(New York, April 6, 1999)—On the fifth anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda, Human Rights Watch called on the U.S. government to order a thorough and transparent inquiry into the U.S. failure to respond to that catastrophe. On April 6, 1994, a small band of ruthless politicians launched an extermination campaign that killed over half a million Tutsi and Hutu allied with them. A comprehensive study of the genocide published last week by Human Rights Watch and the International Federation of Human Rights Leagues showed that the U.S. saw saving money as more important than saving lives both before and during the tragedy.
|
|
|
"Telling the truth about what happened during the genocide is the best way to honor the memory of the victims. U.S. authorities must come to terms with their guilt over failing to intervene in the genocide and they must help establish an accurate record of the events."
|
Alison Des Forges
Consultant for Human Rights Watch
|
|
In a visit to Rwanda last year, President Clinton admitted he and his administration refused to heed cries for help from genocide victims. Alison Des Forges, author of the genocide study entitled Leave None to Tell the Story, said that Clinton's admission was not enough. "U.S. authorities must go beyond easy, generic apologies. Only if we really look at what went wrong can we learn the necessary lessons for the future."
The U.S. is the only major international actor in the genocide not to have agreed to investigate its role in the 1994 slaughter that killed more than half a million people. Parliamentary commissions in France and Belgium have held extensive hearings and published reports of hundreds of pages each. The Organization of African Unity is currently conducting an investigation and Secretary-General Kofi Annan has announced that an independent panel will look into the role of the U.N. in the Rwandan tragedy.
"Telling the truth about what happened during the genocide is the best way to honor the memory of the victims," said Des Forges. "U.S. authorities must come to terms with their guilt over failing to intervene in the genocide and they must help establish an accurate record of the events. An honest record is essential to assessing responsibility for various foreign actors. It also offers the only basis for meaningful relations between the U.S. and Rwanda in the future."