Questions: The Rwanda Genocide

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Recommended: Failures in the Rwanda genocide

1. What limits and challenges were imposed on Major General Romeo Dallaire as he attempted to carry out his U.N. mission?
Major General Romeo Dallaire, originally from Canada, was appointed Force Commander for the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda in 1993. From there on he watched as the country plummeted into chaos and genocide. More than eight hundred Rwandans died in the genocide.
He had never been given a task as great as this one. The Rwanda Genocide could be compared to the Holocaust in a way. General Dallaire said that the Genocide “proves that the UN is an irrelevant, corrupt, decadent institution that has outlived its usefulness or even its ability to conduct conflict resolution.” (http://www.romeodallaire.com/index.php/rwanda-genocide/) Dallaire was given too few troops which were lightly armed. The troops that he was sent with were not prepared for the war that they were sent over to control. The United Nations is for peace keeping. The troops that General Dallaire was sent, were prepared only for a peace keeping mission, not for a war. The Rwandan Genocide had been deep rooted and built from tribal discrimination and exclusions.
2. What group were the aggressors? Who were their targets and why?
The Hutu tribe was the aggressors and their targets were the Tutsi tribe. The Hutu and Tutsi conflict lasted throughout the twentieth century. Throughout then, 200,000 Hutus were killed by the Tutsi army. After the Rwanda genocide started, the Hutu militia targeted the Tutsi which resulted in a death toll between 800,000 and one million.
The Hutu and Tutsi tribes both share a similar past. At first, both tribes raised cattle, the group that owned the most cattle were called the Tutsi and everyone else was called the ...

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...France evacuated, they could have easily evacuated Rwandans also, but why didn’t they?
The United States didn’t want any involvement in the Rwandan genocide and tried to stay out of it as much as possible. If the United States would have evacuated Rwandans, they could have been looked at by the Hutus as aiding the enemy and any Americans that were in Rwanda at the time, could have been killed for retaliation. The US was trying to protect its people and stay out of the genocide as much as possible. Racism was not involved, just lack of compassion for our fellow man. Every person deserves an equal opportunity at life, and as the Hutus killed off the Tutsis, that chance was not given to them, while the United States and France could have easily helped to evacuate the Rwandan victims, they didn’t because of lack of compassion and an overabundance of self-centeredness.

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