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CIAO DATE: 11/5/2006
A Tale of Two Genocides: The Failed U.S. Response to Rwanda and Darfur
September 2006
Introduction
In 1994, an estimated 800,000 people died in Rwanda, as the U.S. and the international community failed to mount an intervention to stop genocide. Senior U.S. officials later expressed regret, and acknowledged that this crime against humanity should have invoked a more urgent and active response. It is reported that President Bush reviewed a memo on the Rwandan genocide early in his presidency and wrote “Not on my Watch” in the margin of that document.
Less than a decade after the Rwandan genocide, the U.S. was faced with another unfolding genocide in Africa, this time in Darfur, western Sudan. In early 2003, the government of Sudan and its proxy militias unleashed a scorched earth campaign, targeting civilians from three African communities in Darfur and causing untold death and destruction.
More than three years later, the Darfur genocide is continuing on the Bush Administration’s watch. The U.S. has again failed to take the action necessary to stop the violence and protect civilians from genocide. The dynamics are different on the ground and internationally, and the level of engagement among policymakers and the public is different in this case, too. But the failure to stop genocide once again is clear, and the outcome remains the same – the loss of hundreds of thousands of African lives as the world looks on.
This report by Africa Action identifies patterns in the U.S. response to the Rwandan genocide in 1994 and to the current genocide in Darfur, Sudan. It explores the similarities and differences in the reaction of U.S. policymakers and the American public, and it examines the important lessons the U.S. has yet to learn. Finally, Africa Action lays out in this report the actions needed now from the U.S. to stop the genocide in Darfur. It underscores the possibility and necessity of a more urgent and effective U.S. response to this genocide, and the obligation of the entire international community to assert its responsibility to protect the people of Darfur.
This Africa Action report is released on September 9, 2006 to mark the two-year anniversary of the Bush Administration’s acknowledgement that what is happening in Darfur constitutes genocide. The passage of this anniversary and the continuation of the genocide in Darfur indicate the inadequacy of U.S. policies in response to this crisis.
