KIGALI, RWANDA — President Bush, expressing frustration that the United Nations has had a difficult time raising and deploying a sufficient peacekeeping force in Darfur, said Tuesday that the 1994 Rwandan genocide should have taught the world not to ignore signs of budding brutality.
Bush said Rwanda would receive $12 million of the $100-million contribution the U.S. is making this year to U.N. peacekeeping efforts in Darfur. The money will help provide training and vehicles for the 2,400 troops that Rwanda has said it will add to a 7,000-troop deployment in the troubled area of western Sudan.
The issue of Sudan government's brutal suppression of a rebellion in Darfur has shadowed Bush during his five-nation trip to Africa, even as the president has sought to focus on political progress and the fight against diseases on the continent.
Bush defended his decision not to send U.S. troops to Darfur, where the rebellion erupted in 2003, and to rely on a force being assembled by the U.N. and the African Union.
But, renewing his complaint that the U.N. has taken too long to deploy an African force, he said that it "seems very bureaucratic to me, particularly with people suffering."
The president's readiness to commit the United States to provide money, training and logistical support to try to end a distant conflict demonstrated how far he has traveled since he sought election eight years ago with a distinct antipathy for such work.
Bush said at a news conference with Rwandan President Paul Kagame that he agreed with Kagame's assessment that Darfur and similar crises on the continent should be resolved "in Africa, by Africans." At the same time, Bush acknowledged that the U.S. had an important role to play.
Bush said the U.S. had spent $17 million to train, equip and transport the 7,000 Rwandan peacekeeping troops in Darfur.
White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said the U.S. contribution to the U.N. was being used in training troops from Ethiopia, Ghana, Senegal, Tanzania, Burkina Faso, Malawi and Rwanda for duty in Darfur.
Still, it was clear that some here expect more from the Bush administration -- and not just in Darfur.
Bush was taken to task Tuesday by a newspaper in Tanzania for not visiting an international tribunal that is trying Rwandan genocide cases. The panel meets in the city of Arusha, where Bush spent Monday.
