By SHMULEY BOTEACH
Two things were on my mind as I watched Hotel Rwanda, the stunning depiction of the 1994 Rwandan Tutsi extermination that was the fastest genocide in the history of the world.
The first was Hollywood, and how I owed it an apology for the many times I have railed against its degeneracy. (I on the other hand say it reached a pinacle of degeneracy by it's ommissions and misrepresentations.)gs
(If that wasn't the pinnacle of degeneracy and deception of hollywood, then the movie; 'Last King of Scotland' was, Idi Amin was the most despicable characters in modern history bar none, and he as yet has not had to answer for killing most all the Christians of the unfortunate coutry he briefly ruled, after being ousted he found refuge with Obama's friends in Libya and now resides in splendor in Saudi Arabia while no doubt receiveing concubines from southern Sudan.)gs
A film this powerful shames the world out of its indifference to the slaughter of helpless humans and demonstrates the potential of movies to reach the places photos and words cannot. (the Tutsi's biggest mistake was allowing the UN to disarm them, we will not make that mistake here in America.)gs
The second was Bill Clinton, the great 60's liberal romantic, who dreamed of becoming president in order to make the world a better place. (a better communist place, truth be known.)
How would he deal with his shame? The movie is more damaging to his reputation than if Monica Lewinsky had equipped herself with a handycam.
Though Clinton is never mentioned explicitly in the movie, he is the ghost that haunts the entire story, the most powerful man on earth, who not only refused to intervene to save 800,000 people from being hacked to death but declined to even convene his cabinet to discuss the crisis.
How would the great liberal hope now face his Nobel-prize winning friend Toni Morrison, who called him "America's first black President"? (as it the award isn't tarnished enough.)
Would he still be invited by Oprah Winfrey to talk about his $12-million autobiography once she focused on the fact that Clinton had even refused to provide jamming aircraft to block the Hutu Power radio transmissions that orchestrated the massacres?
The $8,500-per-hour cost to the United States was determined by the president's administration be too exorbitant, even though, since 10,000 Rwandans were being killed each day, the cost came to $20 per life.
And would Bill Clinton still be a hero to a new generation of American youth once they found out that eight African nations, fed up with American inaction to stop the butchery, agreed to send in their own intervention force?
All they asked from the US was the use of 50 armored personnel carriers, but the Clinton administration refused to loan them and instead demanded $15 million, leaving the carriers on a runway in Germany while the UN scrambled to find the money.
While all this happened, an average of 334 poor black (mostly Christian) Africans were dying every hour.
THE RWANDAN genocide was unique in the annals of modern genocide insofar as the world had absolutely no excuse not to intervene.
The Ottoman Turks' slaughter of 2 million Christian Armenians took place during the fog of the First World War. The same was true of the Holocaust of six million European Jews, which gave Franklin Roosevelt the excuse that defeating the Germans was the best way to stop the carnage.
The Khmer Rouge's extermination of one third of Cambodia's seven million citizens was done in a country that was utterly sealed off from the rest of the world, (thanks to thecorrupt communist UN who denied membership to Cambodia untill the communist inspired Kmer Rouge achieved power) thus granting the Western powers plausible deniability as to its occurrence.
But with the Rwandan genocide, UN commander General Romeo Dallaire of Canada, one of the few true heroes of this otherwise cowardly tale, informed the world of both the Hutu preparations for mass murder and every development once the genocide was in full swing. (Likewise the courageous Canadian General McKenzie who said Clinton bombed the wrong side in Yugoslavia.)
The Clinton administration's response constitutes one of the greatest abominations of American history.
(Even worse than the abomination in Somalia but not as bad as in Kosovo.)
Not only did the United States refuse to intervene, but, to quote The New York Times, "it also used its considerable power to discourage other Western powers from intervening."
The Clinton administration robbed Dallaire of any ability to protect the unarmed Christian men, women, and children by demanding a total withdrawal of all 2,500 UN peacekeepers, only later allowing a skeletal force of 270 because of the strong pressure of African nations.
The administration's insistence that the UN be withdrawn was taken as a clear signal by the Hutu muslim Power militias that the West cared nothing for poor African lives.
From that time on the fate of the Christian Tutsis was sealed, and the bodies of hundreds of thousands of children, with their parents', littered Rwanda's rivers and hills.
The Clinton administration's repellant response only got worse, with the State Department then prohibiting use of the word "genocide," because that would have obligated the US to intervene.
To be fair, I should add that Clinton did go to Rwanda in 1998 to apologize though only for three-and-a-half hours, his plane not even shutting down its engines while he spoke.
True to form, he at least felt their pain.
DECEMBER 9, 2004 was the 56th anniversary of the approval of the Genocide Convention by the United Nations General Assembly.
But with another genocide taking place in Sudan and the UN refusing to even pass a resolution condemning it, it is clear the world is still not ready to prevent entire groups being exterminated.
It is also clear that no country, not even the United States, can be trusted to prevent genocide. (even in the USA under the present administration.)
President Bush, the greatest champion of democracy since Winston Churchill, has thus far done too little to help the wretched people of Darfur, where about 100,000 have already died.
Which leaves just you and me.
I believe that rather than merely blame world leaders for being indifferent to genocide, decent people everywhere must take it upon themselves to coerce their governments into action whenever a genocide occurs.
There should be a mass strike, along with other acts of civil disobedience, for two days of every month until the great democracies take action to stop whole groups being exterminated.
Surely if enough people began to act someone with global influence will emerge to inspire and orchestrate the campaign. We could shut down whole countries twice a month until those governments act.
Mass slaughter requires a mass response.
Let's begin with the Sudan, whom the US and other responsible governments have already labeled guilty of a genocide.
Let us strike until the Western democracies send troops into the Sudan to stop the Janjaweed militias, or carry out air strikes against the Sudanese government that is arming them.
