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April 7th
presidentHutus with guns started hunting down and killing current Hutu politicians and Tutsi leaders. The ambassador in Rwanda tells Washington that the killings involve not just political murders, but genocide.
America decides to takeout all Americans.
Canadian General Romeo Dallaire is told not to get involved and to avoid armed conflict -
April 9, 10, 11
Evidence mounts of massacres targeting ordinary Tutsis. On the front page of the newspaper story cite reports of "tens of thousands" dead and "a pile of corpses six feet high" outside a Tutsi hospital.
Gen. Dallaire requests a doubling of his force from 2,500 to 5,000.
Nearly 3,300 Americans, French, Italians and Belgians are evacuated by troops sent in from their countries. -
april 15
Belgium takes its troops out from the U.N. force after ten Belgian soldiers are killed. Belgium asks the U.S. to support a full pullout. Secretary of State Christopher agrees and tells Madeleine Albright, America's U.N. ambassador, to demand to leave Rwanda. She is opposed, as are some African nations. She pushes for a compromise: a dramatic cutback that would leave a token force in place. -
april 16-19
The New York Times reports the shooting and hacking to death of some 1000 men, women and children in a church where they sought refuge.
Human Rights Watch estimates the number of dead at 100,000 and calls on the U.N. Security Council to use the word "genocide."
Belgian troops leave Rwanda General. Dallaire is down to an army of 2,100. He will soon lose communication lines to refuge areas and will have only a satellite link to the outside world. -
may 1
A Defense Department discussion paper prepared for a meeting of officials having everyday responsibility on the crisis is seen with cautions about the U.S. becoming committed to taking action. "Be careful. Legal at State was worried about this yesterday -- Genocide finding could commit [the U.S.] to actually 'do something.'" -
may 5
A Pentagon memo declines an idea from Gen. Dallaire and State Department officials to die out the killings by using Pentagon technology to destroy the extremists' hate radio transmissions. "We have concluded jamming is ineffective mechanism International legal conventions complicate airborne or ground based jamming and the mountainous terrain reduces the effectiveness of either option. It costs approximately $8500 pfh it would be smarter to use air to assist the relief effort." -
may 13
Horrified by the amount of the killings in rwanda, some members of the U.N. Security Council are ready to get Gen. Dallaire's force up. Dallaire's plan is for 5,000 more troops to secure Kigali and create a safe place for the refuge Tutsis. But the State Department instructs U.N. Ambassador Albright to work to improve the plan. The U.S. wanted to create protected zones at Rwanda's border areas. -
may 17
Six weeks into the genocide, the U.N. and U.S. agreed to Gen. Dallaire's plan: nearly 5,000 mainly African U.N. forces will be sent in and the U.N. requested that the U.S. provide 50 armored personnel carriers (APCs). Bureaucratic paralysis continues. It takes a full month before the U.S. begins sending the APCs to Africa. They don't arrive until July. -
may 25
clintonSeven weeks into the genocide, President Clinton gives speech that restates his policy.
"The end of the superpower standoff lifted the lid from a cauldron of long-simmering hatreds. Now the entire global terrain is bloody with such conflicts, from Rwanda to Georgia. Whether we get involved in any of the world's ethnic conflicts in the end must depend on the cumulative weight of the American interests at stake." -
july 17
footageTutsi RPF forces have captured Kigali. The Hutu government flees to Zaire, followed by a tide of refugees. The French end their mission in Rwanda and are replaced by Ethiopian U.N. troops. The RPF sets up an interim government in Kigali.
Although disease and more killings claim additional lives in the refugee camps, the genocide is over.
