Richard Holbrooke Quotes
Blaming the UN for Rwanda is like blaming Madison Square Garden when the Knicks play badly.
When the Rwanda majority Hutus began to massacre the Tutsies, none of the member nations of the UN would send troops to stop the slaughter. Later, some blamed the United Nations. The “Knicks” were a New York professional basketball team, and Madison Square Garden was the building in which they played.
Richard Holbrooke, 1941-2010, U. S. Delegate to the United Nations, Assistant Secretary of State and Special Envoy (Democrat), Ambassador to Germany, Quoted in Derek Chollet & Samantha Power, The Unquiet American, 2012
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The General’s plan was not accepted by the UN and the participating governments. The genocide was not abated.
Annan had asked UN nations to contribute troops but few would.
His view, that America had no vested interest in Rwanda, was the prevailing thinking of the Republicans who controlled Congress and many of the Democrats as well. President Clinton considered intervention in Rwanda, but decided against it given all the opposition and little time to educate the American public to a different position. The result was the genocide in Rwanda where over 500,000 Tutsis were exterminated by the Hutus. Clinton, several years later not only admitted that he made a political and moral mistake, but officially apologized to Rwandan Tutsis who remained alive. He had intervened very successfully in Kosovo to prevent more murder of ethnic Muslims and was given a hard time politically by his opposition even though the brilliant effort cost no American lives. The United States and the UN, all bearing guilt for doing little in Rwanda, did help to set up the mechanism for the trials of the worst murderers and at least many of the most guilty were brought to justice.
The possibility of intervention in the affairs of other counties even if there is no U. S. national interest involved, was not new when the George W. Bush administration sent troops to Somalia and Bill Clinton bombed Serbia. There were appeals made “to our sympathies” and there were serious atrocities. But these modern Presidents were just following the policy clearly stated by Theodore Roosevelt in 1904.
Richard Charles Albert Holbrooke was an American diplomat and author. He was the only person to have held the position of Assistant Secretary of State for two different regions of the world (Asia from 1977 to 1981 and Europe from 1994 to 1996).
