Genocide+in+Rwanda

=Genocide in Rwanda=

"//If the pictures of tens of thousands of human bodies being gnawed on by dogs do not wake us out of our apathy, I do not know what will.//" - Undersecretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, 1994

The genocide in Rwanda represents an example of a genocide in which the roles of the United Nations and the international community were less effective than they could have been regarding the assumed duty to prevent genocide that had been established after World War II. Tensions in Rwanda originated in the colonial beginnings of the nation. After World War I control of Rwanda was granted to Belgium. Belgian leaders effectively practiced a divide and rule strategy in which they created tension between local ethnic groups [[|source]]. The two primary ethnic groups in Rwanda were the Tutsi (14%) and the majority Hutu (85%). Belgian colonial authorities favored the lighter-skinned and taller Tutsi people due to the fact that they were perceived as [|more similar to Europeans], with "finer aristocratic qualities[[|X]]". As such, through means of a forced ethnic identification card system and other examples of unequal treatment, the Belgian colonial rulers perpetuated a sense of ethnic division and superiority between the two groups. Before the start of the Belgian withdraw between 1960 and 1962, the Tutsi had been asserted as the rulers of the nation. Historically they had been in charge of political decision making for centuries. Between 1959 and 1973 the nation saw a shift in governance of the nation, with the majority Hutus emerging as the governing power. Violence and exile spurned further animosity between the two ethnic groups, with some 150,000 Tutsis forced to leave Rwanda by the new Hutu government to neighboring nations in 1959. A subsequent 500,000 to 1,000,000 Tutsis fled Rwanda as a result of losing political and social rights [[|X]].

Exiled Rwandan Tutsis created the [|Rwandan Patriotic Front] in 1987 while living in Uganda and serving with the Ugandan military. In response to worsening Tutsi conditions in Rwanda, the RPF sought to conduct an attack on the Hutu government, demanding Tutsi rights and equal inclusion in politics. On October 1, 1990, RPF forces moved across the Ugandan border into Rwanda and initiated a coordinated attack against Hutu government forces. Despite brief success, the group was repelled and Hutu forces retained control of the majority of Rwanda. Sporadic civil war and fighting persisted between 1990 and 1993.

The Hutu government promoted state-run media outlets that produced anti-Tutsi propaganda as a means of preserving their own power and denying rising political opposition among the Tutsis. One example of such propaganda is the [|Ten Commandments for Hutus], which promoted anti-Tutsi actions and sentiments. Other media espoused the notion of ethnically cleansing the Tutsi, and they promoted an image that presented all Tutsis as dangerous and a threat to freedom.

This image appeared in a December 1993 article in a state-promoted magazine. It asks all Hutus to kill Tutsis with machetes.

=The United Nations: UNOMUR and UNAMIR=

Although final peace agreements were reached between the Rwandan government and the RPF on July 22, 1992, fighting continued into the year of 1993. Rwandan and Ugandan officials requested assistance from the United Nations along the Rwandan-Ugandan border. Military observers were requested to ensure that no military assistance would be allowed to cross the border into Rwanda. On June 22, 1993, the United Nations authorized the establishment of the [|United Nations Observer Mission Uganda-Rwanda] by the United Nations Security Council Resolution in Resolution 846. Its primary goal was the monitoring of the border and the prevention of arms and ammunition from falling into the hands of RPF forces. In August 1993, a peace agreement was brokered with the signing of the [|Arusha Accords]. This peace agreement established a transitional government in which power was shared by the Hutu government and the Tutsi RPF. The Secretary General recommended the establishment of another peacekeeping operation to oversee the implementation of the transitional government. He proposed that military observers under UNOMUR come under control of a new operation, the [|United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda]. In October 1993, the United Nations Security Council established UNAMIR by [|Resolution 872]. Its mission was to oversee the establishment of the transitional government and to promote peace and stability. Its size and strength was adjusted on multiple occasions in response to increasing instability and threat levels. In spite of the presence of the United Nations, the mission ultimately failed to prevent a genocide.

=Genocide=

Shortly after the Peace Accords of 1993, events in Rwanda took a drastic turn for the worse. On April 6, 1994, a plane carrying Hutu Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana was shot down as it flew over Kigali, the Rwandan capital city. Both Hutu extremists and the RPF were blamed for the crash and death of the President. The UNAMIR force commander, Lieutenant General Dallaire, stressed that the Prime Minister of Rwanda, Agathe Uwilingiyimana, assume control of the nation per the Arusha Accords; however, high-ranking Rwandan Armed Forces officers and Rwandan Colonel Theoneste Bagosora resisted the Arusha Accords and on April 7, 1994, began systematically murdering all moderates and supporters of the Peace Accords, including UNAMIR peacekeepers in Kigali. The Presidential Guard then initiated mass murders around the country, which resulted in between 500,000 and 1,000,000 killings within a 100 day period [[|X]]. In addition to the military, a militia was formed at the urging of state broadcasting that reached a peak strength of 30,000. These hardcore Hutu militiamen called themselves the Interahamwe, or "those that kill together". Members of this militia were responsible for many of the systematic killings of Tutsi and moderate Hutu civilians during the conflict. Interhamwe members at a roadblock in Kigali, 1994

The government, through use of the military and state broadcasting agencies, insisted that the Tutsis were in support of the RPF invasion of Rwanda and that they must be exterminated at all costs. While government forces battles RPF forces, thousands of civilians were targeted outside of the military engagements. The Tutsi, who had once comprised 14% of the population, had diminished to only around 5% of the population.

media type="youtube" key="oLLlU7dZQNo" width="425" height="350" Video depicting the events of the genocide in Rwanda.

The Tutsi rebels eventually defeated the remaining Rwandan Armed Forces in July 1994 and assumed control of the country, effectively ending the genocide. UNAMIR was terminated in March, 1996, by request of the new Rwandan government for failing to carry out its mission of prevention successfully.

=The United Nations Response=

media type="youtube" key="Pjk1CdaVKgQ" width="425" height="350" Video message from United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon on the Rwandan genocide. April 7, 2011, New York.

The United Nations ultimately did not prevent the genocide in Rwanda from occurring, despite its presence there during the time in which the genocide was committed. A [|May 1994 Progress Report] from UNAMIR asserted that the humanitarian situation was very unstable, and that greater measures were required to prevent further killings. The report also asserted that rules of engagement in a modified assistance force (UNAMIR II) would continue to limit its forces to defensive measures, which would include the protection of civilians: UNAMIR sought to negotiate ceasefires on multiple occasions, but failed to accomplish the task due to [|inefficiencies within the United Nations Security Council]. The initial authorized force strength for UNAMIR of 2,548 took five months to assemble due to reluctance on the behalf of participating member states. This force was reduced to only 270 personnel on April 21, 1994, by Resolution 912, due to the slaughter of several Belgian military personnel, only to be increased to 5,500 in desperation in late May, 1994, by Resolution 918.

On January 11, 1994, just three months prior to the outset of the mass killings in Rwanda, an informant within the Hutu elite sent a fax to the force commander of UNAMIR, Dallaire. [|The fax] was forwarded to the United Nations. A [|Frontline interview] with Philip Gourevitch, journalist, revealed that the fax contained information pertaining to the materials with which the genocide would be committed, against whom it would be committed, and when it would be committed. When asked about how the fax warning of genocide in Rwanda was received by the United Nations, Gourevitch replied:

" Essentially, the resp ﻿ onse of the peacekeeping headquarters in New York at the U.N. headquarters was to treat this fax as a routine bureaucratic matter. It set off no special alarm bells that rang loudly. It was not disseminated. One sometimes can imagine if that fax appeared on the front page of all the world's major newspapers, on the TV and so forth. In other words, a lot of influence could have been exerted by leaking this fax and drawing attention to this crisis. No. It was treated as a routine bureaucratic matter. And the idea was: Let's just stick with the rules. We're not obliged to do anything in response to such information. What our mandate rules (and the U.N. loves to fall back on mandate rules) are, we should tell the president that there's a cease-fire violation been reported. And so the U.N. commanders we ﻿ re instructed to go to the president and tell him that they had this information about illegal arms caches and about rumors of a program to commit massacres, and to say, "Gee, this is against the rules of the cease-fire that we're here to enforce." - Philip Gourevitch

The United Nations did not respond quickly enough and with appropriate troop levels sufficient for genocide prevention. The fax that Lt. General Dallaire received indicated that the United Nations was not prepared to respond decisively towards the prevention of the genocide: Although troops under UNAMIR were able to protect some civilians from violence, the rules of engagement and low troop numbers fettered the ability to effectively fulfill the duty to prevent genocide. The United States was reluctant to label the unfolding events in Rwanda a genocide despite its obvious announcement over Rwandan public broadcasting and despite the informant's fax to the United Nations. The deaths of US forces in Somalia made the United States wary of getting involved in genocide intervention. President Clinton stated in an interview with Frontline that had the United States been able to send 5,000 marines to Rwanda in time, the genocide there could have been prevented. The prevention of this genocide truly depended on being addressed expediently, which unfortunately did not occur due to reluctance and logistical issues with the United Nations and the member states involved.