President Bill Clinton, the 42nd US President will lead the delegation to Rwanda.
The US delegation will be led former President Bill Clinton, 42nd President of the United States of America, and will include Eric Kneedler, U.S Ambassador to Rwanda, Mary Catherine Phee, Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of African Affairs, U.S. Department of State, Casey Redmon, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Legislative Affairs, National Security Council, The White House.
The delegation will also have Monde Muyangwa, Assistant Administrator of the Bureau for Africa, U.S. Agency for International Development.
President Clinton, 77, was in office when the Genocide against the Tutsi. His administration faced criticism for failing to intervene, which led to the international community not paying attention to the the massacres or acknowledging that what was happening in Rwanda was a genocide.
Over the years however, Clinton, who was President between 1993 and 2001, acknowledged that his government could have done more to stop the massacres, pointing out that the failure to intervene in Rwanda was one of his biggest regrets.
“I do feel a lifetime responsibility,” Clinton said during a visit to Rwanda in 2008, while on a trip to the country, adding however that it wasn’t the U.S alone, but the entire international community had something to do with it.”
In March 2013 Clinton again said that he believes that had the U.S. intervened, even marginally, at the beginning of the genocide, many people would have been saved. Through his foundation, Clinton, who later became a friend of Rwanda, said that they were looking to continue supporting Rwanda to achieve full recovery.
The U.S is one of the many countries sending delegations to Rwanda, three decades after the RPF Inkotanyi stopped the genocide and took over the leadership of the country.
