The Rwandan Genocide
The Rwandan Genocide is one of the world’s most remembered conflicts. Not only is it remembered because of the magnitude of the war, but because of the response or lack of it. The genocide occurred in 1994, even though tension had been building up for a while. The world is believed to have watched by as people were massacred, without doing much to stop the killing, despite Rwanda being a member of the United Nations. Part of the blame is placed on the American government, which wilds a lot of power in the United Nations Security Council, and used its power to push for a withdrawal of troop and a hands off approach in the conflict. The Rwandan genocide happened because America, the UN and the rest of the world did not help stop it.
The disquiet in Rwanda can be traced back to the colonial days when the colonial government ruled by polarizing the locals during colonial days and making the Tutsi people privileged and the Hutu poor peasants (Gourevitch, 1995). This caused a rift between the two ethnic groups which later led to a Hutu revolution and subsequent political conflict to maintain Hutu supremacy and payback the Tutsis for their initial rule (Gourevitch, 1995). To a great extent therefore, the genocide had its roots in the Colonial government’s divide and rule policy.
Failure to take action by The United Nations contributed to the genocide. To begin with, they ignored existing violations of human rights like the exiling of Tutsi refugees (Gourevitch, 1995). If action was taken to address these issues and put pressure on the government, it would have had an effect on the government. The biggest fault is the failure by the UN to take action on what was said by the informant (Gourevitch, 1995). They had all the Intel that was required to visualize the impending genocide. Despite knowing that it was a trustworthy lead, the UN did nothing. Even after the Belgian officers were attacked as had been predicted by the informant, the UN reacted by bowing out (Gourevitch, 1995).
The US failed to offer its support to stopping the genocide and instead, the Clinton administration opted to the pulling out of the UN troops and evacuating foreigners (The Ghosts of Rwanda, 2014). The US government reacted out of a fear of loss of US soldiers’ lives (Gourevitch, 1995). It saw no gains or major loss to the American people by intervening in Rwandan situation so it simply opted not to.
The Rwandan genocide could have been avoided in the UN and the rest of the world had done something to draw attention to the crisis in Rwandan instead of pulling out and leaving the Rwandese to themselves. The UN should have also tried going beyond the mandate and rules of the UN to stop the genocide by intervening beyond sticking to their mandate of disarmament. They should have also started treating the president as a suspect and not informing him of the information that they received instead of treating him as ally and informing him of what was going on. Finally, there should have been immense diplomatic pressure like it is done to other states to make the government bow out and stop the impending genocide.
References
Gourevitch, P. (1995). The Triumph of Evil | FRONTLINE | PBS. Pbs.org. Retrieved 17 February 2016, from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/evil/interviews/gourevitch2.html
The Ghosts of Rwanda. (2014). YouTube.
