Power, Samantha. “Bystanders to Genocide”.

This article, which is based on interviews with 60 U.S. officials, several Rwandan, European and UN officials, and other Rwandan experts, discusses the U.S. inaction during the Rwandan genocide. It complicates the idea that the U.S. didn’t intervene because they didn’t know how bad the Rwandan situation was. Power concludes that Clinton could have known a genocide was under way, if he had wanted to know. She calls this a case of not willful complicity but willful ignorance. Interesting in light of the concept of the bystander is the U.S.’s refusal to use the word ‘genocide’, out of a fear of being obliged to act. Calling the Rwandan case a genocide and subsequently be seen doing nothing would have had major consequences for the U.S, which shows how knowledge and action are connected.

Author of this entry: Lisanne Meinen

Power, Samantha. “Bystanders to Genocide.” The Atlantic Monthly 288, no. 2 (September 2001): 84-108.