It has been twenty years since the Rwandan genocide. Most articles will discuss Bill Clinton failing to stop these atrocities. The more honest ones will state the truth, that Clinton made a deliberate choice to turn a blind eye. Clinton, to his credit, has apologized, even though his apologies seem insincere, not contrite, rote, and by the numbers.
Articles about a president's or the American nation's failure to do anything often bring hand wringing. Surely, we ask, we have learned? Surely the world's conscience is now awakened?
In my book, Presidents' Body Counts, I note that presidents refusing to halt or limit genocide has happened seven times before, even though all these atrocities could have been partly stopped, sometimes easily. Clinton was not the first American president to refuse to stop genocide going on right before his eyes. Nine different presidents let genocide happen. Three presidents ignored genocide happening right here in America, in California.
Not one American in fifty even knows there was a genocide against California Indians, or any other genocides besides the Holocaust and Rwanda. We as a nation need to know about these genocides, see how they were allowed to happen, and prevent this from happening again.
Of genocides ignored by US Presidents, these are body counts from highest to lowest:
Franklin Roosevelt and the Holocaust-12 million dead.
Nixon and Genocide in Bangladesh- Up to 3 million dead.
Clinton and Rwandan Genocide- 800,000 dead.
Polk, Fillmore, Buchanan, and California Indian Genocide- Up to 300,000 dead.
Ford and East Timor Genocide- 200,000 dead.
Jefferson and Haitian Genocide- 170,000 dead.
Nixon's betrayal of Kurds, leading to genocide-100,000 deaths.
In order chronologically:
Jefferson and the Haitian Revolution
Haitian slaves revolted against French slave owners. Napoleon tried to crush them with extreme brutality, to either kill or terrorize into submission every Black slave. The French army burned alive numerous slaves, hung, drowned, or tore them apart with French hunting dogs. It took more than a decade of enormously brave and determined Haitians to defeat the French.
Jefferson ignoring genocide against Haitians was more appalling because he spent much of his career fighting against the slave trade. To reassure nervous American slave owners who feared slave uprisings spreading, Jefferson tried to isolate Haiti from the rest of the world, diplomatically and economically. As Secretary of State, he even sent money and weapons to French slave owners.
Jefferson could have limited Haitian genocide by recognizing and trading with Haiti. A stronger Haitian nation would defeat Napoleon sooner, lowering the death toll. American weapons and money, if never sent, also would weaken French tyranny.
Polk, Fillmore, Buchanan and Genocide Against California Indians
This is a genocide few Americans know about. But every American should know California was founded in blood. The California Indian population was from 180,000 to 300,000 when the US conquered the southwest in a brutal war with Mexico that President Polk deliberately provoked to expand slavery.
This was a genocide carried out by vigilantes, not the military. Anglo-American miners tried to exterminate every last California Indian with “Indian hunting” expeditions. California's state government paid bounties for Native scalps. California legalized Indian enslavement. Native slaves actually did much of the Gold Rush mining. Los Angeles even auctioned off Indians in city jails as slaves.
Unlike other genocides listed, this took place entirely in the US. Three US Presidents deliberately ignored genocide they could entirely prevent. First, Polk made genocide possible by conquering the southwest. Fillmore sent commissioners who wrote treaties seizing over nine tenths of California Native lands. Buchanan went even further, seizing all but 40 square miles of Native land out of over 160,000 square miles. The US Army and vigilantes forced California Indians onto tiny reservations, where they continued to be kidnapped and enslaved. Most Native fled, hiding in remote areas.
Genocide and enslavement did not end until 1863, when Lincoln signed Emancipation. Though aimed at freeing Black slaves and defeating Confederate, emancipation freed surviving Native slaves. Lincoln's Indian commissioner, for the first time, used the federal government to end kidnapping Natives for slavery. When California tried to keep enslaving Natives by debt peonage, the commissioner blocked that also. Native emancipation is an act as noble as emancipating Blacks that too few Americans know about.
Franklin Roosevelt and the Holocaust
One would be very ignorant or in denial to not know about the deaths of six million Jews, or six million others, Romany, Poles, gays, handicapped, Jehovah's Witnesses, political prisoners, and criminals. But very few Americans knew about the Holocaust while it was going on. Yet those at the top in FDR's administration did know. By November 1943, they had extensive reports.
FDR could have bombed railroad lines, bridges, and depots taking victims to death camps. Roosevelt also could offer refuge. Finally he could publicly vow to see killers charged with war crimes. Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg did just that, and saved the Jewish ghetto of Budapest. While FDR could not stop the Holocaust entirely, he could save perhaps one tenth, or 1.2 million. Sadly, Roosevelt listened to generals who urged him to avoid using military resources to save Jewish lives.
Nixon and Genocide in Bangladesh
This is a genocide taking place within the lifetime of many reading this that almost no Americans know about. When East Pakistan tried to break away from West Pakistan in 1971, up to 3 million Bangladeshis were killed by brutal dictator General Aga Khan. Soldiers and paramilitaries raped over 400,000 women and girls.
But Nixon refused to intervene, in part because he was racist against Indians, saying, “Indians are cunning, traitorous people.” Nixon also admired General Khan for his anti-Communism, telling him, “I understand the anguish you must have felt in making the difficult decisions you have faced.”
Nixon was given full details of the atrocities by US Ambassador Kenneth Keating and Consul Arthur Blood. For this, both diplomats were labeled “traitors” by Nixon and Kissinger. Blood was recalled from his post. For Nixon wanted Khan to be an intermediary to Communist China. Nixon's opening to China is often cited as his greatest accomplishment. Most don't realize it was achieved in blood, by ignoring genocide.
This genocide was finally brought to an end by Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi sending the Indian Army to defeat Pakistan. Nixon tried to block the end of this genocide, sending a nuclear armed carrier to threaten India. The Soviets responded by sending their own nuclear armed ships. So Nixon not only ignored this genocide, he risked outright nuclear war to try to prevent it being stopped.
No other potential president at the time would choose to threaten a nuclear war to allow genocide to go on. Not Humphrey, not Rockefeller, not even Reagan. An arms embargo against Pakistan and allowing Bangladeshi refugees into the US could have saved one tenth of the lives lost.
Nixon's Betrayal of the Kurds
Nixon and Kissinger have the most innocent blood on their hands of any US President and Secretary of State. In 1973, the two encouraged Kurds to rebel against the Iraqi government, supplying them with arms. Nixon did so because he wanted to use Kurd rebels as a bargaining chip. His ally the Shah of Iran wanted a piece of Iraqi territory. Once Iraq gave up the territory, Nixon betrayed his Kurdish allies. They were left without any US weapons or funds. Over 3,000 were killed. Nixon even refused to allow Kurds to flee to the US.
This betrayal was the first step leading to genocide against Kurds by Saddam Hussein. For the next decade and a half, Kurds suffered repression, violence, and poison gas attacks, launched by helicopters bought from the US, with gas manufactured with equipment bought from US companies. The US would not take the Kurdish side until George Bush Sr. sent US troops to protect Kurds from Saddam Hussein's army after the Gulf War.
Ford and East Timor
The few Americans aware of East Timor genocide know about it because of anarchist Noam Chomsky. Chomsky tells of Timorese genocide to show how the US media ignores genocide when done by American allies, the dictator General Suharto of Indonesia.
Timor is a small island next to Indonesia. Suharto launched genocide, but not before asking permission from US President Gerald Ford during a state visit. Ford asked and got a two day delay from Suharto, so Ford would not publicly appear to be endorsing genocide.
Ford continued to sell weapons to Suharto and Indonesia used to kill over 200,000 Timorese, forcing them into concentration camps perishing from disease and starvation. Had Ford ordered an arms embargo and offered refuge, perhaps one tenth of Timorese could be saved. East Timor did not gain its freedom until two decades later, thanks to Suharto's fall and international pressure forcing Indonesian troops out.
Clinton and Rwandan Genocide
To this day, the reasons why the US did not intervene in Rwanda, while it did in Bosnia, are disturbing. Rwandans are Black Africans, while Bosnians are white Europeans. Bosnia was not far from central Europe, while few Americans knew anything about Rwanda.
What is most disturbing is how easily these atrocities could stop. This was a low technology genocide. Up to 800,000 Rwandans were killed using mostly machetes and spears. Only one of six deaths were by guns. The Rwandan army and paramilitaries could easily be defeated by as little as 5,000 troops. Sending in troops two weeks after the start of genocide could save three quarters. Even Clinton admitted at least 300,000 Rwandans could be saved had he sent troops in a few months after genocide began.
Clinton knew this genocide was happening. It was regularly on the news, and Clinton was warned before it happened by US embassies and intelligence agencies. Clinton was even personally visited by a Rwandan activist begging him to intervene.
Instead, Clinton officials refused to admit genocide was happening. His administration went further and pressured to the UN to stay out, and for all nations to withdraw their troops. Genocide finally ended because a rebel group, the Rwandan Patriotic Front, overthrew the government. Today Rwanda has remarkably recovered, using traditional justice to punish those guilty.
Clinton is the only president to ever admit wrongdoing in not stopping genocide. Nixon never admitted to ignoring two genocides. Jefferson stayed quiet about Haiti because he feared public exposure of his relationship with slave Sally Hemmings. Polk, Fillmore, and Buchanan were deeply bigoted, with contempt for Natives. Roosevelt deferred to his generals and anti Semites in the State Department. Ford's reason for ignoring genocide was anti Communism, though East Timor was not in danger of becoming Communist.
But to point out that many presidents deliberately chose to ignore genocides does not mean these atrocities could not be stopped. Several presidents did act. Jefferson did ban the international slave trade in the US. Lincoln did end enslavement of both Blacks and California Indians. Grant greatly reduced warfare between the US and Native tribes with his Peace Policy. George Bush Sr. kept Saddam Hussein from slaughtering Kurds.
The key in all cases was a mix of humanitarian motives and public pressure. Jefferson, Lincoln, and Grant strongly believed in what they did, but abolitionists backed their efforts too. But Bush Sr. had no humanitarian motive. The public demanded he act because television showed Kurds dying.
There were also cases where many Americans acted to halt atrocities, not always successfully. The Whig Party narrowly failed to stop Andrew Jackson from the forced removal of the Trail of Tears. Many forget today that the Kent State shootings happened during US public demonstration on a massive scale against the bombing of Cambodia. And just recently, massive public opposition kept President Obama from bombing Syria.
The lesson is clear. Most presidents were put into office by the powerful, and were themselves often part of elites. Americans must both elect humanitarians to office, and keep vigilant and press them for action to stop atrocities from happening. The US is a nation founded on two genocides, against American Indians and Africans. It has a moral obligation to stop mass slaughter.
Al Carroll is Assistant Professor of History at Northern Virginia Community College and the author of Presidents' Body Counts: The Twelve Worst and Four Best American Presidents Based on How Many Lived or Died Because of Their Actions.