High state interests are the key reason governments prevent large–scale human rights abuse, without clear direct costs nations aren’t obligated to engage in other countries’ conflicts. The elements of high state interest include the value of engaging in the conflict being significantly higher than the cost, there will is a positive voter approval and support from other nations, and the conflict can potentially affect that nation in the future. The value of participating in conflict can be high and use a lot of resources. This is why nations tend to focus on their international affairs. Preventing genocides produces positive audience approval. Nations prefer domestic and international support, which influences the state’s participation in …show more content…
There was incomplete information about the strength of the rebel group. The Hutu government was supplied with arms from other nations prior to the war. The United States had no deal that could stop the Hutu government, since their intentions were mainly focused on exterminating the Tutsi. The tension had built for many years, creating a deep rooted detestation. The bargaining range for the Hutu government was small and the value of war was high. Governments such as the United States saw engaging in Rwanda as a higher cost. To stop the genocide, the United States would have to spend governmental capital. Also, many US troops could have lost their lives. This was a huge concern because US troops lost their lives a year prior in Somalia. * The clear bargaining failure along with the US’s history in Africa combined would produce audience cost. Bill Clinton was only in office for 2 years and he had already engaged in an African conflict. If he would have engaged in this international conflict, it could have affected his next election. In a democracy, a leader is penalized for their actions by losing a re-election. This would have a negative effect on Clinton’s legacy, and potentially influence even his wife’s 2016 election. Clinton knew the cost for enrolling in this war was negative for his personal reputation and the United
Genocide is a pressing issue with a multitude of questions and debates surrounding it. It is the opinion of many people that the United Nations should not get involved with or try to stop ongoing genocide because of costs or impositions on the rights of a country, but what about the rights of an individual? The UN should get involved in human rights crimes that may lead to genocide to prevent millions of deaths, save money on humanitarian aid and clean up, and fulfill their responsibilities to stop such crimes. It is preferable to stop genocide before it occurs through diplomacy, but if necessary, military force may be used as a last resort. Navi Pillay, Human Rights High Commissioner, stated, “Concerted efforts by the international community at critical moments in time could prevent the escalation of violence into genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity or ethnic cleansing.”
The state-sponsored massacres of Hutus by the Tutsi-dominated Burundian army in 1972 was one of the most significant post-Holocaust genocides and as such received appropriate levels of international attention due to a lack of political distractions within western nations. The genocide broke out as a Hutu-lead rebellion in which Hutu insurgents massacred Tutsis and resisting Hutus in the lakeside towns of Rumonge and Nyanza-Lac. As many as 1200 people killed in this initial incident, the Tutsi-dominated government responded by declaring martial law and systematically proceeded to slaughter Hutus (Totten 325). After hundreds of thousands of Hutus had been massacred by the Burundian government, the neighboring nation of Zaire aided the Hutus in a counteroffensive attack on the Tutsi-controlled army. Having succeeded in their effort, the genocide was quickly brought to international attention within a few days. The United Nations invested $25,000 from the World Disaster Relief Account’s fund...
Political violence is action taken to achieve political goals that may include armed revolution, civil strife, terrorism, war or other such activities that could result in injury, loss of property or loss of life. Political violence often occurs as a result of groups or individuals believing that the current political systems or anti-democratic leadership, often being dictatorial in nature, will not respond to their political ambitions or demands, nor accept their political objectives or recognize their grievances. Formally organized groups, Non-Government Organizations (NGOs), businesses and collectives of individual citizens are non-state actors, that being that they are not locally, nationally or internationally recognized legitimate civilian or military authorities. The Cotonou Agreement of 2000 defines non-state actors as being those parties belonging to the private sector, economic and social partners and civil society in all its forms according to national characteristics. Historical observation shows that nation states with political institutions that are not capable of, or that are resistant to recognizing and addressing societies issues and grievances are more likely to see political violence manifest as a result of disparity amongst the population. This essay will examine why non-state political violence occurs including root and trigger causes by looking at the motivations that inspire groups and individuals to resort to non-conforming behaviors that manifest as occurrences of non-state political violence. Using terrorism and Islamic militancy on the one side, and human rights and basic freedoms on the other as examples, it will look at these two primary kinds of political violence that are most prevalent in the world ...
The biggest war the world has ever seen was World War II. What was one factor that led to such a quick escalation? Genocide. Over 45 million people were murdered during this tragic time. The question is: was it the allies responsibility to intervene? The answer: No. The Global Community has no responsibility to intervene in states committing genocide.
The idea of intervention is either favoured or in question due to multiple circumstances where intervening in other states has had positive or negative outcomes. The General Assembly was arguing the right of a state to intervene with the knowledge that that state has purpose for intervention and has a plan to put forth when trying to resolve conflicts with the state in question. The GA argues this because intervention is necessary. This resolution focuses solely on the basis of protection of Human Rights. The General Assembly recognizes that countries who are not super powers eventually need intervening. They do not want states to do nothing because the state in question for intervening will continue to fall in the hands of corruption while nothing gets done. The GA opposed foreign intervention, but with our topic it points out that intervention is a necessity when the outcome could potentially solve conflicts and issues. In many cases intervention is necessary to protect Human Rights. For instance; several governments around the world do not privilege their citizens with basic Human Rights. These citizens in turn rely on the inter...
Former UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali once said, "We were not realizing that with just a machete, you can do a genocide." To be candid, nobody anticipated the Rwandan Genocide that occurred in 1994. The genocide in Rwanda was an infamous blood-red blur in modern history where almost a million innocent people were murdered in cold blood. Members of the Tutsi tribe were systematically hacked or beaten to death by members of the Interahamwe, a militia made up of Hutu tribe members. In just 100 days, from April 6, 1994 to mid-July, 20% of Rwanda's population was killed; about 10,000 people a day. Bodies literally were strewn over city streets. Genocide obviously violates almost all articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; however, the article I find most important is Article 3 - the right to life, liberty, and personal security. In just 100 days, one million people were denied the most basic privilege granted to every human – the right to live, simply because they were born to the wrong tribe.
Rwanda was a German colony but then was given to Belgium “who favored the minority Tutsis over the Hutus, exacerbated[exacerbating] the tendency of the few to oppress the many”(History.com). This created a feeling of anger towards the Tutsis, because they had much more power than Hutus. The RPF decided to create a government consisting of a Hutu and a Tutsi holding the highest government positions. As the RPF took control of the government, “some two million Hutus – both civilians and some of those involved in the genocide – then fled across the border into DR Congo.
Africa has been an interesting location of conflicts. From the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea to the revolutionary conflict in Libya and Egypt, one of the greatest conflicts is the Rwandan Genocide. The Rwandan Genocide included two tribes in Rwanda: Tutsis and Hutus. Upon revenge, the Hutus massacred many Tutsis and other Hutus that supported the Tutsis. This gruesome war lasted for a 100 days. Up to this date, there have been many devastating effects on Rwanda and the global community. In addition, many people have not had many acknowledgements for the genocide but from this genocide many lessons have been learned around the world.
When the Belgian colonizers entered Rwanda in 1924, they created an ethnic classification between the Hutu and the Tutsi, two tribes who used to live together as one. After independence in 1962, there was a constant power struggle between the two tribes. Former Canadian Prime Minister, Jean-Pierre Chrétien described the situation as “tribalism without tribes.” (Destexhe, 1995) There were many signs leading towards genocide, yet the nations in power chose to ignore them. From April 6, 1994 until mid-July, a time spanning approximately of 100 days, 800,000 people were murdered when the Hutu attacked the Tutsi. No foreign aid came to the rescue until it was too late. Ten years after the genocide the United Nations was still involved in Rwanda, cleaning up the mess that was left behind because of man’s sinful nature. Could the Rwandan Genocide have been prevented, or is it simply a fact of life? Even though the international community is monitoring every country and race, such an event as the Rwandan Genocide could occur again because the European colonizers introduced ethnic classification where it did not exist and the nations in power chose to ignore the blatant signs of genocide.
Massacre, annihilation, extermination, these are just some synonyms for the word Genocide. Genocide-the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular ethnic group or nation. When one thinks of mass murder, they think of the Holocaust. A genocide that many people may not know of is the Rwandan genocide, also known as the Genocide against the Tutsi. It was a mass slaughter of Tutsi in Rwanda by members of the Hutu Majority government in East Central Africa. They murdered from 500,000 to 1,000,000 people. This genocide took place during the Rwandan Civil War. Hutu nationalists were the first to start this genocide. This genocide spread through the country like an epidemic; fast and deadly.
Rethinking Violence: States and Non-state Actors in Conflict. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2010. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost), EBSCOhost (accessed April 22, 2014).
The main reason the Hutus killed Tutsis in the Rwandan genocide was for economic reasons. The Tutsis began to benefit greatly from killing Tutsis by looting them and gaining things like money, land, and cattle. The looting of Tutsis became a means of income to the Hutus. The Hutus neglected their fields in favor of killing so they could loot for better food and goods. As Jean Baptiste states, “Why dig in the dirt when we were harvesting without working, eating our fill without growing a thing?”(Hatzfeld, 60) The Hutus mind set of being farmers shifts to being killers who can benefit more from that, than from their regular jobs of harvesting. As stated by Adalbert, “…we didn’t care about what we accomplished in the marshes, only about what was important to us for comfort.” (Hatzfeld, 83) This shows how the men became more concerned with looting and profiting from the killing than actually being concerned with killing people. So in a sense, the job of killing became a means for the men to do their more comfortable job of looting. One can begin to enter the Hutu mind set and see how, by killing other people, people they may have a...
Between the months of April and July in 1994 approximately one million people were killed in Rwanda. There are three ethnic groups in Rwanda, Hutu, Tutsi, and Aboriginal Twa. The genocide occurred between two different groups, the Hutu and Tutsi people. The Hutu composed close to 85% of the population while the minority Tutsi people make up approximately 14% with the Twa people composing the remaining 1%. The Republic of Rwanda like most African nations has a history of colonization from different European countries with different and conflicting ideas of governance and how a colony should be developed and used. It can be argued that many of the problems occurring in all African nations stem from previous colonization and subsequent exploitation. “ A Brief history” UN.org n.p. n.d. Web. 16 April 2014.
UN peacekeepers in Rwanda sent warning of an “Anti-Tutsi extermination” plot, and there were stories in Washington Post & New York Times but President Clinton specifically avoided calling the killings a genocide to avoid U.S involvement. The U.S would have no participation in stopping the Rwandan Genocide.A UN peacekeeping operation was sent to Rwanda in April but they failed to be an benefit and they weren't very well equipped. Quickly medical supplies ran out with no money to restock and other supplies could rarely be
People’s ideas and assumptions about world politics shape and construct the theories that help explain world conflicts and events. These assumptions can be classified into various known theoretical perspectives; the most dominant is political realism. Political realism is the most common theoretical approach when it is in means of foreign policy and international issues. It is known as “realpolitik” and emphasis that the most important actor in global politics is the state, which pursues self-interests, security, and growing power (Ray and Kaarbo 3). Realists generally suggest that interstate cooperation is severely limited by each state’s need to guarantee its own security in a global condition of anarchy. Political realist view international politics as a struggle for power dominated by organized violence, “All history shows that nations active in international politics are continuously preparing for, actively involved in, or recovering from organized violence in the form of war” (Kegley 94). The downside of the political realist perspective is that their emphasis on power and self-interest is their skepticism regarding the relevance of ethical norms to relations among states.