More notes from Samantha Power

Background: The UN Deployment
-Dallaire believed the UN embodied soldiering, service, and sacrifice.
-Had served as the commandant of an arm brigade that sent peacekeepers to Cambodia and Bosnia.
-Though he was involved, he didn't see combat until he was called for Rwanda.
-Rwanda is the size of Vermont, with a population of eight million people.
-Before independence was gained from Belgium, in 1962, Tutsis were priveledged.
-After independence, 30 years of Hutu rule led to discrimination and constant attempts to systematically cleanse Rwanda of Tutsis.
-In 1990 a group of exiled Tutsis, who had been forced to the Ugandan border, invaded Rwanda.
-These exiled people were reffered to as the Rwandan Patriotic Front
-In 1993, Tanzania helped the two groups come to a shared government agreement called the Arusha Accords
-This made it so the government governed with Hutu opposition parties and The Tutsi Minority
-The UN would be in place to provide a secure environment.
-The rwandan Government & Hutu extremists didn't agree with the Arusha agrrement because they felt that under its terms they had everything to lose and to fear, and nothing to gain.
-The Hutus were afraid that the Tutsis, who had been discriminated against & systematically destroyed, would govern in similar matters.
-By 1992, Hutu militia purchased 85 tons of munitions as well as 581,000 machetes; one for every third adult Hutu male.
-In 1993 Mujawamariya asked outside forces to come to her country to keep outbreaks at bay.
-Des Forges was one of twelve who spent 3 weeks interviewing Rwandans about the savage attacks.
-March report in 1993 showed that 10,000 Tutsis had been detained and 2,000 had been murdered since 1990.
_Government supported killers had executed atleast 3 massacres of Tutsis.
-The CIA warned that there may be ethnic violence
-A CIA report found that 9 million tons of small arms were transferred to Rwanda.
-In 1990, The Hutu paper entitled Kangura or Wake Up! published the ten Hutu commandments:
1.) Every Hutu should know that a Tutsi woman, wherever she is, works for the interests of her Tutsi ethnic group. Anyone who does the following is a traitor:
--Marries a Tutsi woman
--Befreinds a Tutsi Woman
--Employs a Tutsi Woman
2.) Every Hutu should know that our Hutu daughters are more suitable and consientious in there role as women.
3.) Hutu women, be vigilent and try to bring your husbands brothers and sons back to reason
4.) Every Hutu should know that every Tutsi is dishonest in business
5.) All strategic positions, political, administative, economic, military, and security, should be entrusted to a Hutu
6.) The schools must be majority Hutu.
7.) The Rwandanese Armed Forces should be exclusively Hutu. Members of the militia shall not marry a Hutu. We haved learned our lesson.
8.) The Hutu should stop having mercy towards the Tutsi
9.) The Hutu must constantly counteract the Tutsi propaganda, and be firm against the common enemy.
10.) Every Hutu must spread the ideology.
-Tutsis were portrayed as devils, and compared to the rule of Pol Pot, calling them the "Black Khmer."
-Threats against the Tutsis didnt generate western hype, but were more important in the Foreign Broadcast Information Service.
-Dallaire, upon entering Rwanda was told that it was a place of peace and that a UN official would be there the whole time.
-The US was unenthused about sending UN missions to Rwanda
-When Dallaire asked for 5,000 soldiers he was told no, but once he trimmed it down to 2,500, it was granted.
-In 1993 when Dallaire finally took post in Rwanda, we was sufficiently unbacked by almost everyone.
-The outbreak of the need for assistance in Rwanda came at an inoportune moment in time.
-The US owed half a billion dollars to the UN and had no interest in deepening the debt
- The US used a checklist to make sure there was no los, involvement, or damage.
- Dallaire's mission was run on hand-me-down equipment from Cambodia
-When medical supplies ran out, Dallaire was told there was no funding for more.
-In December, Hutu militia began to threaten massacres, and the Radio Mille Collines began to broadcast that UN officials were to be considered accomplices of the Tutsis
-In January of 1994, a Hutu informant told Dallaire how the Hutu militia was being trained. According to him, the troops could kill 1000 Tutsis in 20 minutes.
-The informant offered to give specific details of holding spot for weapons in return for passports and protection for his wife and family.
-By the end of February, Dallaire claimed to be "drowning in information about death squad attacks," and the US did nothing.