Arusha Genocide: Samantha Power Accuses The United States

In 1994, the Hutu government in Rwanda and their extremist supporters were on the verge of eliminating the entire Tutsi minority in the region. This incident is known as the Rwandan Genocide which is was biggest killing spree of a group in the twentieth century. In “Bystanders to Genocide,” Samantha Power accuses the United States of crimes because of their weak policies towards Rwanda when it was obvious to the world that genocide was occurring. Samantha Power accuses the U.S. of crimes because the decisions they made were more to protect themselves rather than the Tutsi. The first wrong decision made by the United States was they “threatened to pull out UN peacekeepers in retaliation for the parties' failure to implement Arusha.” (Power 10) This decision was wrong because …show more content…
For example, during the UN Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina which happened a year after the mission in Rwanda, the international community made the same mistakes as they did in Rwanda which were refusing to fund additional support and waiting too long to intervene. The international community waited too long to intervene in Rwanda because they did not believe there was a genocide occurring which led to a massacre similar to the situation that caused the Srebrenica massacre. During the mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the international community failed to provide additional support which led to the deaths of Bosniaks similar in Rwanda where Dallaire asked from additional support but was denied leading to thousands of Tutsi deaths. In “Bystanders to Genocide,” Samantha Power accuses the U.S for crimes due to their terrible decision and policy making towards Rwanda. The U.S. had multiple opportunities to stop the atrocity occurring in Rwanda but decided to focus on protecting their own interests. As a result, more than 800,000 Tutsi were