Blueprint of Nations
Welcome to 'Double Helix: Blueprint of Nations,' the podcast where we analyze and look at the events, people and actions that have shaped the nations of our world . From revolutions to treaties, conflicts to triumphs, we explore the historical blueprints that continue to influence the way nations think and act today.
Blueprint of Nations
The Rwandan Genocide: The Art of Looking Away (Part 6)
The meticulously constructed system of international indifference turned Rwanda's genocide into a spectator sport while diplomats debated semantics. This wasn't merely bureaucratic failure but the active construction of ignorance and deliberate choice to prioritize political convenience over human lives.
In our next episode, we'll witness Rwanda's struggle to find justice after unimaginable horror, exploring the Gacaca courts where communities confronted killers face-to-face, and examining how Paul Kagame's government's early decisions continue to shape Rwanda today.
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New York City, april 14th 1994. A memo crosses a desk at the United Nations. It contains a single word change to all official communications about Rwanda. Genocide is to be replaced with acts of genocide. The difference seems semantic. It isn't. That tiny edit will cost thousands of lives.
Speaker 1:In that same moment, in southwestern Rwanda, a French military officer is sitting on a makeshift checkpoint. He's sharing cigarettes with a local militia leader whose machete still bears the traces of dried blood. They're laughing together. Examining a map. The officer points to a village marked in red. We'll secure this area tomorrow, he says in fluent French. The militia leader nods, taking a drag from his cigarette. Good, we have unfinished business there. Nearby, a group of refugees watches his exchange. A woman clutches her child closer, recognizing the militia leader as the man who executed her neighbors. Just days before she turns away. Her face a mask of disbelief. This French soldier with his crisp uniform and blue beret is supposed to represent the world's conscience. Instead, he's planning patrol routes where her family's would-be killer.
Speaker 1:In Paris that same day, in the LSA Palace, french officials are reviewing intelligence reports from Rwanda. These reports are explicit Systematic killing, organized extermination, clear evidence of genocide. But in the margins a handwritten note reads Maintain current position. Ethnic conflict terminology only. The note is written in elegant, diplomatic French, the kind of handwriting taught at the finest schools where future leaders learn the delicate art of looking away.
Speaker 1:This is episode 6 of our series on the Rwandan Genocide the Art of Looking Away. You know how they say you can't understand someone until you walk a mile in their shoes. Well, I'd argue you can't understand a nation until you've walked through its history, not just the highlight reel or the sanitized version you find in textbooks. I mean really getting into its DNA, those defining moments that shaped everything that came after, those moments where paths were chosen, where decisions were made in palaces and backrooms and city streets that changed the course of millions of lives. I'm your host, paul, and this is Double Helix Blueprint of Nations, where we unravel the genetic code of countries through their most transformative moments. Think of it like ancestry testing, but for entire nations. We dig deep into the historical DNA, finding those crucial moments that made countries who they are today. Before we continue our exploration of Rwanda's tragic history, I'd like to take a moment to thank you for joining us on this difficult journey. If you're finding this historical examination is valuable, I'd be grateful if you would consider rating and following Double Helix Blueprint of Nations wherever you listen to podcasts. Your support helps ensure these crucial stories reach wider audiences and allows us to continue uncovering the hidden mechanisms that shape nations' destinies.
Speaker 1:As we've seen throughout this series, forgetting history doesn't protect us from its patterns. It only leaves us vulnerable to their repetition. In our last episode, we witnessed how the machinery of genocide transformed Rwanda into a killing field. Today, we'll examine the machinery that allowed it to happen field. Today we'll examine the machinery that allowed it to happen the carefully constructed system of international indifference that turned mass murder into a spectator sport. This is more than a story about bureaucratic failure, though. This is about the active construction of ignorance, the careful cultivation of uncertainty, the deliberate choice to prioritize political convenience over human life. Remember that radio station, rtlm, that we discussed in previous episodes.
Speaker 1:Well, while it broadcasts instructions for genocide, diplomats in New York were carefully avoiding the word genocide to ensure that they wouldn't be legally obligated to act. Let me take you to a meeting that captures this perfectly. We're in the US State Department in early April 1994. Career diplomats are discussing how to characterize events in Rwanda. Career diplomats are discussing how to characterize events in Rwanda. One suggests using the term genocide, a senior official responds be careful, if we use that word, we might have to do something about it. And that is what this episode is all about the careful construction of ignorance, the deliberate maintenance of uncertainty, the bureaucratic architecture of inaction. Sometimes it's carefully adjusting your glasses so you can't quite see who's doing the shooting.
Speaker 1:Our story begins where our last episode ended, with a nation in ashes and a world that had perfected the art of looking away. But to understand how this particular form of moral failure was constructed, we need to step back and examine what might be called the machinery of abandonment. There are three moments that I believe capture how this machinery worked. First, we're in Brussels, belgium, april 7th 1994. Belgian paratroopers are receiving orders to evacuate European nationals from Rwanda. Their commander asked about Rwandans who work at the Belgian embassy. The response comes back Europeans. Only those Rwandan employees who had worked alongside their Belgian colleagues for years are left behind. Many will not survive the week.
Speaker 1:Now we are in Washington DC on April 11. At the Pentagon, military planners are gaming out various intervention scenarios for Rwanda. Their conclusion the political cost of intervention outweighs the humanitarian benefit. One officer writes in the margins of the report Not worth the risk. The risk being calculated is, course, political, not humanitarian. The lives being weighed are African, not American.
Speaker 1:Finally, we're in the United Nations Security Council, april 21st. The Belgian ambassador is formally requesting the complete withdrawal of UN peacekeepers from Rwanda. He knows, everyone in that room knows what this will mean. But the machinery of abandonment requires the maintenance of plausible deniability. So they discuss logistics, timetables, procedural matters. They do not discuss the people they are condemning to death. Not discuss the people they are condemning to death. And that is how genocide becomes possible in the modern world. Not through the absence of information we have it all but through the careful management of response. Not through ignorance, but through the deliberate construction of uncertainty. Not through the failure of institutions, but through their success in doing exactly what they were designed to do Protect the interests of powerful nations while maintaining the fiction of universal human rights.
Speaker 1:Let's examine how this machinery of abandonment operated through the lens of the Hotel de Mille Collines, later made famous as Hotel Rwanda. I told you in our last episode we would talk more about Hotel Rwanda in this episode. So here's the real story. The real story isn't the one that you saw in the movie. The real story isn't the one that you saw in the movie. It is more complex, more troubling and tells us everything about how the world chose to look away.
Speaker 1:It is April 12, 1994. The Hotel de Mil Colines has become a refuge for approximately 1,268 people fleeing the genocide. Paul Rusesabagina, the hotel's manager, is working the phones, calling in favors, negotiating with killers, trying to keep his guests alive. But here's what the Hollywood version glosses over the hotel's delicate position in a web of international interest. When you study the hotel's communications logs, one pattern emerges with striking clarity the satellite phones continued functioning, not because of heroic individual efforts, but because powerful entities in Paris wanted reliable lines to their contacts in Kigali. The selective protection afforded to the hotel wasn't humanitarian benevolence. It represented calculated political interest, both within Rwanda and outside of Rwanda. Un vehicles could deliver water there when they couldn't protect civilians elsewhere, because Western diplomats needed updates from their citizens sheltering within. A woman who survived those harrowing weeks described it perfectly in her testimony to the International Criminal Tribunal.
Speaker 2:Our survival became a convenient shield for international inaction. Officials would point to us and say you see, we haven't abandoned Rwanda. But we were the exception that proved the rule. Every night, we listened to the screams beyond our walls while diplomats cited our continued existence as proof that intervention wasn't necessary.
Speaker 1:The real story of the Hotel de Mille Collines is far more complex than Hollywood would have us believe. While Rosesso Bagheena certainly helped save lives through his negotiations and connections, survivors' testimonies paint a more nuanced picture. Some describe him charging refugees for rooms and food. Others question his portrayal as the hotel's sole hero, pointing to the collective efforts of many who worked to protect those inside. But perhaps the most telling part of this story lies in what happened after. Today, paul Rusesabagina sits in a Rwandan prison sentenced to 25 years for terrorism charges, charges his supporters claim are politically motivated. He has become one of the most prominent critics of President Paul Kagame's government. This is a regime that we will examine in detail later in our series. His journey from celebrated hero to imprisoned dissident tells us something crucial about how narratives of genocide get shaped and reshaped by the demands of politics and power. But the story of international abandonment goes far deeper than one hotel. Let's examine what might be called the architecture of complicity, beginning with France, a nation whose role in Rwanda's tragedy requires particular scrutiny.
Speaker 1:Paris 1990. We're at the reception in the Élysée Palace. French military officers are discussing what they call Operation Neuron, their mission to support President Javier Imanes' regime against the RPF Listen carefully to their language. We must protect our French-speaking allies against these English-speaking rebels. The ghost of colonial rivalry hangs heavy in the air, transforming Rwanda's crisis into a proxy battle between Francophone and Anglophone influence. But French involvement went far beyond military support. In October of 1990, french military advisors are training the Intrahawe. They're not just providing weapons, they're helping create the very machinery of genocide that we witnessed in our last two episodes. A French officer later testified we knew who they were. We knew who we were training and what they would likely do, but orders were orders, and Rwanda was within France's sphere of influence. What makes France's role particularly chilling is its intimacy. French officials didn't just support the genocidaires, they knew them personally. They attended their weddings, baptized their children, shared meals in their homes when the killing began, this intimacy transformed into active complicity. On April 8, 1994, french officials are shredding documents at their embassy in Kigali. Among the papers being destroyed are a list of Tutsi employees who had asked for protection. A staff member later recalled we were not just abandoning them, we were erasing the evidence that we had ever known them.
Speaker 1:Perhaps the most damning evidence of French complicity, though, comes from Operation Turquoise. You know, as you study this genocide and you examine how other nations respond to mass atrocity. There's something about Operation Turquoise that stands out the sheer calculated cynicism of it. Let me take you to southwestern Rwanda, late June 1994. French troops are establishing what they call a humanitarian safe zone. On paper it looks admirable, protecting civilians, providing medical care, but watch carefully what actually happens. A French officer is coordinating with local authorities in the town of Siangugu, the same local authorities who just weeks earlier were organizing genocide. Survivors' testimonies tell us exactly what this looked like. One witness recorded the French soldiers joked with the militia leaders, share cigarettes with them. Meanwhile we survivors had to hide our faces. We knew these men had killed our families. And now they're drinking coffee with our supposed saviors. The documented evidence is chilling. Through diplomatic cables, military reports and survivor testimonies, we can trace how Operation Turquoise served as a cover for something far more cynical than humanitarian aid.
Speaker 1:July 4th 1994. The RPF is approaching Kigali. French forces are supervising what they call an orderly evacuation from their safe zone. But look at who they're evacuating Members of the interim government, militia leaders, radio broadcasters who had called for genocide. A French soldier would later testify, his words preserved in UN documents. We knew who these people were. We had their names, their roles, we had our orders.
Speaker 1:You see, operation Turquoise wasn't just a failed humanitarian mission. It was a successful rescue operation for the perpetrators of genocide. That's right. The same French government that had trained the killers now helped them escape justice. The same officials who had supplied weapons now supply sanctuary. Some of them are still living perfect safety and comfort in France today and have not yet faced justice for the crimes that they've committed.
Speaker 1:In the historical record we find the classified French military memos from July of 1994, and they read like this Priority must be given to maintaining order and stability in the humanitarian zone. And that sounds reasonable, doesn't it? But what it means in practice was preserving the very power structures that had just committed genocide. What strikes me the most in studying these documents is the careful language, the diplomatic niceties. French officials still defend Operation Turquoise as a humanitarian success. But as we've seen throughout this series, genocide doesn't just require killers, it requires enablers. It requires people in comfortable offices thousands of miles away, people who can turn mass murder into a matter of policy, of procedure, of political expediency.
Speaker 1:We're in the United Nations headquarters, new York, april 1994. The Security Council chamber with its famous horseshoe-shaped table is about to become a theater of moral failure. The room still carries the faint scent of coffee and expensive cologne, perfume of power. General Roméo Dallaire's desperate cable lies before them, marked urgent. Four months he's been sending warnings from Kigali. His latest message is blunt Informant reports, training of militias, lists are being compiled, clear evidence of planned extermination. The response a debate about the proper formatting of urgent communications.
Speaker 1:You know what strikes me most about the UN documents from this period? The pristine cleanliness of the language, words like concerning developments and deteriorating situation replacing what should have been mass murder and genocide. It's fascinating. It should have been mass murder and genocide. It's fascinating, in a horrifying way, how bureaucracy can sanitize even the most monstrous of realities. One of the most chilling documents I encountered is a memo from UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations dated April 12, 1994. It contains detailed instructions about the proper use of the term genocide, specifically how to avoid using it. Exercise extreme caution in characterizing the nature of this conflict it advises. Meanwhile, in Rwanda, that conflict was filling churches with corpses, churches with corpses.
Speaker 1:The UN's failure wasn't just linguistic, it was structural. When Belgium withdrew its peacekeepers after the murder of 10 of their soldiers, the Security Council didn't just allow it. They used it as an excuse to reduce the entire UNAMIR force. Think about that for a moment. In response to clear evidence of genocide, the international community didn't send more help. They sent less.
Speaker 1:The lair's testimony about the period is devastating. Each morning he wrote, we would count how many people we could protect with our dwindling force. Each evening we would count how many we had failed to save. Evening, we would count how many we had failed to save. The machinery of international bureaucracy had turned peacekeepers into accountants of atrocity. The UN's paralysis reflected a deeper truth about international institutions they are only as strong as the member states allow them to be. And in 1994, those member states had decided that Rwanda simply didn't matter enough. As one Security Council member, who will remain lameless to avoid diplomatic embarrassment, put it in a closed session, there are no strategic interests at stake. No strategic interests, just human lives.
Speaker 1:Here's another document that keeps me awake at night the minutes of a Security Council meeting from April 21st 1994. For three hours they debated the precise meaning of the word genocide. Someone actually suggested and I'm quoting directly here that acts of genocide might be occurring, but not genocide itself. It's like saying someone is experiencing acts of death but isn't actually dying. You know what makes this even more tragic? The UN had been explicitly warned about the possibility of genocide in Rwanda. A 1993 report by Special Rapporteur BW Ndiaye had outlined in excruciating detail the preparations that were being made. His report was filed, cataloged and effectively ignored. As we saw in our previous episodes, the machinery of genocide requires the machinery of indifference to function effectively. Let me take you to Washington DC, april 1994. State Department spokesperson Christine Shelley is standing at the podium, engaged in what might be called linguistic acrobatics. A reporter asked if what's happening in Rwanda constitutes genocide, her response becomes a masterclass in the art of evasion.
Speaker 3:We have every reason to believe that acts of genocide have occurred. How many acts of genocide does it take to make genocide, Alan? That's just not a question that I'm in a position to answer.
Speaker 4:Is it true that you have specific guidance not to use the word genocide in isolation, but always to preface it with this?
Speaker 3:word. Axel, I have guidance to which I try to use as best as I can. I'm not I have. There are formulations that we are using, that we are trying to be consistent in our use of.
Speaker 1:I don't have an absolute may have occurred, as if genocide was something that just happens, like rainfall or traffic, as if machetes just fall from the sky into waiting hands. What makes this moment particularly striking to me is how it exemplifies the machinery of abandonment at its most sophisticated. To me is how it exemplifies the machinery of abandonment at its most sophisticated. You see, the Clinton administration wasn't ignoring Rwanda out of ignorance, because they didn't know. They were doing something far more calculated. They were choosing not to know. In an internal State Department memo from April 20, 1994, the subject line reads Rwanda Legal Analysis of Genocide. What follows is five pages of exquisitely crafted bureaucratic prose explaining why the most obvious genocide since the Holocaust might not technically be a genocide. Intelligence reports were carefully worded, diplomatic cables were artfully phrased. Every communication was designed to maintain what one official later called plausible deniability about the G word, because once you say genocide, you have to do something about it, and doing something was exactly what no one wanted to do. The machinery of abandonment had moving parts too.
Speaker 1:While the UN debated definitions and France protected its allies, the United States perfected what we might call the politics of absence. They didn't just refuse to intervene, they actively prevented others from intervening effectively. Remember the UN armored personnel carriers that could have reinforced the lair's peacekeepers? They sat in a parking lot in Uganda for weeks while the US State Department haggled over the lease cost. The price of bureaucratic delay Approximately $127 per day. The cost in human lives Incalculable. This is where our story intersects with another tragedy Somalia. The ghost of Mogadishu haunted every discussion about Rwanda. In meeting after meeting, officials invoked the Somalia example as a reason for inaction. Never mind that Rwanda was a completely different situation, never mind that the genocidaires were not well-armed militias but civilians with machetes. Somalia had become the perfect excuse for doing nothing. Here's President Clinton at a press conference in May 1994. The United States cannot be the world's policeman.
Speaker 1:The same week this statement was made, the machinery of genocide was operating at peak efficiency in Rwanda. Churches full of refugees were being sealed and burned, hospital patients were being executed in their beds and in Washington, officials were carefully maintaining their studied ignorance. Washington officials were carefully maintaining their studied ignorance. What fascinates me about this period is how the world's most sophisticated intelligence apparatus could be deployed to avoid knowing something. Satellite images were left unexamined. Intelligence reports were filed unread. It was, as one State Department official later admitted, a deliberate policy of not knowing. Department official later admitted a deliberate policy of not knowing. But perhaps the most damning evidence of American complicity comes from what happened when they finally did acknowledge the genocide. After it was over, in late July 1994, with the RPF in control of Rwanda and the genocidares fleeing to Zaire, the Clinton administration suddenly discovered its humanitarian impulse.
Speaker 4:Good morning, In the past week the United States has taken significant steps to alleviate the problems in Rwanda and the suffering, the terrible suffering of the refugees. We have delivered more than 1,300 tons of equipment, food, water and medicine. We have increased safe water production and distribution from nothing to 100,000 gallons.
Speaker 1:Operation Support Hope was launched with great fanfare. Aid poured in into refugee camps in Zaire, camps which were controlled by the very people who had just committed genocide. By the way, the same international community that wouldn't mobilize to prevent mass murder has suddenly discovered remarkable organizational efficiency. But look closer at those camps. Notice how they're organized, see who's in charge. The same inter-Ojawa militias that conducted the genocide are now managing food distribution. The same officials who organized mass murder are now organizing refugee registration. The machinery of death has transformed into the machinery of aid, with the same people at the controls.
Speaker 1:In the first two weeks after the refugees crossed into Zaire, the United States spent more on humanitarian aid than it had even contemplated spending to stop the genocide. One US military officer, perhaps unintentionally, remarked we achieved in days what we said was impossible to do for months. Unfortunately, here's where the story takes an even darker turn. In these camps, under the protection of international aid, the genocidaires were regrouping. They were using food aid to maintain control over the refugee population. They were diverting medical supplies to their militias. They were conducting military training between aid distributions. A Doctors Without Borders worker described the obscene spectacle we're providing medical care to men. We watch plan genocide. They come to our clinic still carrying their execution list in their pockets. Sometimes they thank us for our help while discussing their plans to finish the work when they return to Rwanda.
Speaker 1:The media, which had largely ignored the genocide, now couldn't get enough of the refugee crisis. One cynical journalist noted Dead Africans finally became newsworthy when they started dying photogenically of cholera instead of unseemly machete wounds. A humanitarian crisis of biblical proportions, the anchors declare. But they weren't talking about the genocide. They were talking about the refugee camps camps where the killers lived alongside their victims' surviving relatives, where international aid sent to people who had just committed mass murder, where the machinery of death was being preserved under the guise of humanitarian assistance. This is again how the machinery of international indifference completes its work, not with the bang of genocide, but with the whisper of bureaucratic absolution.
Speaker 1:What really haunts me about studying this period is not just the killing, though that is horrific enough. It's not just the international community's failure to intervene, though that is shameful enough. It is the way the machinery of global response proved perfectly capable of acting when it chose to. The same governments that couldn't find resources to prevent genocide suddenly discovered unlimited capacity to manage its aftermath. Here's one final document that captures this perfectly. It's a UN budget report from December of 1994. The international community spent more money in two months of refugee assistance than the entire UNAMIR peacekeeping mission had requested to prevent the genocide. As one UN official noted with bitter irony, we found the money to clean up the mess. We lacked the will to prevent the genocide. As one UN official noted with bitter irony, we found the money to clean up the mess we lacked the will to prevent.
Speaker 1:Back in Rwanda, a nation of survivors faced questions that had no easy answers. How do you rebuild a society shattered by neighbors killing neighbors? How do you create justice when your courts are destroyed and your judges are all dead? How do you forge a future when the past is still bleeding? Next time, on Double Helix, we'll witness Rwanda's struggle to find justice in the aftermath of unimaginable horror. We'll explore the Gacaca courts, where communities confronted their killers face to face, where ancient traditions met modern atrocity and where Rwanda attempted to find a path between vengeance and reconciliation. We'll also examine how Paul Kagame's RPF government took control of a broken nation and how the choices made in those early days would shape Rwanda's future in ways still felt today. Until then, thank you for listening. We will see you soon © transcript Emily Beynon.
