The Rwanda Genocide

Genocides happen when ethnic divisions become apparent. Many times, these ethnic divisions were due to colonization from people of different race. These cases are especially true in Africa when Europeans colonized their territory, with clear racial divisions between them (Gavin). These genocides go on because of nations acting on ignorance and refusing to help out the nations in turmoil, allowing the genocides to continue, without wasting their own resources. These nations purposefully ignoring the slaughter of people cause the nations to also be guilty of the genocide underway (“The Heart”). The genocide occurred in Rwanda in Central Africa during 1994. The decades of Tutsi oppression of Hutus and the assassination of President Habyarimana in 1994 led to the genocide in Rwanda.

According to Daniel Goldhagen, genocides are constantly being underestimated, which causes the never ending realities of the past repeating itself. From high officials to ordinary citizens, people often overlook the pattern and causes of these systematic killings. One of these includes the UN, which was created to prevent another World War, and to protect the rights of sovereignty of member states. This organization serves to solve international issues, but has failed and continues to fail to prevent genocides. Even though this group signed in 1948 a UN document, Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which punished and still punishes people guilty of genocide, not one life was ever saved from that declaration. The reason is because most at first want to deny that these extreme situations could happen ever again. Sadly,

The first reason that the US did not intervene in Rwanda is the previous Black Hawk Down incident. This unfortunate event took place in 1993 when a group of soldiers attempted to make peace

The United Nations failed Rwanda, in a time of need they abandoned the Rwandan people giving them no physical protection. Sadly, things go wrong with the slaughter of almost 800,000 Rwanda people, left defenseless in a country where no one outside cared. U.N. troops were present as only “peace-keepers.” The dispute was between the Hutus and Tutsis people could of been controlled if the U.N. changed their position, but the result could bring more consequences. This conflict between the two social groups in Rwanda,was left to be resolved on its own with many lives lost.

The UN and the US government are accredited for deploring conflict situations as well as contributing humanitarian aid, and this is what these two organizations did in Rwanda and Darfur. However, the UN did not do anything to punish or prevent the genocides that took place in these two countries. The US government promised to support the peace talk’s agreement in Darfur and hold the perpetrators accountable for their acts. It never kept that promise since nothing has been done. So far, the UN’s Security Council has also failed in its peace keeping mission effeorts, and is instead pressuring Sudan with words only. No solid steps have been made to bring the wrong doers into justice (Shapiro).

With over eight hundred thousand to one million deaths, the Rwandan genocide is undoubtedly one of the most sad and shocking examples of the lack of intervention by not only the US and the UN, but by other countries as well. The ongoing tensions between the Hutu, the largest population in Rwanda, and the Tutsi, the smaller and more elite population is what eventually lead to the Rwandan genocide. The killings began quickly after President Habyarimana 's plane was shot down. After hundreds of thousands of deaths, the US did not intervene in Rwanda because being a landlocked country with no natural resources to benefit the US, there was no economical benefit, and the risk of sending in troops simply outweighed the rewards. The aftermath of the genocide has not only impacted those who lived through it, but it has also impacted future generations as well. At the end of the genocide, the ICTR was formed by the UN to find justice. The Rwandan genocide has shocking similarities between the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide as well. Overall, the Rwandan genocide was a terrible event that escalated far beyond what it should have if there had been intervention from other countries and the UN.

The final reason why the United Nations is to blame for Rwanda’s Genocide is because of the fact that they ignored evidence of planned genocide and abandoned Rwandans in need of protection. The United Nations failed trying. The independent report, commissioned by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan ( who was in charge at the time of the Rwandan Genocide), says the UN peacekeeping operation in Rwanda was hopeless from the start by an poor consent and destroyed by the Security Council's unwillingness to strengthen it once the slaughters, murders and rape began. UN officials, together with Annan and then-Secretary-General

McDoom, Omar S. 2013. ‘To Aid, or Not to Aid? The Rwanda-United Nations University.’ United Nations University. http://unu.edu/publications/articles/to-aid-or-not-to-aid-the-case-of-rwanda.html (October 23, 2015).

Even with this very clear definition of genocide the United Nations Security Council still proved ineffective in preventing the genocide that occurred in Rwanda between the Hutu and Tutsi people. There are a number of theories as to why the U.N. was so inefficient in preventing the genocide such as : there was little political will to intervene from Western countries, the tragedy which had recently occurred in Somalia, and the overlooking of early warning signs.

Rusesabagina’s accounts have left me to believe that the United Nations could have easily stopped the progression of the genocide in the beginning. If they had stayed in Rwanda to portray the slightest bit of protection to the people, I believe the Hutu murderers would be have been threatened enough to back off for the time being. Also, Rusesabagina’s account of asking the White House for help at the last minute and recalling how each person responded with an obscure declination

The UN had resources in Rwanda with the UNAMIR (United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda). When the UNAMIR sent, a report saying they needed more because something big was going to happen in Rwanda, the UN didn’t believe them so they did nothing. The UN Security Council took a slightly non-intervention type of thought. They didn’t completely stay out of it, they had peace keepers on the ground in Rwanda. But they didn’t send enough and once they were there left them to their own

The Rwanda simulation has many actors involved including the United States, United Nations, France, and Rwanda. This simulation will analyze the positions of each actor in the case and will present an independent position. In this case, the conflict taking place in Rwanda is a mass genocide of Tutsi citizens. The assassination of Juvenal Habyarimana was the turning point here. My position will argue that the United States took too long to act and this hesitation was due to mistakes made during the Somalia intervention. A different point of entry into the Rwanda conflict would have provided a better opportunity for peacekeeping missions.

In essence, they had one moral choice to make: to either intervene and prevent the genocide, or to take no action all. Unlike Paul and General Dallaire who decided to take some kind of moral action, the western powers decided to avoid any action at all. Thus, one can argue that their decision of inaction resembles the realist positions regarding humanitarian intervention. Essentially, their refusal to take action was justified on the grounds that the circumstance in Rwanda was normal and unavoidable, and that an intervention wouldn’t have provided any real benefits to their own national interests. Thus, due to the UN’s lack of moral action and their selfish commitment to their own national interests, Rwanda suffered a brutal genocide that could have been

Humanitarian intervention is the act when states intervene in the affairs of another state because that state is violating the basic human rights of its civilians or because it is in the intervening state’s self interest to get involved. (Humanitarian, 2008) These interventions are not specifically aimed at violating the sovereignty of a state, but rather their purpose is to protect the basic human rights of civilians during civil wars and during crime against humanity. (Humanitarian, 2008) Realism explains that humanitarian intervention came about during the genocide in Bosnia but not in Rwanda because even though it might have been the correct moral action to take, intervention in Rwanda was not in the national interest of other

Genocide is defined by the United Nations as "...acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group..." (UN, 1) While there are many sovereign nations engaged in international politics, only a few engaged (or disengaged) in African politics during the Cold War era. Through realism and liberalism the actions of global leaders and members of the United Nations will be explained and their actions defined that led to the crisis of Central Africa from 1960 through 1994 and ending in Rwanda. These global state actors have an obligation to protect human rights throughout the world, but in 1994 allowed 800,000 ethnic Tutsi to be brutally murdered in their homes and in the streets of a place that once used to be safe. This all occurred because a global power struggle was top priority.