Channels, Fall 2016

Channels • 2016 • Volume 1 • Number 1 Page 11 and U.N., stung by the recent failures and unwilling to undertake such a massive operation again so soon, hesitated to intervene in tribe-on-tribe slaughter.” 30 The eighteen deaths in Mogadishu, less than six months before the genocide began, only hardened the administration’s resolve to oppose an ambitious new peacekeeping operation in a country with few historical links to the United States. The American death toll in Somalia and PDD- 25 that came as a result of those deaths secured the fate of the Rwandan populace. “It was effectively a straitjacket for U.S. decision-making, vis-a-vis various kinds of peacekeeping operations,” said John Shattuck, the Assistant Secretary of State at the time. “PDD-25 was the U.S. equivalent of the withdrawal of Belgian forces after the killing of the peacekeepers, in the sense that it gave a ‘green light’ to the genocide planners.” 31 The situation in Rwanda remained relatively contained in its geographical region, the Rwandan Civil War offered no endpoint for American forces, and American forces were not necessary for success. Therefore, the situation in Rwanda contradicted every guideline for United States involvement in the genocide. The United States continued to hesitate while the death toll continued to rise. Even after the killing began, the White House was more focused on getting Americans and the U.N. out of Rwanda than coming to the aid of Rwanda’s victims, as evident by the massive reduction in force by the UN. White House documents, secured through Freedom of Information Act requests, confirm accounts that portray the Clinton administration as reluctant to play the role of global police force following the recent failures in Somalia. 32 While President Clinton never stated that American inaction in Rwanda directly resulted from the incident in Somalia, all evidence points towards that being the case. PDD-25 came as a result of the incident in Somalia; numerous reports from within his administration stated that the fight in Mogadishu altered the outcome in Rwanda. UNSOM marked the critical turning point in a half-century of global involvement that ended with the United States refusing to commit significant troop numbers to any humanitarian mission for two decades. Bosnia Somalia’s impact on United States foreign policy also became evident in the Balkans following the collapse of the USSR. As part of the dissolution of the USSR in the early 1990s, the government of Bosnia-Herzegovina (a Yugoslav republic) declared its independence 30 Paul Alexander, Fallout from Somalia Still Haunts Us Policy 20 Years Later, Stars and Stripes , October 03, 2013, accessed January 20, 2016, http://www.stripes.com/news/fallout-from-somalia-still-haunts-us-policy- 20-years-later-1.244957 . 31 Colum Lynch, “Rwanda Revisited,” Foreign Policy (April 05, 2015), accessed January 21, 2016, http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/04/16/genocide-under-our-watch-rwanda-susan-rice-richard-clarke/ . 32 Colum Lynch, “Genocide under Our Watch,” Foreign Policy (April 16, 2015), accessed January 21, 2016, http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/04/16/genocide-under-our-watch-rwanda-susan-rice-richard-clarke/ .