Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, July 26, 1994 TAG: 9407260073
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
As recent history makes clear, the international community and the U.S. superpower have trouble deciding when and where to intervene militarily. When Rwanda's agonies were limited to the ethnic massacre of hundreds of thousands of civilians, the world stood by and watched, albeit in horror.
The world, it seems, doesn't "do" genocides. One day we'll say "never again," and mean it. But too late for Eastern Europe, Cambodia, Bosnia, and now Rwanda.
We do, however, do refugee and health crises, into which the Rwandan catastrophe has been recently transformed. A terrible situation for Rwandans, it comes as a relief of sorts for our consciences. We can act unambiguously now. We know how to help.
And helping, we are. President Clinton last week ordered up a "practical plan of action" including airlifts of food, assistance with handling of Rwandan orphans, and extraordinary logistical support from the Pentagon. All of which is the right thing to do. The scope of Rwandan suffering, and minimum standards of decency, demanded such a response.
For many it will come late. Starvation, dehydration and now a cholera epidemic are sweeping through the swollen refugee camps in neighboring Zaire, itself a disintegrating country to which well over a million Rwandans have fled. An exodus of these proportions probably wasn't predictable. The best solution in any case - besides immediate provision of emergency supplies - is for Rwandans to return to their country, which they now are beginning to do.
The humanitarian crisis is but a continuation of the latest African apocalypse, which Clinton has described as "the worst human catastrophe in a generation." In sheer numbers of dead and dying, his description seems accurate. Not since the killing fields of Cambodia has anything approached this scale of politically induced nightmare.
As such, even as we rush aid to Hutu and Tutsi refugees alike, the world should not forget what prompted the crisis. Some Hutu leaders, in hysterical radio broadcasts, urged their people to flee Rwanda, as Tutsi rebels were prevailing in their civil war against the Hutus. But many of these same Hutu leaders were among those in the Hutu-dominated government who had ordered the systematic murder of Tutsis. Carried out by local officials and milita chiefs, the genocide left hundreds of thousands of Tutsis dead while the world wrung its hands.
Which is why, amid relief efforts, the United Nations needs to collect evidence of atrocities and try to prosecute perpetrators. The only antidote to murderous tribalism is democracy, and it can't work without respect for laws. Democracy does not mean ethnic self-determination. (Indeed, consider that Tutsis are a minority in Rwanda. If elections were held, they might well lose, even though the rebel government has taken care to name a moderate Huti prime minister.) Democracy works only if minority rights are protected, and this requires the rule of law.
Law, in turn, requires an agency to enforce it. America neither should nor can be the world's policeman. Thus, the Clinton administration, burned by its experience in Somalia, is wise to avoid any hint of involvement in "nation-building" for Rwanda.
Before too many Rwandas recur, though, the community of nations must recognize that it needs to develop the capability for enforcing its own rules - at the very least, rules against genocide - if future humanitarian catastrophes are to be avoided.
by CNB