By
Matthew
Russell Lee,
Exclusive
UNITED
NATIONS,
January 29,
updated here
-- The
Democratic
Republic of
the Congo
sanctions
resolution was
already
supposed to
have been
adopted by the
UN Security
Council. But
among the
issues that
has delayed is
one concerned
how to refer
to the 1994
genocide in
Rwanda.
Sources
exclusively
told Inner
City Press
that the
United States
resisted
calling it a
genocide
against the
Tutsi of
Rwanda, even
saying that
there is a US
policy against
referring to
it in this
way.
Where
would such a
US policy be
written down?
It seemed
strange,
particularly
in during a
week of
Holocaust
events at the
UN, from one
about Hungary
to another
about Albania.
Inner
City Press
asked a US
Council
diplomat, who
said
spokespeople
would be
asked. Inner
City Press was
told to wait
for the
language to be
final. In
fact, it is
now set to be
adopted by the
Council on
January 30,
having been
put "in blue,"
in final form,
during the Security
Council's
debate on
January 28.
In
that debate,
the
representative
of the DRC
spoke about
Rwanda and the
M23 rebels.
Rwanda's
Deputy
Permanent
Representative
replied with a
series of
questions: was
it Rwanda who
killed
Lumumba? Was
Rwanda
responsible
for Mobutu?
Who hosted and
failed to
separate the genocidaires from
Rwanda in
1994?
It is
impossible not
to note,
particularly
given the lack
of explanation
or
transparency,
that US
Permanent
Representative
Samantha
Power began
her 2001
article
"Bystanders to
Genocide" in
the Atlantic
with this
sentence: "In
the course of
a hundred days
in 1994 the
Hutu
government of
Rwanda and its
extremist
allies very
nearly
succeeded in
exterminating
the country's
Tutsi
minority."
Given
that, why
would the US
Mission be
saying it had
a policy of
describing the
genocide as
being against
the Tutsi
minority?
Inner City
Press asked
again: Since
I'm told that
the US has
said that
there is a
government
position not
to say the
1994 genocide
was against
the Tutsis,
can you say
what that
policy is? Why
does it exist?
Does it apply
to other
genocides or
atrocities?
As
noted, Inner
City Press also has
pending with
the US State
Department a
number of
requests,
including a
Freedom of
Information
Act request
regarding the
Administration's
Atrocities
Prevention
Board.
As the
Security
Council debate
ended on
January 29,
Inner City
Press was told
a compromise
was reached,
in PP 13: a
reference to
the 1994
genocide
against the
Tutsi in
Rwanda, during
which Hutu,
and others
were killed.
A
Rwandan
diplomat told
Inner City
Press these
were Hutu
killed not
because of
their
ethnicity but
because they
opposed the
genocide
against the
Tutsi. "This
is a
precedent,"
the diplomat
said. Watch
this site.
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