U.S. Knew of Rwanda Genocide, Files Show

Declassified U.S. documents on the 1994 killings in Rwanda show that U.S. officials knew early on who was behind the slaughter and avoided using the term “genocide” because it could have obliged them to intervene.

The hundreds of pages of material, released this week by the National Security Archive, a research group at George Washington University, show the United States was aware of the scope of the killings very early on.

The United Nations, the United States, Belgium, France, the Roman Catholic Church and others have come under attack for not doing enough to prevent the deaths of 800,000.

Most of those killed were ethnic Tutsis and Hutu moderates who were hunted down by Hutu extremists.

William Ferroggiaro, a National Security Archive official, said the documents show that three weeks into the killings, the U.S. had pinned down one of main coordinators of the genocide as Col. Theoneste Bagosora, a Cabinet director in Rwanda’s Defense Ministry.

One State Department cable to U.S. embassies said Prudence Bushnell, then the No. 2 official for African matters at the State Department, telephoned Bagosora in April 1994 to urge him to end the killings and tell him that credible witnesses had reported Rwandan military complicity in the massacre.