Ascribing Blame

Ultimately institutions, governments and leaders will be judged by how each responded to genocide on their respective watch.

Such is certainly the case with the Rwandan genocide of 1994, during which close to one million were murdered in 100 days of savage mayhem orchestrated by the government.

Former U.S. president Bill Clinton, for example, consistently refers to his lack of intervention in Rwanda as the “greatest failure” of his presidency.

Kofi Annan, who at the time was in charge of all United Nations peacekeeping operations and rebuffed General Roméo Dallaire’s plea for more troops, has been haunted by his inaction. Later, as UN secretary general, he declared “after the genocide, I realized there was more that I could and should have done to sound...