“The feeling was if you took sides, it was yours,” Power said. “You were in it for the long haul.”

Power also said President Clinton “never had a Cabinet meeting” during the genocide. She added that Richard Clarke—who was then a presidential adviser and who has recently alleged that the Bush administration bungled warnings of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks—“is the only one who’s been honest. Clarke says [Rwanda] wasn’t in our national interest...and if he had to, he would advise the same today.”

Dallaire and Barker denied that Kofi Annan, the current U.N. secretary general who headed the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping Operations, got off too easily for his failure to act in the Rwandan crisis. Dallaire said Boutros Boutros-Ghali, secretary general at the time, deserved more blame than he received.

“There was the kingpin. He wasn’t even in New York the first three weeks of the genocide,” Dallaire said.

At the end of the forum, Ignatieff announced that Dallaire will be a fellow at the Carr Center next year. His concluding statement was that the audience should “go out tonight knowing [the genocide] did not have to happen.”

Dallaire’s accounts seem to have left an impression on audience members.

Amy Smith, a student at Gordon College, said “it was very provocative to hear from Dallaire himself” and that she left with a greater understanding of the Rwandan genocide.

Jessica Gustin, an Americorps volunteer who was also at the forum, added that seeing Dallaire was an “extraordinary privilege.”

PBS will air “Ghosts of Rwanda” on April 1.