For an excellent perspective of what went down, pick up a copy of Shake Hands with the Devil, The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda, written by Lt. Gen. Romeo Dallaire, the Force Commander of the UN Mission to Rwanda.  He was there, on the ground, before and during the genocide.  This man knows of what he speaks.  And he speaks the truth.

It's an incredibly well written, excruciating account of lost opportunities, international stalling, desperate negotiations and madness on the ground.  He gives a comprehensive lesson on the different players and groups within Rwanda, the UN processes and procedure, the Security Council's actions and sadly, the failure of the U.S., France and the U.K. to address this crisis.  (I must say, after reading this, I lost much admiration for former President Bill Clinton.  As he has stated in public, Rwanda was his greatest failure.)

You get as close to a sense of what it was like inside that African nation as is possible without actually having been there.  You are presented with moral dilemmas with deadly consequences which required split-second decisions.  You also get a glimpse into the depths of evil to which humans can descend. 

Hopefully certain nations and individuals will be shamed by their actions and inactions, as the world becomes more aware of what the hell happened in 1993-1994.

I met Gen. Dallaire when he gave a key note address at a luncheon in Silicon Valley.  He is surprisingly optomistic considering what he witnessed and experienced.  He's a quirky little Canadian, not at all what you would expect.  Shatters any preconceived notion of what a "masculine" military leader should look like or sound like.

He's still working to halt future crimes against humanity and was on a plane to Sudan after the luncheon.

He fast became one of my role models.

I wonder how long it will be before we have a collective image of what a female general would look or sound like, and what that image would be like?  Just a thought I had from reading your post and comment, Tara.

She would look like Lucy Lawless of course!