Journey into Darkness: Genocide in Rwanda (Texas A & M University Military History): 10

Odom, Thomas P.

ISBN 10: 158544457X / ISBN 13: 9781585444571

Published by Texas A & M University Press, 2005

About this Item

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Seller Inventory # rev1662120077

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Journey into Darkness: Genocide in Rwanda (Texas A & M University Military History): 10
• Publisher: Texas A & M University Press
• Publication Date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 158544457X
• ISBN 13: 9781585444571
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: Good
• Weight: 521.6 grams

About this title

Synopsis

In July 1994, Thomas P. Odom was part of the U.S. Embassy team that responded to the Goma refugee crisis. He witnessed the deaths of 70,000 refugees in a single week. In the previous three months of escalating violence, the Rwandan genocide had claimed 800,000 dead. Now, in this vivid and unsettling new book, Odom offers the first insider look at these devastating events before, during, and after the genocide. Odom draws on his years of experience as a Defense Attaché and foreign area specialist in the United States Army to offer a complete picture of the situation in Zaire and Rwanda, focusing on two U.S. embassies, intelligence operations, U.N. peacekeeping efforts, and regional reactions. His team attempted to slow the death by cholera of refugees in Goma, guiding in a U.S. Joint Task Force and Operation Support Hope and remaining until the United States withdrew its forces forty days later. After U.S. forces departed, Odom crossed into Rwanda to spend the next eighteen months reestablishing the embassy, working with the Rwandan government, and creating the U.S.-Rwandan Demining office. Odom assisted the U.S. Ambassador and served as the principal military advisor on Rwanda to the U.S. Department of Defense and National Security Council throughout his time in Rwanda. His book candidly reveals Odom’s frustration with Washington as his predictions that a larger war was coming were ignored. Unfortunately, he was proven correct: the current death toll in that unfortunate country is close to three million. Odom’s account of the events in Rwanda illustrate not only illustrate how failures in intelligence and policy happen, but also show that a human context is necessary to comprehend these political decisions.

About the Author

Thomas P. Odom is a graduate of Texas A&M University. He served as an Army strategic scout for over fifteen years, with five tours in the Middle East and Africa, and as the U.S. Army’s current intelligence officer on the Middle East during the first Gulf War. Among his previous publications are two books on hostage rescues in the Congo. He is the coauthor of the U.S. Army’s history of the Gulf War.