Hillary Clinton has claimed during the genocide in Rwanda she was urging President Clinton to intervene militarily to stop the genocide. Previously her schedules were unavailable for me to investigate exactly where she was when the genocide was unfolding - but the release of her schedules today have helped to paint a very clear picture of Hillary's time during the genocide in Rwanda
The genocide in Rwanda lasted for nearly 3 months, from April 11 1994 to mid-July of the same year and ended up costing the lives of 800,000 to 1,000,000 Rwandan Tutsi and moderate Rwandan Hutu.
The genocide is widely acknowledged as having started with the downing of Rwandan president Habyarimana's plane on April 6th of 1994. Let's see where Hillary was on that day - and what she was doing:
11:15 - 11:30: Private meeting with Maggie Williams
12:30 - 2:00: Attending Eighth Biennial Luncheon of the Emil Verban Memorial Society
6:40 PM - 10:00 PM - Greeting H.R.M Princess Margaret and attending gala performance of the Royal Ballet's "The Sleeping Beauty" (Black Tie mandatory).
Hmmm... Maybe Hillary was consulting about Rwanda with H.R.M. Princess Margaret? But there's no note of it in her official schedule, which you can check here.
Let's jump forward 6 days:
On 12 April 1994, more than 1,500 Tutsis sought refuge in a Catholic church in Nyange, in then Kivumu commune. Local Interahamwe acting in concert with the priest and other local authorities then used bulldozers to knock down the church building. People who tried to escape were hacked down with machetes or shot. Local priest Athanase Seromba was later found guilty and sentenced to life in prison by the ICTR for his role in the demolition of his church and convicted of the crime of genocide and crimes against humanity.
What was Hillary doing that day?
12:00 - 2:00 - Ladies of the Senate Luncheon
6:00 - 6:30 - Carnegie Corporation National Conference
8:15 - 10:35 - Radio and TV Correspondents Association 50th Anniversary Dinner
What - no mention of Hillary urging the world not to forget about Rwanda? I'm shocked. We'll have to dig deeper into her schedule to find proof of her stated revulsion at the genocide. Let's go forward.
On May 17, 1994, the UN conceded that "acts of genocide may have been committed." [25] By that time, the Red Cross estimated that 500,000 Rwandans had been killed.
On May 17th Hillary was:
10:30 - 11:00 AM - Meeting with Norwegian Prime Minister and Ambassador.
1:30 - 5:00 - Office and Phone Time
Perhaps Hillary was using her "office and phone time" to rally the world against the genocide in Rwanda. If so nothing is listed.
So let's go even further to the end of the genocide. The killing tapered off by June simply because there weren't that many Tutsi people left to kill. But the UN did find time to send Hutu-allied French troops into Rwanda:
On June 22, with no sign of UN deployment taking place, the Security Council authorized French forces to land in Goma, Zaire on a humanitarian mission. They deployed throughout southwest Rwanda in an area they called "Zone Turquoise," quelling the genocide and stopping the fighting there, but often arriving in areas only after the Tutsi had been forced out or killed. Operation Turquoise is charged with aiding the Hutu army against the RPF. The former Rwandan ambassador to France Jacques Bihozagara has testified, "Operation Turquoise was aimed only at protecting genocide perpetrators, because the genocide continued even within the Turquoise zone."
Maybe Hillary was urging the UN to stop protecting the perpetrators of the genocide rather than sending in French forces which did nothing to actually halt the genocide. Let's look at her schedule that day - I'm hoping I see a call to the UN or a meeting with a UN rep.
June 22nd. Hillary Clinton's schedule:
11:30 - 12:30 PM: Brunch with King Hussein and Queen Noor of Jordan
8:15 - 9:15 PM: DNC Gala
9:30 - 10:00 PM - Saxophone Club Reception
Nope. No meetings with UN staff or calls to the UN or anyone associated with Rwanda during this time. But at least she had time for the Saxaphone Club!!!
But wait!!! Hillary did find time in her busy, busy schedule to pay a visit to Rwanda, on March 25, 1998:
CHARLES KRAUSE: The President and First Lady arrived in the Rwandan capital of Kigali this morning, the third stop of their 11-day Africa tour. For security reasons the President could go no further than the airport.
PRESIDENT CLINTON: It may seem strange to you here, especially the many of you who lost members of your family, but all over the world there were people like me sitting in offices, day after day after day, who did not fully appreciate the depth and the speed with which you were being engulfed by this unimaginable terror.
Hillary knew about "this imaginable terror" though. Maybe she was just too busy at The Saxophone Club or meeting H.R.M Princess Margaret to remind everyone else.
