How US, UK support double genocide theory

By refusing to use the correct terminology of “genocide against the Tutsi”, the US and the UK are firing up denial and revisionism which are considered the last stage of a genocide.

Despite the unanimous January 26, 2018, vote by the  UN General Assembly which established very April 7 as the Day of Reflection on the 1994 genocide against Tutsi in Rwanda, the US and UK persist in peddling a double genocide theory, the idea that two genocides of equal severity occurred in Rwanda in 1994.

 Observers believe that the two countries' behaviour is not accidental.   According to the diplomatic cables by the National Security Archives at Georges Washington University released ahead of the 20^th anniversary of the 1994 genocide, “the US, Britain and the United Nations were explicitly warned that a "new bloodbath" was imminent in Rwanda. Rather than increasing the strength of the UN Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR), the governments of John Major in Britain and Clinton in the US were considering rowing back the peacekeeping effort, according to the cables.

The cables revealed that when the situation in Rwanda deteriorated and Belgium called for the reinforcement of the blue helmets deployed in the country, not only were the US and the UK against it, but they also considered withdrawing UNAMIR. That is what happened exactly in April 1994 when the bloodshed started. Instead of bolstering the troops on the ground to protect the Tutsi who were being slaughtered, the UK and the US backed a resolution withdrawing most of it leaving behind an ineffective number.

Reluctance to account for Britain’s policies 

Linda Melvern, a British investigative journalist, has in the past observed that while the United Nations has shown its willingness to uncover how and why it reacted the way it did, in the UK there continues to be a reluctance to try to account for the latter's policies toward Rwanda.

Neither the press nor Parliament has shown any enthusiasm to scrutinize this part of history or to explain why the UK, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, should have chosen to influence events in the way it did. Britain, far from taking a back seat, was instrumental in shaping the UN response to the crisis, and this leaves an unanswered question.

Was the UK impotent or unwilling to implement the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (UNCG), either to prevent the occurrence of genocide in Rwanda or, once it began, to stop it from spreading? According to Melvern, in the UK, "a country where secrecy pervades most aspects of government, the issue of Rwanda is particularly sensitive."

"There are continuing attempts to obscure individual responsibility in the decision-making process. There is even a claim that, in the archives of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) in Whitehall, the paper trail on Rwanda, 1990–1994, has been weeded.”

Never use the word “G”

In the US, the State Department, under Amb Madeleine Albright, a Jew descendant herself, instructed its staff members to never use the word “G” in their communication.

Using the word “genocide” would have had serious implications because the US would have been compelled, under international law, to intervene in Rwanda to stop the extermination of the Tutsi. Watching passively suited them despite numerous calls from the international community to do something to halt the carnage.

As the saying goes, the past is sometimes a prologue. On April 20, 2020, in a resolution adopted by consensus in the UN General Assembly, the wording to enshrine an international day to commemorate the victims was changed. The International Day of Reflection became more specific, and April 7 became a day to commemorate the genocide “against the Tutsi.” However, afterwards, the UK and the US expressed reservations in letters to the president of the General Assembly.

 Kelly Craft, the then US Ambassador at the UN, complained that, the wording “genocide against the Tutsi” “failed to capture the violence against “other groups” and left “an incomplete picture of this dark part of history."

According to the US government, many Hutu and others were killed too, including those murdered for their opposition to the atrocities that were being committed.

The US, just like the perpetrators of the genocide against the Tutsi, claims that a second genocide against the Hutu happened and that there was an international cover-up. This represents one of the oldest claims in the Hutu Power disinformation handbook.

To this day, the Hutu Power movement still peddles  lies  that each “side” was as murderous as the other and that the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) had slaughtered “hundreds of thousands of Hutu”.

Let's not forget that it is actually the RPF that stopped the genocide.

US, UK firing up last stage of genocide

On April 7, 2021, as Rwandans and friends of Rwanda commemorated the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, US and UK officials again engaged in genocide denial by issuing shameful statements in which the victims and the historical truth of what happened 27 years ago were erased.

By refusing to use the correct terminology of “genocide against the Tutsi”, the US and the UK are firing up denial and revisionism which are considered the last stage of a genocide.

It is true that some Hutu were killed but there was no plan to exterminate them. The six million Jews killed by the Nazis during the Holocaust are never mixed up with millions of other nationalities who perished during the Second World War. The same applies to the genocide against the Tutsi because only the latter were the target of extermination. The US and the UK should come clean.