From readers.

Rwanda: Another Holocaust Denial?

I was distressed to read "Remember Rwanda?" by James Gasana (September/October 2002) in your otherwise esteemed magazine. The article seems to contradict everything I had read on the subject. Mention of the most atrocious genocide in our recent history is only made in passing. Hutus are most often described as the victims, while frequent reference is made to Tutsi-led rebels and the Tutsi-led Revolutionary Patriotic Front. There are lots of pictures of Hutu refugees. Were there no Tutsi refugees?

Environmental destruction and resulting food shortages seem to me a lame excuse for the killing of almost 1 million people over the course of just 100 days (April to July 1994), mostly Tutsis and Hutu moderates who refused to participate in the blood bath. For all those impressive statistics on calorie intake, hacking up people with machetes at the rate of 10,000 per day in a country the size of Maryland does strike me as hard work that would require more energy than 1,100 calories can provide. Is this article simply another example of what Philip Gourevitch so aptly describes in his book We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families, when he writes, "power consists largely in the ability to make others inhabit your story of their reality"? Is this just another piece of propaganda, denying the holocaust?

JOANNE ROSE

Miami Beach, Florida

The editor responds: Thousands of articles have recounted the story of the Rwandan holocaust; and we felt no need to repeat it here. But far from intending to deny the horror, we wanted to offer an analysis of root causes that had never been investigated by the global media--the story of how environmental and resource degradation led step by step to catastrophic social breakdown. Nor did our author, James Gasana, in any way suggest that famine was an "excuse" for the slaughter; he made it clear that that the tragedy had numerous causes, including cynical manipulation by corrupt politicians and arming of the adversaries by the United States and Russia.

The U.S. Role in the Rwanda Genocide

I was stunned by the letter from John E. Peck ("The Rwanda Genocide: There's More to the Story") in the November/December issue. Mr. Peck implies that American foreign policy and the resource extraction economies of central Africa caused the genocide in Rwanda. But most of the events he mentions occurred after the genocide, and none of the people he connects the United States to actually planned or carried out the killing. Peck does not mention the extensive preparations for the genocide under the Habyarimana government, made clear in Philip Gourevitch's We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families. The assassination of President Habyarimana did not create a spontaneous movement in the Hutu majority to exterminate the Tutsi minority. This was a long-planned campaign. Mr. Peck also fails to explain what, exactly, is the connection between coltan mines and genocide. Resource extraction drives U.S. interest in the region, but there is no evidence of U.S. complicity in the genocide at a ll. Using this logic, purchasers of German exports caused the Holocaust, not the Nazi regime.

American cowardice and inactivity allowed the genocide to take place. For this we should be ashamed. However, military aid to the post-genocide government, or the RPF (who stopped the genocide) did not cause the genocide to occur.

ANDREW STERNICK

San Francisco, California

Neurological Effects of Disconnection

Kudos for that thoughtful article, "Out of Touch" (Note From a Worldwatcher, September/October). At the risk of being thoroughly depressing, I would like to add a couple of points. Developmental neurobiologists have accumulated ample evidence that the nervous system of newborn mammals...