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What To Do About Ethnic Cleans Essay

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WHAT TO DO ABOUT ETHNIC CLEANSING?
BACKGROUND PAPER

In 1994, unrest swept through the Maryland-sized African nation of Rwanda. Thousands of Hutu extremists launched a massive assault on the Tutsi, who traditionally make up Rwanda's upper class, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people (Night Rider – 'most days';). The United States immediately responded to this slaughter by turning the other way, denying that a problem existed until years after the genocide had ceased. In 1999, ethnic cleansing (hostility between ethnic groups) broke out in Kosovo in a less severe form. This time, instead of being killed, the Kosovars were driven out of their homes and neighborhoods. This time, United …show more content…

This intended military escort function of the international community was averted, because of the sudden and quite peaceful march homeward of the Rwandans before the coalition had mobilized. Had the military escort occurred, there would have been potential for escalation of the Rwandan problem into an international military crisis, should bloodshed of any kind have erupted during the long march home of the refugees (Whaley). This potential for explosion of what some see as a nation's domestic concern into military action crossing international lines is what can deadlock the strategists, sometimes permitting ethnic cleansing to be substantially completed before a resolution can be endorsed by all nations concerned about the matter.

Although ethnic cleansing has been present throughout history, we are only in the last century really starting to acknowledge it as an issue that needs to be definitively dealt with on a global scale. The incident that caused ethnic cleansing to be a major international issue was Adolph Hitler's extreme ethnic cleansing of the Jewish, which made the rest of the world realize that if SOMETHING was not done, the problem could spread to engulf the entire world. Especially in recent years, with the major world powers' militaries sitting, these countries are now starting to intervene in other countries' ethnic issues, such as Bosnia, Germany, Iraq, and Kosovo, as

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