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Failures in the Rwanda genocide
The causes and consequences of the Rwandan genocide
The causes and consequences of the Rwandan genocide
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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.
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...
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...
When people temporary gather in a public place and members might interact, but do not identify with each other and will not remain in contact that is a crowd (Ferris & Stein, 152), however I believe that the Hutus represent more of a group, which is a collection of people who share some attribute, identify with one another, and interact with each other (Ferris & Stein, 152). Most of the Hutus worked together and continue to make contact with one another to keep the fighting going, where as I see the Tutsi’s being more of a group until they started to fight back. The Hutus and Tutsis made their own subculture because they differentiated by their own distinctive values, norms and lifestyle (Ferris & Stein, 107). They made it so murder is okay, as long as it is the Tutsi side that is being killed. The Hutu celebrate when they kill hundreds of Tutsi or use them as slaves. All this fighting is over something they cannot control, their ascribed status. Ascribed status is an inborn status, usually difficult or impossible to change (Ferris & Stein, 142). They do not get to control who they are, and only the choices they make changes them as a person. The Hutu do not see it as this way though. They believe that because of this status they keep getting the shorter end of the stick so
The Rwandan genocide occurred due to the extreme divide between two main groups that were prevalent in Rwanda, the Hutu and the Tutsi. When Rwanda was first settled, the term Tutsi was used to describe those people who owned the most livestock. After the Germans lost control over their colonies after World War I, the Belgians took over and the terms Hutu and Tutsi took on a racial role (Desforges). It soon became mandatory to have an identification card that specified whether or not an individual was a Hutu, Tutsi, or Twa (a minority group in Rwanda). The Tutsi soon gained power through the grant of leadership positions by the Belgians. Later on when Rwanda was tying to gain indepe...
Canada’s foreign policy at the time with regards to Rwanda must be analyzed through a realist lens, as Canada’s lack of support was brought about out of self interest. Realists consider states to be the main actors within the anarchic international system. These states are concerned with their own security, only pursue their own national interests, and are in a constant battle for power. In focusing on power and self interests realists are skeptic of ethical norms and ethical relations (Soomo Publishing, 2011). This realist reaction to the Rwandan genocide can be seen throughout the entire genocide. For example, Canada, as well as the rest of the international community ignored Romeo Dallaire and his frequent attempts to warn nations about the impeding violence, through means such as the Genocide Fax, which was sent in January 1994, over four months before the genocide officially began (Kuperman, 2001). David Kilgour, a Canadian member of parliament echoed this opinion in noting that Canadian troops were not released from other missions to join the existing peacekeeping force until the largest amount of deaths had already occurred. He goes as far as questioning
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.”
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.
Before the Europeans came and settled Rwandan, Hutu could easily change to Tutsi through marriage or by gaining cattle and Tutsi could change to Hutu by lost of cattle. It wasn’t until Belgium took control after Germany lost most of it’s colonies during World War One (and the signing of the Treaty of Versailles) that the names took on a racial role. They (the Belgians) required everyone to have an identity card that labeled them Tutsi, Hutu, or Twa- the small group of hunter-gathers who made up 1% of Rwanda’s population. The Belgians and German both thought the Tutsi minority had more European characteristics, such as lighter skin and a taller build, and gave the Tutsi all the roles of responsibility. This angered the Hutu.
...ause the colonial masters believed that they resembled them. It was unethical for the Belgians to interfere with the peaceful coexistence that the two communities had enjoyed in the past. As a result, the Hutus acquired negative misconceptions about the Tutsis’ origin, what they stood for, and what they had done for them in the past. The Hutus expertly planned and organized the Rwandan genocide as a result of such historical distortions created by their country’s colonial masters.
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.
“Beginning on April 6, 1994, Hutus began slaughtering the Tutsis in the African country of Rwanda. As the brutal killings continued, the world stood idly by and just watched the slaughter. Lasting 100 days, the Rwanda genocide left approximately 800,000 Tutsis and Hutu sympathizers dead” (Rosenberg 1). When Rwanda’s President, Habyrimana, was killed in a plane crash, turmoil and massacres began. A series of events escalated violence until two ethic groups were engaged in bloody battle: The Hutus and the Tutsis. Throughout the Rwandan Genocide, the Tutsis were targeted because the death of President Habyrimana and problems in social and economic life was blamed in them, thus resulting in the 100-day genocide.
The Tutsis were favored and felt superior to the Hutu and Twa. This caused much tension and jealousy between the two groups. The greater half of Rwanda, known as the Hutu, are a big part of the social issues that took place in 1994 as they overthrew the Tutsi power. The Hutu were located in both Rwanda and Burundi and while they wanted to gain power in both countries, the Hutu of Rwanda forcefully took over the Tutsi ruler. The Rwandan Hutu were in command until 1994 when they were invaded by the Tutsi.
....S. sent troops to Rwanda, U.S. troops would have died. Some would argue that it would have been worth it, however, to save thousands of more lives.
In 1994 in Rwanda, a million members of the Tutsi tribe were killed by members of the Hutu tribe in a massacre that took place while the world looked away. "Hotel Rwanda" is not the story of that massacre. It is the story of a hotel manager who saved the lives of 1,200 people by being, essentially, a very good hotel managerIn 1994 in Rwanda, a million members of the Tutsi tribe were killed by members of the Hutu tribe in a massacre that took place while the world looked away. "Hotel Rwanda" is not the story of that massacre. It is the story of a hotel manager who saved the lives of 1,200 people by being, essentially, a very good hotel managerIn 1994 in Rwanda, a million members of the Tutsi tribe were killed by members of the Hutu tribe in a massacre that took pla...