Third Party Mediation In The Rwanda Genocide

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How did 3rd parties handle the developing situation, and how did the conflict itself re-shape the resolution process for years after the fighting officially ceased.

The Rwanda genocide that took place during the summer months of 1994 continues to shock the world today with its breadth, speed, and brutality. In approximately 100 days, “up to one million people perished and as many as 250,000 women were raped, leaving the country’s population traumatized and its infrastructure decimated.” While this alone is staggering to comprehend, it is even more unfathomable that this whole event took place in full view of the international community, with UN peacekeeping soldiers on the ground and the UN council kept up to date on the developing situation. … The United Nations, acting as a third party mediator, completely failed in its roll to intervene in the conflict and move the issue towards resolution, which caused long-term resolution methods to take place from the local to the international level for years after the fighting officially ceased.

Part I: Third party mediation during the conflict
When looking at the actual Rwanda genocide, UN involvement can be traced back to the Arusha Peace Agreement signed on August 4th, 1993. This Agreement was signed in Arusha, Tanzania between the Hutu-led government and the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), and was an attempt to move the nation out of a period of civil war and towards a stable democracy. In order to help enforce the Arusha Peace Agreement, the UN created the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) on October 3rd, 1993. The Mandate of UNAMIR was:
“To assist in ensuring the security of the capital city of Kigali; monitor the ceasefire agreement, includin...

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...c interest in the conflict in Rwanda. Negotiating a peace deal such as the Arusha Peace Agreement can be time intensive but is relatively cost-free to the members of the UN. Humanitarian issues, however, are much more costly and are (somewhat understandably) generally ignored if the intervening nations receive no benefit from their actions. This fact was painfully true in Rwanda and was another causative factor for an absence of third party intervention.
Finally, international disinterest was perpetuated by the series of failed foreign interventions that took place right before the Rwanda genocide. The United States was obviously unsettled by its failures in Mogadishu and in other foreign engagements, and went as far as to declare that UNAMIR should be shut down. This opinion was echoed by other members of the Security Council, and there was a general sentiment

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