transitional justice in Rwanda Essay

Throughout the 20th century, numerous acts of genocides have attempted to bring the complete elimination and devastation of large groups of people originating from various particular ethnicities. With these genocides occurring in many regions of the world, the perpetrators often organizing such crimes, have historically been larger and more powerful than the victims themselves. Often being the government and its military forces. However, the lack of international response associated with these genocides, further contributed to the devastating outcomes. On April 6,1994, the fastest killing spree of the century took place in Rwanda against the Tutsi minority population. With many warning signs having already been proclaimed prior to the start of the Rwandan genocide, I believe that with international interference, this bloodshed could have ultimately been prevented.

Rwanda is a country located in the middle of the African continent. The two ethnic groups present in the country lived in peace under their monarch until the arrival of Europeans. The Belgians arrival into Rwandan is what split the two ethnic groups of the Tutsi and Hutus, making them identify themselves with ID cards. This caused tension between the two groups as the Belgians favored the ethnic Tutsi, and made them the head of the government. Decade’s later Hutu extremists would take over the government and have revenge on the Tutsi. The new government would send out broadcasts calling on Hutus to kill their friends and neighbors. The Rwandan genocide would become the worst genocide to ever happen in Africa and one of the worst in the world. Today Rwanda’s recovery is surprisingly fast with the help of multiple nations and organizations. Rwanda’s recovery is nothing short of a miracle and is an amazing story of a war between two peoples.

It is said that, “Delivering justice for mass atrocities is a daunting challenge in any country, and the scale of the Rwandan genocide would have overwhelmed even the best­ equipped judicial system” (Rwanda). Even though there were doubts, the government of Rwanda believed that they would be able to deliver justice through the domestic and community courts. It turned out that Rwanda was able to push through and serve their country justice in less than twenty years. The government took great efforts in order to deliver the justice that they felt was necessary for their people. The justice process did not go without sacrifice. Furthermore, “Some have paid a high price. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, in particular, thousands of people were arbitrarily arrested, and many were charged and tried in the absence of solid evidence against them. Some might have been wrongly convicted. The lack of safeguards against abusive prosecutions in a weak judicial system heightened the risk of unfair trials” (Rwanda). This illustrates the flaws that pushing for justice can create. Although it is important for victims to be awarded with a sense of righteousness, rushing the process can cause even more

In midst of making meticulous plans, the anti-Tutsi Hutu’s had hopes to slaughter a list of Tutsis and their Hutu sympathizers. That being said, how the key international leaders should have acted during these times of structural violence remains abstruse, “the belief was that the price to the world of such a risk would not be as great as the price of inaction” (Gourevitch 1998: 169). The international community had deployed from their legal responsibilities to mitigate the colossal humanitarian tragedy. The peace-keepers at the time of genocide express that they did not have enough militants to save thousands of lives or act quickly enough. Although the peace-keepers had good intentions, an intelligence capability for early warnings and planning could have been useful during these times of tragedy in

George Santayana once said “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” The Rwanda Genocide is a contemporary representation of the events that occurred during the Armenian Genocide. It is an unforgiving circumstance that even after massacres from the latter and the Holocaust that Genocides still emerge in a world who far too often shuts their door to the idea of intervention. Countries can have an abundance of supplies, unmatchable man-power, and exceptional military equipment, however, with interests in absentia, countries will be reluctant to deploy forces despite exclamations of help. The culmination of the Rwanda Genocide is absolutely an unforgiving portion of history that will be remembered by the victims, the witnesses, and the decision-makers.

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).

But how can such a deeply scorned nation recover from tragedies such as these? Reconciliation generally is defined as a process that leads to developing normal interaction between ethnic and political opponents based on mutual acceptance. Author Ari Kohen believes the Rwandan government has neither fostered reconciliation or allowed for justice to be served. He states “the Rwandan government,

In the Article, the Justice on a hill George Packer criticized Rwanda’s method of reconciliation after the Genocide. Gacaca is Rwanda’s way of pursuing justice and the countries attempt to move on from the Genocide. Rwanda’s way of conveying justice may or may not be affective depending on the individual. Gacaca un like a traditional court room allowed the public to be both present and contribute to the dependents prosecution. Gacaca contains “260,00 people of integrity” pg 61. Packer questions Gacaca, stating that is a paradox because survivors of the genocide would be the one to judge. Despite Packer’s opinion about Gacaca most of the people of Rwanda support it.

In this paper I will examine the United Nation Security Council attempts at intervention in Rwanda. I will point out the interventions

Throughout the 1600s to the mid 1990s, the Tutsi tribe in Rwanda, and the Hutu tribe of Rwanda have always been arch enemies. Although the Hutus have had a prolonged hate for the Tutsi tribe, this hate was not physically expressed, until 1994. From April to July of 1994, over 80,000 Tutsi people were murdered and tortured for their African heritage. The Rwanda genocide is considered to be one of the worst massacres the world has ever seen since the Holocaust. This paper will touch a few things that occurred after the massacre, and will also answer the questions of why this massacre started, what occurred during this genocide. The Rwandan genocide was a massacre based off of discrimination and hatred for a specific tribal group. This

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.

Many were killed and had to be buried in mass graves due to the corpses in mass amounts (“Genocide”). The few survivors lost their families, homes, friends, and suffered awful health complications. Many survivors already lived in poverty, but now lived in unpropitious poverty. Survivors also had to undergo severe trauma from their horrific experiences. They had to reconstruct their lives as well as the city they knew and loved. These people subsided the awful treachery they had endured and united as a community to rebuild their homeland. Although, ten years after the genocide, ethnic relations in Rwanda remained tense (Genocide & Persecution Rwanda 39). Signs of genocide are still everywhere today and the effects of this tragedy are

Genocide is “the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, ethnic, political, or cultural group”. In Rwanda for example, the Hutu-led government embraced a new program that called for the country’s Hutu people to murder anyone that was a Tutsi (Gourevitch, 6). This new policy of one ethnic group (Hutu) that was called upon to murder another ethnic group (Tutsi) occurred during April through June of 1994 and resulted in the genocide of approximately 800,000 innocent people that even included women and children of all ages. In this paper I will first analyze the origins/historical context regarding the discontent amongst the Hutu and Tutsi people as well as the historical context as to why major players in the international

With this conceded class distinction came the fight for reigning ability, and amidst this power vacuum, Rwandans fell victim to conflicting groups and crime, the eventual building blocks that lead to the massacre of 800,000 civilians. The origins of this ethnic loathing and in turn ethnic genocide can be secured to European colonialism, where those who arrived to colonize and yield the wealth of western knowledge, instead carried racist beliefs. Through this haunting event in history, when foreign governments unfittingly place their ideologies in unknown territory, revealed is how uninvited nations can destabilize a state by stimulating ethnic warfare, causing it to collapse and crumble through conflict.

Rwanda is a small country located in central Africa. It borders with Uganda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Tanzania. One of the most terrible “ethnic conflicts” occurred here in 1994, two tribes fought each other within the same territory, the rest of the world bizarrely ignored this event and thousands of people were killed. The event lasted 100 days and almost 1 million people died, even though the Rwanda government asked other countries for military