David Rawson

David Rawson, U.S. ambassador to Rwanda from 1993 to 1996.

Rwanda

According to an article in CovertAction Quarterly authored by Rakiya Omaar and Alex de Waal: "It was around this time, in 1993, that David Rawson, after a stint in Somalia (1986-88), became U.S. ambassador to Rwanda. He was no stranger to U.S. complicity in slaughter or to the region itself. In 1988, when he was deputy chief of mission in Somalia, the U.S. delivered $1.4 million worth of arms to the dictator, Siad Barre. The June 28, 1988 shipment, part of broad U.S. support for the regime, arrived precisely at the time Barre's army was waging indiscriminate warfare against the Issac clan family. Barre used the weapons in the early summer campaign in which 10,000 were killed, a half million were made refugees (out of a population of 1.5 million), and two cities leveled. So Rawson, from his post at the U.S. embassy, could be deemed something of an expert on crimes against humanity.

"Nor was the Somalia post his first experience in the region; he had grown up as a child of Protestant missionaries in Burundi. Speaking Kirundi and some Kinyarwanda, Rawson claimed special insight into the politics and society of Rwanda and Burundi. But his back ground also left him captive to the politics of missionary Christianity in the region. In order to understand his sympathy for Hutu extremism, it is necessary to delve into the extraordinary way in which Rwandese society is a product of a century of Christian evangelism. In particular, the bizarre racist ideology that passes under the bland name "Hutu extremism" is the bastard off spring of nineteenth century European racial theories, refracted through missionary teachings."