The Rwanda genocide: there's more to the story.

• Position: From Readers

While I can certainly appreciate the underlying conditions of population pressure and environmental degradation behind human conflict in the Great Lakes region of Central Africa as explored by James Gasana's article ("Remember Rwanda," September/October), the immediate [causes of] the Rwandan genocide are not really as "inexplicable" as readers may be led to believe.

For instance, the missile that shot down the plane carrying Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana and Burundi President Cyprien Ntaryamira in 1994 was of Iraqi origin, captured by U.S. forces during the Gulf War and then supplied by a covert Pentagon contractor to Rwandan strongman Paul Kagame. Kagame ordered the assassination of the two leaders because they were on the brink of brokering a multiethnic peace agreement that would have stood in the way of his own climb to power--and his subsequent ability to siphon off kickbacks from Western corporate mining interests. Testimony to this effect before the UN War Crimes prosecutor, Louise Arbour, in 1997 was suppressed until leaked to the international community in a March 1, 2000 expose by journalist Steven Edward in the Canadian National Post.

Kagame received his military education under the Pentagon's Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET) at the Command and General Staff College of Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, beginning in 1990. His sidekick, Lt. Col. Frank Rusagara, got his JCET schooling at the U.S. Naval Academy in Monterey, California. Both were dispatched to Rwanda in time to oversee the RPF's takeover in 1994. Far from being an innocent bystander, the Washington Post revealed on July 12, 1998 that the United States not only gave Kagame $75 million in military assistance, but also sent Green Berets to train Kagame's forces (as well as their Ugandan rebel allies) in low intensity conflict (LIC) tactics. Pentagon subcontractor Ronco, masquerading as a de-mining company, also smuggled more weapons to RPF fighters in flagrant violation of UN sanctions. All of this U.S. largesse was put to lethal effect in the ethnic bloodbath that is still going on.

Kagame went on in 1996 to handpick Laurent Kabila...