Dear Editor, I am responding to an article written by Gloria Anyango (“The Tragedy of the Humanitarian Industry”) in Oakland, CA-USA. I read the online edition of TNT from time to time and I was in Rwanda in August-Sept 1994. The action taken by the Rwandans and Congolese (in Umoja Wetu, the just concluded joint military operation-Editor) now should have been taken in late 1994. If the US would have intervened in April 1994 with a paratrooper drop, we could have reduced the genocide by 80-90 percent. I apologize for my government’s lack action as Bill Clinton did a few years ago. You seem to grasp the ambiguity that a military force has intervened to do what the humanitarian force was supposed to do. So, it is the result, the justice and peace achieved, with the delicate use of military force as a step to achieve humanitarian goals. As well intentioned as Albert Schweitzer was in your opening quote, I don’t think he would have grasped your more ambivalent message here. OAKLAND, CA USA
