boxes of ammunition. The boxes were unloaded and transported by FAR vehicles to the Kanombe camp, where the Rwandese presidential guard was quartered. The French government has categorically denied the shipment by saying that the planes carried only French military personnel and material for the evacuation. France was very active at the UN in the discussions about the reinforcement of the UNAMIR in May 1994. Despite the inertia of the international community, France obtained the backing of the UN to lead Opération Turquoise from June 22 to August 22, 1994. Its declared goal was to protect the "populations threatened" by the genocide or the military conflict between the FPR and the temporary Rwandan government. No hierarchy between both types of threatened people was established. Both parties of the military conflict assimilated them, and the system was organised to remain neutral between the two different groups. The system was humanitarian in some cases, notably during a cholera epidemic in refugee camps in Zaïre, now Democratic Republic of the Congo, but it was the source of many distinct controversies surrounding the French role at the time of Operation Noroit and the criticism of France facilitating the desertion of those responsible for the genocide and a massive refugee movement of the population to Congo (around two million people). France has accused the FPR of having provoked half of the movements by refusing the French authorities' advice not to get involved in the northwest of the country. United States After the events surrounding the Battle of Mogadishu in Somalia one year earlier, the United States refused to provide requested material aid to Rwanda. France, China, and Russia opposed involvement in what was seen as an "internal affair." Dallaire was directly "taken to task", in his words, for even suggesting that UNAMIR should raid Hutu militants' weapons caches, whose location had been disclosed to him by a government informant. The UN failed to respond adequately to Dallaire's urgent requests. The role of the United States was directly inspired by the defeat undergone during the 1993 intervention in Somalia. Both President Bill Clinton and US Ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright repeatedly refused to take action, and government documents that were declassified in 2004 indicate that the Clinton administration knew that Rwanda was being engulfed by genocide in April 1994 but buried the information to justify US inaction. Intelligence reports obtained using the Freedom of Information