Jared Cohen. One Hundred Days of Silence: America and the Rwanda Genocide. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2007. xxviii + 230 pp. Photographs. Maps. Tables. Notes. Appendixes. Bibliography. Index. $50.00. Cloth. $18.95. Paper.

Abstract

Jared Cohen. One Hundred Days of Silence: America and the Rwanda Genocide. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2007. xxviii + 230 pp. Photographs. Maps. Tables. Notes. Appendixes. Bibliography. Index. $50.00. Cloth. $18.95. Paper. Those who have followed the debate on the international community's failure in Rwanda might be forgiven for not wanting to read One Hundred Days of Silence: it appears to be yet another finger-pointer that chooses to excoriate the U.S. for its failure to prevent and end Rwanda's genocide. However, while the general argument is not new - that the U.S. could have done more and in certain ways acted to make the situation worse - the author presents us with fresh, nuanced evidence and convincing narrative to reinforce this claim. The book's chief strength is Cohen's understanding of the inner workings of the U.S. government machinery; we learn as much about the decision-making process and culture of the individual bureaucracies as we do about the genocide. From his time as an intern at the State Department and Pentagon, Cohen is able to distinguish between the bureaucratic process and the personal culpability of individual policymakers. He takes us inside the monolith, identifying the individuals whose positions would have allowed them to do more than they did and exposing the claim that inaction was just the product of systemic failure; he shows us instead that it was the result of a policy of calculated non-interventionism (95). Cohen goes further and argues that the U.S. was not just guilty of choosing inaction. It worsened the situation in at least two ways. First, pushing for the draw-down of UNAMIR (the U.N. peacekeeping mission in the country) emboldened the extremists and removed the protection on which several thousand Rwandans were directly dependent. Second, and perhaps more debatably, by pressing for the inclusion of the extremist Coalition pour la Defense de la Republique et de la Democratie (CDR) party in the Arusha peace process, the U.S. contributed to the breakdown of the talks with the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) movement. Cohen also uses his insider knowledge to show that there was much the U.S. easily could have done that would not have involved putting boots on the ground. For example, in his most cogently argued chapter he claims that the U.S. could have severed diplomatic ties with Rwanda during the genocide or that the president personally could have called the principal organizers of the genocide to hold them responsible. As it was, there were no senior-level meetings or discussions of Rwanda inside the government, and he argues the U. …