggles and violence within the country. The two tribes, which make up ninety-five percent (95%) of the Rwandan population are the Hutus and the Tutsis. The Hutus, the majority tribe and leaders of the government, often persecuted the minority Tutsis and prevented them from holding high-level government jobs or receiving a quality education.
Even before the genocides occurred, there was already segregation and discrimination, which led the UN, funded mostly by the U.S., to send peacekeepers to the country led by a Canadian general named Romeo Dallaire. As the international community was warned of the threat of genocide in Rwanda by investigators from human-rights groups in 1993, Dallaire began to ask for more troops to be sent to Rwanda so he could be properly prepared but his superiors told him that the U.S. would never pay for the deployment. Right away, due to monetary concerns, the U.S. already was being negligent in policing leaders to follow the Genocide Convention, which had been earlier proclaimed to be a top “priority and duty.” The Clinton Administration was tired of footing half of the UN budget and wanted to cut back their commitment. The U.S. decided to cut spending by disallowing for more soldiers to be deployed for peacekeeping purposes in African nations including Rwanda although intelligence information warned the U.S. about a genocide that was brewing. When the Rwandan President Habyarimana’s, a Hutu, plane was shot down, the surviving Hutu government accused the Tutsis of shooting down the plane over the radio, which sparked the beginning of the genocide. Thousands of Hutus took to the streets armed with machetes, killing Tutsi political leaders first and then any common Tutsi citizen after that. An estimated 8,000 Tutsis were killed each day. (Power 329-390)
As the genocide began, the U.S. did the opposite of what one would think they would do. Instead of sending troops and peacekeepers to intervene in Rwanda, they systematically evacuated all American peacekeepers who were currently stationed in Rwanda. These were some of the only people who could have helped stop the violence, but the U.S. was more worried about political interests at home and what the death of U.S. peacekeepers would mean politically. As 20,000 Rwandans were killed in the first three days of genocide, the U.S. took the public stance that it would take for the entire conflict: the clash in Rwanda was not genocide, it was a civil war; Civil war was not grounds for the U.S. to get involved. Plenty of intelligence reports were given to the U.S. government showing that a planned genocide was in fact taking place and American newspapers like the Washington Post wrote articles comparing the events in Rwanda to the Holocaust in Germany. It seems obvious that President Clinton and the U.S. government knew that what was happening in Rwanda was more than a civil war. The U.S. in fact did know it was a genocide, but “shunned the word for fear of being obliged to act” (Power 364). In hindsight, the U.S. is accepting the fact that they did have a duty to stop it, but that they not want to act.
General Dallaire continued to ask for more troops but his desires were continuously rebuked. The U.S. even led a charge to evacuate the remaining UN and American forces from the country. They wanted to prevent an incident similar to what happened in Somalia. During a standard mission with low risk in Somalia, eighteen American soldiers were killed, seventy-three wounded, and one Black Hawk helicopter pilot captured (Power 375). Somalia ended up being a public relations nightmare for the U.S. government and a mess that they wanted to avoid at all costs. This clearly demonstrated that U.S. political interests were directing the lack of inaction in Rwanda. Throughout the entire 100-day ordeal, 800,000 Tutsis were killed due to the negligence of the U.S. Four years after the genocide occurred, the U.S. finally recognized the Rwandan killings as genocide and admitted that they did not do enough to try and prevent the genocide from occurring (Power 386).
The details of what happened in Rwanda are extremely eye-opening. Thousands were killed each day and the U.S. knew it was happening! One would think that the self-proclaimed righteous all around good country would have stepped in to stop the genocide, but they did not. Rather, the way the government handled the Rwanda situation is consistent with the way they handled previous genocidal events. Why has the U.S. government chose such inaction when countries are blatantly violating international laws and committing crimes against humanity? As was the case in Rwanda, money , self-interest, and political interests can explain why.
When looking at the aspect of money, it seems fairly obvious as to why the U.S. would choose not to intervene in conflicts. U.S. involvement in genocidal situations is a costly one. While they typically are part of UN coalitions with soldiers and funds from different countries around the world, make no mistake about it; the U.S. is always footing a large majority of the bill. During the early 1990’s when Rwanda, occurred the U.S. was on the hook for over half a billion dollars, something that the U.S. government was tired of doing (Power 362). Sending U.S. troops to an unstable region is a costly and bloody proposition.
With money, however, often come special interests. The money America spends or gives in aid to other countries can often shape our leaders’ interests. In Northern Iraq, Saddam Hussein killed 300,000 Kurds during the 1980s, but one of reasons why the U.S. decided to turn its head from the killing was because the U.S. was giving Iraq over $500 million per year in agriculture credits that the country could use to buy American grain, wheat, and rice (Power 173). American farmers were profiting heavily from such Iraqi credits, and the U.S. government was afraid that denouncing the death of the Kurds in Iraq, their relationship, and therefore the economic profit that the U.S. was making off of Iraq, would be lost. The U.S. provides billions in aid and credits to numerous countries around the world, which gives the government a special interest in the said country. The government is essentially admitting that while there is an international duty and responsibility to stop genocide, making sure that American financial interests are protected takes priority.
While special interests and money are two reasons that explain why the U.S. government has sat on its proverbial hands through multiple genocides, the most important reason has to do with the political interests and policies of the government itself. The U.S. did not want to get involved in Rwanda because of the fear of another Somalia, which was a political and publicity nightmare. The U.S. took a similar approach in dealing with Cambodia in the 1970’s. In Cambodia, the Communist leader, Pol Pot, systematically killed twenty-five percent (25%) of the entire Cambodian population to which the United States chose to do nothing. The U.S. was still reeling from the very controversial and unsuccessful Vietnam War. Included in the war was heavy bombing in Cambodia at the end of the war. This bombing was supposed to be discreet but ended up angering American citizens when details were leaked. The American public came to distrust the actions of the U.S. army in Southeast Asia which. Once the U.S. was forced to scale back their involvement in the region due to unpopularity, there was no way that American leaders could go back so soon—even to stop genocide in Cambodia. Just as the Clinton Administration did not want to have another Somalia incident in Rwanda, the United States knew that going back to Southeast Asia would not be met positively. It would be political suicide. Therefore, due to political interest, the U.S. decided not to intervene.
U.S. political interests and lack of action are a common theme with genocide. When the secular Iraq was killing the Kurds in the mid 1980’s, they were also fighting a war with Iran, which was a huge threat to U.S. interests in the Middle East. The U.S. needed to maintain a good relationship with Iraq since they were fighting an enemy, Iran. This put the U.S. in a sticky situation because they could not support Iraq in their war against Iran and simultaneously intervene within the country to stop attacks on the Kurds. Moreover, any kind of intervention would be met with Iraqi force, which would weaken Iraq’s prospects in the war against Iran. Conflicting political interests and policies are the best explanation as to why the United States does not act when there is clear evidence of genocide. Even as the Holocaust was well on its way, the United States denied such claims and chose to take the isolationist approach. It was not until America was attacked by Japan at Pearl Harbor that they fully entered the war and attacked Germany. This clearly illustrates that the U.S. is uninterested in stopping genocide unless American political interests are involved.
How does the U.S. gain from stopping genocide in a country like Rwanda, Cambodia, or Iraq? Whether good or bad (and it is bad), this seems to be the question American leaders have used for over thirty years. When the U.S. has no real interest and is going to be forced to spend an excess amount of money, man-power, and time for little-to-no gain the government chooses not to act. Instead, the U.S. will deny that genocide or anything of the like is occurring. They will not even consider calling it genocide or the “g-word” for fear of being obligated to intervene. The United States only wants to intervene if they want to intervene. History has shown that they rarely will take action.
The United State’s policy on genocide is a depressing and disgusting one. It is a country that is looked at as a world leader and one that should not allow other countries to clearly violate international law. It seems that more and more, our world revolves around greed and self-interest. Unfortunately, the leaders who make up the brain trust of the United States have shown to be no different. The U.S. has come to value money and self-interest over the human lives of those around the world. This idea must change, and it must change quickly. Continued U.S. inaction will embolden future leaders who think about committing genocide. The U.S. is setting an example from precedent: if genocide is committed, nothing will be done about it until after the fact.
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