In 1994, roughly 800,000 Rwandans were killed in a hundred days while the United Nations, the United States, and other world powers watched and did nothing. This Frontline documentary reconstructs the genocide through interviews with survivors, Hutu perpetrators, journalists, and the diplomats and soldiers who were there, including UN force commander Romeo Dallaire, who begged New York for reinforcements and troops to stop the killing and was refused. Father Vjeko Curic describes shepherding Tutsis to safety through roadblocks manned by machete-wielding militia. American officials explain, on camera, why Washington avoided using the word "genocide" so it would not be obligated to act. The film moves between the killing fields, the empty UN compound in Kigali, and the offices in Washington and New York where the decisions not to intervene were made. It is a plain account of how much death a deliberate policy of inaction can produce, and of the individuals, foreign and Rwandan, who tried to act anyway.