I know everyone’s minds are on other things, but today is the anniversary of the start of the Rwandan genocide. Sharing this thread with the hope it makes more people think about or responsibilities to prevent genocide. 1/

Firstly, the killing of around a million people in Rwanda wasn’t ‘ancient tribal hatred’ or spontaneous violence in response to the downing of the Presidents plane. It wasn’t ‘just something Africans do’ it was efficient, planned mass murder. As Phillip Gourevitch puts it. 2/

And the world knew this was genocide. We were warned it was coming eg in this telegram from the UNAMIR commander to UN. It is really important to remember: it wasn’t that we didn’t intervene. The UN was there in Rwanda and we withdrew. 3/

The UN had 2519 troops in Rwanda. After two weeks their commander asked for 5 battalions (<4k soldiers) to stop the killing and was refused. The US opposed calling it a genocide. Instead of reinforcing, the UN withdrew all but a few hundred troops 4/

The withdrawal happened after 10 Belgians were murdered by genocidaires. They’d seen the US withdraw from Somalia after soldiers were killed. One of them told the UN commander “we watch CNN too you know”. They knew we care less about African civilians than our own soldiers 5/

The UK Rep to the UN said reinforcing UNAMIR would mean “a repetition of Somalia” but opposed withdrawing the mission altogether as it would have “a negative impact on public opinion.” We knew what we were doing. we knew it was wrong. The killers saw it as a green light. 6/

The west could have intervened. US Marines were an hour away. Hundreds of French & Belgian paratroopers were deployed. But to rescue whites. The murder continued in front of these soldiers. The only shots they fired were to scare off refugees trying to climb onto their trucks. 7/

The abandoned UN commander described what he was left to witness, but ordered not to prevent. He had a breakdown when he returned home to Canada. 8/

As the mass killing continued African countries offered to send troops but asked for the USA to give them armoured personnel carriers. The USA said they would charge $15M. The Nigerian ambassador to the UN spoke of how “Africa has fallen off the moral map of the world”. 9/

The situation was so obscene that MSF ran adverts in the western press pointing out “one cannot stop a genocide with medicines.” One MSF employee described their experience in Rwanda where only they and the Red Cross remained. 10/

Tutsi-led rebels stopped the genocide as they advanced across the country throughout April & May. Intervention finally came in June as the French created a safe zone. Not safe for Tutsi but for the killers, allowing the genocide to continue under their guard. 11/

Rwandans didn’t understand why we walked away and left them and their children to be killed. We should try harder to be honest about why we didn’t care, and why we still don’t care when genocide happens. Instead of bullshit “never again” platitudes. 12/

Today Rwanda is a beautiful, remarkable country. You should go if you get a chance. 13/13