Special to USAfrica magazine (Houston) and USAfricaonline.com, first Africa-owned, US-based newspaper published on the Internet.
America’s first woman Secretary of State, Rwanda genocide and history.
She was a pacesetter and notable figure in recent international relations. She was the first woman who served as the 64th United States Secretary of State, from 1997 to 2001. She shattered the glass ceiling for women in the diplomatic communities of the United States and, indeed, for women around the world.
She has also been criticized for the documented failures and stonewalling by the Clinton presidency when Albright served as Ambassador to the United Nations – during the Rwanda genocide. I will return that important issue, shortly, in a minute.
Madeleine Jana Korbel Albright, political scientist, reflected and embodied in many ways the fine tradition of stories of many immigrants who fled from suppression, deprivation and dictatorships – in the familiar quests – for better lives and freedoms to the United States.
She was born on May 15, 1937, Smíchov, Prague in Czechia, and fled to the United States at the very young age of 11 years.
She achieved the American dream!
No surprises that upon her death at the age of 84, on March 23, 2022, in Washington, D.C., the President Joe Biden, former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama, former President Bill Clinton and former First Lady (Hillary Clinton (who also served as the United States Secretary of State) and a lot of the influential persons, her friends and leaders attended on Wednesday, April 27, 2022 a memorial service held at the Washington National Cathedral, in honor of Prof. Albright. There was one noticeable but understandable absence: America’s current First Lady Dr. Jill Biden. She could not attend due to prior commitments at Northern Virginia Community College, where she teaches. Commitment, par excellence!
Albright was nominated by then-President Clinton to lead the diplomatic corps as the country’s first female Secretary of State in December 1996 and was unanimously confirmed in 1997.
President Biden described Albright as a “force of nature” who through qualities of “goodness and grace, humanity and intellect, she turned the tide of history…. To Madeline there was no higher mission, no greater honor than to serve this great experiment of freedom known as the United States of America.” He said “Freedom endures against all odds in the face of every aggressor because there are always those who will fight for that freedom. And in the 20th and 21st century, freedom had no greater champion than Madeleine Korbel Albright.
“Regarding her versatility, Biden noted: “She can go toe to toe with the toughest dictators, then turn around and literally teach a fellow ambassador how to do the Macarena on the floor of the U.N. Security Council.”
The man who appointed her to the historic position as the chief diplomat of the United States, Bill Clinton, one of three persons who delivered a tribute to Albright, recalled that he spoke to her two weeks before she passed away. The former President pointed out that she did not focus on her battle with cancer and that she said: “The only thing that matters is what kind of world we’re going to leave to our grandchildren.”
On the Rwanda genocides where within 100 days, from April to July of 1994, in approximately 100 days, at leasr 750,000 men, women and children of the minority ethnic group (Tutsis) were killed, and several other thousands were raped, maimed and tortured by mainly their neighbors of the majority Hutus, The Hutus also suffered some casualties and deaths. in 1998, the Organization of African Unity (OAU, now known as the African Union) established an International Panel of Eminent Personalities to Investigate the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda and the Surrounding Events. It stated that:
“As the carnage continued, the UN dithered in organizing any kind of response to the ongoing tragedy…. The Americans, led by US Ambassador Madeleine Albright, played the key role in blocking more expeditious action by the UN.”
I bring the Rwanda issue to the confetti of tributes and commendations being showered on Prof. Albright due to two major reasons. First, as a specialist on United States and Africa contemporary issues, I consider it to be a valuable but critical part of the public record. Second, it expands the historical context, albeit uncomfortable for some, towards the assessments of the late, distinguished, influential Madeleine Albright and the presidency of Bill Clinton and the African continent. I explore those and related issues in my forthcoming 2022 book, MLK, Mandela & Achebe: Power, Leadership and Identity.
On the important lessons of Albright’s life, someone who knew her personally, Hillary Clinton, stated, that the late diplomat showed that the United States should:
“Stand up to dictators and demagogues from the battlefields of Ukraine to the halls of our own capitol…. Defend democracy at home just as vigorously as we do abroad. Let us honor Madeline Albright’s life and legacy by being the indispensable nation she loved and served.”
Without a doubt, Madeleine Albright made a difference in her communities, her heritage and the entire world!
*Dr. Chido Nwangwu, the author of the forthcoming 2022 book, MLK, Mandela & Achebe: Power, Leadership and Identity., serves as Founder & Publisher of the first African-owned, U.S-based newspaper on the internet, USAfricaonline.com, and established USAfrica in 1992 in Houston. He has appeared as analyst on CNN, SKYnews, VOA, BET news, SABC, and served as an adviser on Africa business to Houston’s former Mayor Lee Brown. Follow Chido on Twitter @Chido247
USAfrica: Eight lessons of the 1994 Rwanda Genocide. By Chido Nwangwu
