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National Security Archive Update, August 20, 2001
*ARCHIVE RELEASES US DOCUMENTS ON RWANDAN GENOCIDE*
http://www.nsarchive.org/NSAEBB/NSAEBB53/press.html
Washington, D.C., August 20 - Today the National Security Archive publishes on the World Wide Web sixteen declassified US government documents detailing how US policymakers chose to be ``bystanders'' during the genocide that decimated Rwanda in 1994. The documents include those cited in the new investigative account, ``Bystanders to Genocide: Why the United States Let the Rwandan Tragedy Happen'', by Samantha Power, in the September 2001 issue of The Atlantic Monthly.
Power's account is the result of a three-year investigation involving more than 60 interviews of US policymakers and scores of interviews with Rwandan, European and United Nations officials. It also draws on hundreds of pages of recently declassified US government documentation obtained under the US Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by the National Security Archive's William Ferroggiaro. The documents demonstrate what US officials knew about the genocide, what options were considered, and how and why they chose to avoid intervening in the slaughter.
The documents published today show that:
* Contrary to later public statements, the US lobbied the UN for a total withdrawal of UN forces in Rwanda in April 1994;
* Secretary of State Warren Christopher did not authorize officials to use the term ``genocide'' until May 21, and even then, US officials waited another three weeks before using the term in public;
* Bureaucratic infighting slowed the US response to the genocide;
* The US refused to ``jam'' extremist radio broadcasts inciting the killing because of costs and concern with international law;
* US officials knew exactly who was leading the genocide, and actually spoke with those leaders to urge an end to the violence.
Ferroggiaro, who is the Director of the Archive's Freedom of Information Project, said ``Until now, we could only speculate as to what US officials knew about the genocide or what they were arguing in closed diplomatic forums. Samantha Power's account lays bare the motivations and perspectives of US officials; the documents provide essential evidence of official inaction in the face of the slaughter in Rwanda in 1994.'' Ferroggiaro heads the Archive's effort to obtain the declassification of all relevant US policy documentation on the Rwandan genocide.
The documents are available at the following URL: http://www.nsarchive.org/NSAEBB/NSAEBB53/press.html