The Book of Bones and Gilbert Gatore's The Past Ahead

It has been over twenty-five years since the Rwandan genocide. The genocide was largely ignored both inside and outside of the African continent. Nelson Mandela, who was elected president of South Africa in 1994, brought attention to the crisis. Outside the continent, attention to the crisis was more pronounced; yet action to stop it was all but nonexistent. In February of 1994, Amnesty International expressed concerns about arms being transferred to Rwanda and ending up in the hands of militia groups (“Rwanda: Arming the Perpetrators of the Genocide” 8). The profound failure of the Western world to try to put an end to a genocide that could have easily been stopped with a limited number of forces has largely been forgotten. Bill Clinton, speaking of his failure to respond to the genocide, stated that it is one of the biggest regrets of his presidency. He said in a CNBC interview in 2013 that “if we’d gone in sooner, I believe we could have saved at least a third of the lives that were lost” (Flanigan). Unclassified documents now reveal the Clinton administration was aware of a “final solution” against the Tutsis prior to the start of the pogrom, which cast doubt on his claim that only a third of the lives would have been saved (Bryer & Clinton). Perhaps Clinton failed to act due to having previously faced scrutiny for the Black Hawk Down blunder in Somalia that left nineteen American troops dead, dragged through the streets of Mogadishu: the spectacle of which was aired repeatedly on the news. The event still weighed heavily on an American populace who were hesitant to throw their support behind a military engagement in Africa, depleting national treasure, and risking the lives of American soldiers.