RWANDA

DOUG MELINO, Frontline reporter, December 22, 2003
CZIKOWSKY: How much warning did anyone have prior to the genocide? Was there anything the international community could have done to prevent this slaughter?
MERLINO: I guess for about 40 years before the genocide there had been outbreaks of violence against the Tutsis. I don’t think for the ordinary Rwandan—it’d become a fact of life. At the beginning, the genocide started fast and I don’t think anyone imagined it becoming as awful as it did. As far as the U.N.—there was a force on the ground and the leader had been cabling back to NY asking for more reinforcements and an expansion of his power, which was denied. But most think that the bloodshed could have been stopped because you had killers with primitive weapons and maybe 5K or so troops with modern weapons probably could have stopped it.

KIRON K. SKINNER, Bush-Cheney 2004 Foreign Policy Advisor, August 17, 2004
CZIKOWSKY: Why isn’t the Bush Administration shifting troops outside Rwanda? To prevent genocide, shouldn’t we be prepared to accompany and thus assure the delivery of food and supplies to people before thousands more die?
SKINNER: Let us think for a minute about the G-8 summit in Sea Island, Georgia in June. It was an historic summit of the leading industrialized nations. It was historic, in my view, for the very fact that African leaders were included in core sessions of the summit to address their economic and security needs. A number of G-8 initiatives grew out of the summit, and they will help Africa’s partners around the world attempt to stop the genocide, issues of poverty, AIDS, and so on. Please consult some of the communiqués of the summit.