THE AMERICAN ROLE IN RWANDA

The horrific sight of thousands upon thousands of dying men, women and children in Rwanda has gripped the world. With cholera, diarrhea and, by some reports, bubonic plague sweeping through refugee camps just inside neighboring Zaire, it is urgent the world respond to this tragedy with whatever humanitarian aid it can muster. President Clinton over the weekend announced the United States would take the forefront in providing such relief, and American planes loaded with food, medicine and water purification gear joined other planes from Germany, the Netherlands, Japan and elsewhere in rushing to the troubled area. While questions about why it took so long for the president and other world leaders to awaken to this tragedy will -- and should -- be asked, we applaud the president for taking this action now. We also encourage him to immediately name a respected and qualified American to oversee all U.S. aid going to Zaire and Rwanda.

Helping other nations in crisis has always been part of the American tradition. Yet with problems at home calling out for more money from our government's debt-ridden budget, foreign aid is among the least popular of political actions. Another reason foreign aid is unpopular is that American good intentions have been bungled lately by a lack of leadership and coordination.

Case in point is the Somalia fiasco. There, what started as a U.S.-led humanitarian assistance effort quickly turned into a military operation -- sans the necessary equipment -- to hunt down a defiant warlord. While American intervention in Somalia saved hundreds of thousands of Somalis from starvation, the end result for most Americans is that it became a symbol of shoddy coordination between the United Nations and the Clinton administration, which led to the needless deaths of American soldiers.

A similar fiasco in Rwanda is less likely, although it is still a possibility. The main advantage is that, contrary to the situation in Somalia, there are clear definitions of power and representation there.

President Clinton should name a qualified American to coordinate U.S. relief efforts for a number of reasons, one being that assistance, and not political showmanship, must be the first order. Also, a clear accountability of American taxpayer dollars spent must be evident.

Sadly, the early reports of American assistance have been somewhat discouraging. On Sunday, a U.S. aid airdrop criticized beforehand as a publicity stunt missed the target by a half-mile, scattering bundles of food over terrified Rwandan refugees who thought they were being bombed. Corned beef, flour and other food became unusable as it broke open on muddy and diseased fields. British relief workers at the site estimated they would be able to salvage only half of what was dropped, calling the waste "criminal."

Just as disappointing was the report that precious airplane and airport time was used to fly a U.S. C-141 in from Frankfurt, Germany, with a single forklift aboard, along with 18 journalists to cover the air-drop. The journalists were returned on the empty aircraft when the delivery didn't go as expected.

Such grandstanding, especially in the context of suffocating death and disease, is unconscionable. By naming a point man to be in charge of coordinating the U.S. relief effort, the president would establish an important accountability that has been lacking in recent foreign policy endeavors. In addition, this point man could be charged with keeping the United States out of the kind of military imbroglio that Somalia became.

Over a million people are estimated dead or killed in Rwanda in the past three months. Another 13,000 died yesterday. The prediction is an even greater number will die tomorrow and the next day, all for lack of clean water and food. With no more room in mass burial graves and the volcanic ground around the refugee camps too unyielding for new ones, brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers are left to bundle their loved ones in blankets and place them on trucks to be taken to what are being called "cities of the dead." There their bodies will be incinerated.

We believe most Americans support saving as many people as possible from this horror. But it should be done with a clear and efficient agenda: American taxpayer dollars aren't to be wasted. Nor should American soldiers be sucked into fighting somebody else's war. Naming an accountable central coordinator would be an important step in accomplishing these goals.