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HUMANITARIAN MISSIONS CAN'T CURE POLITICAL CONFLICTS. IN ZAIRE, REFUGEES RESCUED THEMSELVES

Americans can be forgiven if they are frequently confused about foreign policy. Like last week, when the pictures and the words looked remarkably out of synch to anyone trying to make sense of events in Africa. There was Bill Clinton announcing that the U.S. would participate "in principle" in an international military force to rescue more than half a million sick and starving Rwandan refugees caught up in brutal tribal war. Even as he spoke, hundreds of thousands of them appeared on TV screens, marching safely out of Zaire back across the border to the homeland they had fled two years...

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