by Eric Ture Muhammad

WASHINGTON (FinalCall.com)� Sixteen recently declassified U.S. government documents published Aug. 20, along with a harrowing investigative report detailing U.S. foreknowledge of the Rwandan genocide of 1994, confirm earlier findings reported exclusively last April by The Final Call.

"The U.S. and the Genocide in Rwanda 1994" is published by the National Security Archive (NSA), an independent non-governmental research institute and library located at George Washington University. Consisting of documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by NSA�s William Ferroggiaro and an Atlantic Monthly magazine investigative report, "Bystanders to Genocide: Why the United States Let the Rwandan Tragedy Happen," by Samantha Power, the document demonstrates what U.S. officials knew about the carnage in Rwanda, what options were considered and, more importantly, how and why they chose to ignore the crisis and not intervene.

The tragedy claimed the lives of nearly one million Africans between the months of April and June of 1994. According to the NSA report, former President Bill Clinton, former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and Warren Christopher, Under Secretary Frank Wisner and other U.S. officials knew exactly who was leading the genocide, lobbied for total United Nations withdrawal of UN forces from Rwanda and outlines the various motivations behind the U.S. decision against intervention and the non-use of the specific term "genocide."

One of the internal memos released, titled "Talking Points On Rwanda/Burundi," dated April 11, 1994�marked confidential�was part of a dinner dialogue with Mr. Wisner and Mr. Kissinger. The memo detailed the candid view of the Pentagon regarding events in Rwanda only five days after the shooting down of a Presidential plane there. "A massive bloodbath (hundreds of thousands of deaths) will ensue;" the "UN will likely withdraw all forces;" and the U.S. will not get involved "until peace is restored," read the document. In several documents, Mr. Christopher refused to authorize the use of the term genocide in fear of morally and legally obligating the U.S. government to act.

"This is the first previously secretive material to my knowledge that has been published and that was my point in getting it out," said Mr. William Ferroggiaro, editor of the NSA report in an interview with The Final Call. "It indicates what most people had already known. U.S. officials at top levels, senior officials knew from the get-go, that there was widespread potential for violence." One of the memos released within four days of the killing spree predicted that hundreds of thousands would die. "It highlights what people had always suspected but, because of the secrecy aspect of it, they could only speculate," he said.

On April 6, 1994, Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarima�s personal plane was shot down on its return to Rwandan killing him, Burundian President Cyprien Ntarymira and members of their entourages. They were returning from Tanzania where they had met with regional leaders over the crisis in Burundi and had subsequently hammered out a power-sharing agreement between the nations in congruence with the UN Arusha Accord.

Within hours of the downing of the plane, the Presidential Guard, elements of the Rwandan armed forces and militias set up barricades and roadblocks and began the systematic slaughter of nearly one million people in 100 days time.

"The plan appears to have been to wipe out any RPF (Rwandan Patriotic Front) ally or potential ally, and thus raise the costs and limit the possibility of an RPF/Tutsi takeover. � No end to the unprecedented bloodshed is yet in sight," read a declassified U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Intelligence Assessment report on April 29, 1994.

Despite overwhelming evidence of genocide and knowledge as to its perpetrators, United States officials decided against taking a leading role in confronting the slaughter. According to NSA, they "confined themselves to public statements, diplomatic demarches, initiatives for ceasefire, and attempts to contact both the interim government perpetrating the killing and the RPF."

In April of this year The Final Call exclusively reported on a congressional hear ing chaired by Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.), "Covert Action in Africa: A Smoking Gun in Washington, D.C. (April 24, Vol. 20, No. 28)." At this hearing, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Pres. Clinton and his foreign policy where it concerned Africa came under attack. Mr. Clinton�s policy was described by Rep. McKinney as "one of grave deceit." The hearing concluded that America played more of a role in the Rwandan tragedy than it would admit. In addition, it cited the Carlsson Report, an independent inquiry into UN actions during the genocide as well as the then-Organization of African Unity (OAU), now the African Union, and their unanimous objection to the lack of UN assistance.

The Carlsson Report�s chairman, Ingvar Carlsson, condemns Mr. Annan and the UN Security Council for not preventing the slaughter. In this NSA report, the organization cites what has become known as the "notorious genocide fax," of Jan. 11, 1994. In it, Major-General Romeo Dallaire, Force Commander, United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) warned the military adviser to then-Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and then-Under-Secretary Kofi Annan of the existence of arms caches, a plot to assassinate Belgian UN peacekeepers and Rwandan members of parliament, and a list of Tutsis to be killed. The fax also stated Mr. Dallaire�s request to raid the caches. The request was refused. Two weeks after the downing of the President�s plane, the report said, the UN Security Council voted to reduce UNAMIR to a token presence, removing the last impediment to the slaughter.

"So far people have explained the U.S. failure to respond to the Rwandan genocide by claiming that the United States didn�t know what was happening, that it knew but didn�t care, or that regardless of what it knew there was nothing useful to be done," writes Samantha Power in her Atlantic Monthly article. "In examining how and why the United States failed Rwanda, we see that without strong leadership the system will incline toward risk-averse policy chores. We also see that with the possibility of deploying U.S. troops to Rwanda taken off the table early on�and with crisis elsewhere in the world unfolding�the slaughter never received the top-level attention it deserved," Ms. Power wrote.

Mr. Ferroggiaro agrees. "By April 21, two weeks into the genocide, the International Committee of the Red Cross is saying that over 100,000 people were dead. What would our response have been, what would we have said if there was 100,000 people dead in France? In my personal opinion, that would certainly set-off different alarm bells. When that many people die in Africa, it is a double standard. There is an issue here. There is an accepted level of violence in Africa that would be different if the violence was elsewhere," he said.

Some ask what does America owe Rwanda because of turning its back on her. That, Mr. Ferroggiaro said, can only be answered when America figures out Africa�s relationship to U.S. foreign policy.

"First and foremost, what America owes Rwanda and the world is an honest accounting. Release all of the files. We are the only major players in this world who have not had a formal inquiry. Before we can learn any lessons from the Rwandan genocide there has to be an honest accounting, then we can deal with the issue of future relations with Rwanda and Central Africa for that matter," he concluded.

Photos: (L-R) Former President Bill Clinton, Henry Kissenger.