5 - Masterclass in surreal diplomacy: understanding the culture of ‘political correctness’

Summary

The normal procedure of labelling refugees as a helpless, amorphous body, I have argued in the previous chapter, made it easier for outsiders to conceive of ‘the Rwandan refugees’ as voiceless and collectively guilty of genocide. Refugees are a lump of humanity at the best of times, and against the background of genocide Rwandan refugees could not become the exception. Still, it remains striking how easily the world forgot the ‘missing refugees’ and, how easily some Western commentators accepted the killings as a small price to pay for justice. Why were the dominant voices in the international community so quickly persuaded? The short answer is that the RPF-led government of Rwanda had by then won the moral argument. Kigali's new leaders had convinced the world that they – and they alone – had the right to know and determine what was going on in those parts of the Great Lakes region they now controlled.

How did they convince the world? This chapter examines the argument and cultural mechanism through which Kigali's new leaders silenced the international community. The perspective I develop complements, but does not replace, the standard analysis of why the UN decided against intervention. France's lead role in calling for intervention, the ghost of the disastrous 1992 UN mission in Somalia, the strongly felt need for an African solution, and Western interests in Zaire's mineral wealth were all crucial in arriving at that decision.