Rwanda genocide research paper
World’s leading open access website for students and scholars of international rwandan genocide: could it have been prevented? 1] in fact, this historical reality of the entire world has been seen throughout field of genocide study is relatively new. The term “genocide” was coined only in 1944 by raphael lemkin, a polish-jewish lawyer, when describing the nazi party’s policies of systematic murder. The term “genocide” originates from the greek word geno which means race or tribe, and from the latin word cide which means killing. According to raphael, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by the mass killing of all members of a nation. They included the term “genocide” in their accusations with a descriptive purview rather than a legal one. The holocaust period of 1941 to 1945 was primarily responsible for the formation of the term “genocide. 3] in 1948, in the aftermath of the holocaust, the united nations general assembly passed a law declaring that genocide was illegal, and clearly defined the term in the interest of eliminating confusion. More than 130 nations have ratified the genocide convention and over 70 nations have made provisions for the punishment of genocide in domestic criminal law, and the convention entered into force on january 12th, 1951.
Since then, several government leaders have been prosecuted for genocide, and several instances of genocide have been identified and addressed. 4] the text of article 2 of the genocide convention was included as a crime in article 6 of the 1998 rome statute of the international criminal court (icc). Convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide (cppcg), in its article 2, which was also inducted into the national criminal legislation of many countries, defines genocide as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:”. Transferring children of the group to another heless, critics of the cppcg argue that the definition of genocide is restrictive and does not take into account a broader perspective. The exclusion of political groups and politically motivated violence from the international definition of genocide is particularly controversial. 6] in the years since, critics have argued that the exclusion of political groups from the definition, as well as the lack of a specific reference to the destruction of a social group through the forcible removal of a population, was designed to protect the soviet union and western allies from possible accusations of genocide in the wake of world war ii. In the aftermath of the holocaust, the slogan “never again” was coined[8] as a challenge to the world to put an end to genocide and hate crimes. Unfortunately, it was “never again,” but genocide continued to happen and is still happening in different parts of the world. Numerous examples of genocide can be found throughout history; some notable 20th century genocides occurred under the nazis during the holocaust, in bosnia under slobodan milosevic, and in the african regions of rwanda and darfur.
Collectively, the international community agrees that genocide is a heinous act, and several attempts have been made to intervene in obvious genocides. Some other examples of genocide include the mass extermination of christian armenians in turkey in the early part of the 20th century, the forced labor marches and camps of stalin’s russia, and the infamous rape of nanjing that was perpetrated by japanese forces in the early stages of the second world ational legal provisions against described above, a significant legal step toward the prevention of genocide was initiated with the completion of “the convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide (cppcg)” in 1948. The convention distinguishes between the basic prohibition of genocide and conduct ancillary to genocide, such as incitement, conspiracy, and so on (defined in articles ii and iii), and the question of prevention and punishment (addressed in articles i, iv, v, and vi). Persons who have committed genocide (whether or not they are state officials) are to be punished. The state is under an obligation to not only enact laws prohibiting genocide (article v), but also to prevent and punish actual violations occurring within its territory. 9] nevertheless, only a handful of individuals were held accountable for genocide in the decades following 1951, when the convention came into effect. Few and far between, these trials were held by national courts, which often used national adaptations of the international law of genocide. The 1990s, after the end of the cold war, the world witnessed the emergence of ad-hoc tribunals in the form of the international criminal tribunal for the former yugoslavia and for rwanda. It was the first international criminal tribunal since nuremberg and the first ever mandated to prosecute the crime of genocide.
A year later, in response to devastating violence in rwanda, the security council established the international criminal tribunal for rwanda (ictr). The court has jurisdiction over the most serious crimes of concern to the international community, including genocide. The court tries persons accused of the most serious crimes of international concern, namely genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes,[13] and is a treaty-based court. The definition of genocide in the rome statute is taken from the 1948 convention, and, like the 1948 convention, the rome statute provides that official status does not exempt individuals from criminal responsibility. The ethnic dimension of the rwandan genocide was a result of a century of ethnic division, which was not characteristic of rwandan society prior to colonial rule. 19] belgian colonizers classified the two groups, the tutsi were generally taller, thinner, and more “european” in their appearance than the shorter and stockier hutus, thus, the belgians decided they were two separate races, and the tutsi, due to their looks and dominance in the small rwandan aristocracy of the past, were the natural “leaders. However, when anti-colonial movements started echoing around africa and because of the colonial segregation imposed by belgian colonialists, tutsi intellectuals started anti-colonial activities both in rwanda and burundi, and this angered the colonialists. Tutsis remaining in rwanda were stripped of much of their wealth and status under the regime of juvénal habyarimana, installed in 1973. After 1986, tutsis in uganda formed a guerrilla organization, the rwandan patriotic front (rpf), which aimed to and overthrow the habyarimana regime.
1990, this rebel army invaded rwanda and forced hutu president juvenal habyalimana to sign an accord which mandated that the hutus and tutsis would share power. Peacekeepers (unamir, the united nations assistance mission to rwanda) were dispatched to bolster the accord. On april 6, 1994, the plane carrying rwanda’s president was shot down, almost certainly the work of an extremist. First, though, moderate hutus who were not anti-tutsi should be killed, and so should tutsi wives or husbands, and that is when the genocide began. 28] from april to july 1994, hutu extremists in the rwandan government, military, and militias killed more than 500,000 rwandan tutsi and moderate hutu. 29] although the leaders of the rwandan genocide did not have the resources that germany had during the holocaust, the killing rate in rwanda was still five times that of the nazis. 31] nevertheless, on the ground, the rwandans were largely left alone by the international community and u. He rose to prominence as the leader of the rwandan patriotic front (rpf), whose victory over the incumbent government in july 1994 effectively ended the rwandan genocide. Under his leadership, rwanda has been called africa’s “biggest success story,”[35] and has been serving as the rwandan president since was responsible for the genocide?
The genocide happened not because the state was weak, but because it was so totalitarian and strong that it had the capacity to make its subjects obey absolutely any order, including one of mass slaughter. 36] the genocidal and gendercidal strategy was conceived and implemented by a small coterie of rwandan government officials, led by the hutu extremist theoneste bagosora, “a retired army colonel who held the post of acting defense minister on the day habyarimana was killed. In the hours and days after the assassination, bagosora apparently orchestrated both the genocide and formation of an interim government to support it. Another key organizer of the holocaust was madame agathe habyarimana, wife of the murdered president and one of the very few women who played a central role in the planning and perpetration of the genocide. 37] western powers also cannot escape from their primary responsibility at the time of the genocide because the mass slaughter was systematically organized in their presence. They must bear criminal responsibility for rwanda’s genocide, not only for sprouting it, but also for their disgraceful failure to prevent and stop it. 38] “the international community didn’t give one damn for rwandans because rwanda was a country of no strategic importance,” said general romeo dallaire, the commander of the u. It’s up to rwanda not to let others forget they are criminally responsible for the genocide,” he said, singling out france, britain, and the united states. News media played a crucial role in the genocide; local print and radio fueled the killings while the international media either ignored or seriously misconstrued events on the ground.
40] due to high rates of illiteracy at the time of the genocide, radio was an important way for the government to deliver messages to the public. Two radio stations that were key in inciting violence, before and during the genocide, were radio rwanda and radio television libre des mille collines (rtlm). In march 1992, rwanda radio was first used to directly promote the killing of tutsi in bugesera, south of the national capital kigali. Radio rwanda repeatedly broadcast a communiqué warning that hutu in bugesera would be attacked by tutsi, a message used by local officials to convince the hutu that they needed to attack first. 41] peace pledge union information wrote that “rwandan local incited the hutus to violence, saying- “you have to kill the tutis, they are cockroaches. 42] similarly, the leading western media agencies, such as cnn, the new york times, and the bbc did not maintain the moral ethics of journalism while reporting on the rwandan genocide. For example, the vast majority of cnn news stories about the rwandan genocide were not about the hutu massacre of tutsi and moderate hutu, instead they covered the hutu refugees who fled rwanda. Deployed a peacekeeping mission called the united nations assistance mission in rwanda (unamir) composed of 2,548 troops. In the first week of the genocide, general dallaire asked for a change in unamir’s mandate that would authorize him to take action to stop as much killing as possible.
47] the security council made this decision even though just two days earlier, on april 19th, the independent organization human rights watch estimated that over 100,000 people had been killed in rwanda and called on the security council to label the massacres as genocide. Leaving only 270 peacekeeping soldiers in rwanda when hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians had already been brutally murdered was the biggest and most shameful mistake the international community made in its response to the genocide. 49] as unamir departed from the country, rwandans laid in the streets trying to block the unamir trucks from leaving, while others threw their children into the trucks screaming, “don’t abandon us! Of course not, western leaders believed that genocide was wrong, but they were not prepared to invest the military, financial, diplomatic, or domestic political resources because it was not in their political or economic national interest. Were willing to commit billions to save lives in bosnia, where people are white, and the war was close to the interests of the european community, but they were unwilling to do so in rwanda, where people are black, and neither country is of strategic or economic interest. 51] the fact of the matter is that there was little international interest in rwanda both before and during the genocide crisis. 53] france was the only permanent member of the security council with any direct interest in rwanda. 55] other than belgium and france, then, few countries, besides rwanda’s neighbors, appeared to have any interest in the country or the outcome of the crisis. Besides the five permanent members, brazil, argentina, new zealand, nigeria, pakistan, spain, the czech republic, oman, djibouti and, ironically, rwanda, were sitting on the council during the crisis.
The presence of only two other african states on the council combined with the general neglect of sub-saharan africa in the foreign policies of most nations,[56] limited the body’s interest in rwanda. Thus, apart from france, the major powers on the security council were not interested in involving themselves in the rwandan it have been prevented? Rwandan genocide could have been prevented if western powers had made the right decisions at the right time. Due to negligence and lack of interest, western powers missed a huge opportunity to save thousands of rwandan lives. 57] alison des forges of human rights watch writes, “during the early weeks of slaughter international leaders did not use the word “genocide,” as if avoiding the term could eliminate the obligation to confront the crime. Particularly in this brutal and senseless slaughter, it would have been much harder to stop the machinery of genocide once it had been set into motion than before it started. Therefore, it is especially important to look at the early preventive measures that could have been taken before the plane crash in which the president of rwanda died, i. The international criminal tribunal for rwanda was established for the prosecution of persons responsible for genocide and other serious violations of international humanitarian law committed in the territory of rwanda between january 1, 1994, and december 31, 1994. 64] the tribunal has jurisdiction over the genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes, which are defined as violations of common article three and additional protocol ii of the geneva conventions (dealing with war crimes committed during internal conflicts).
Of the most prominent precedents was that jean kambanda, the former prime minister of rwanda, pleaded guilty to the charge of committing genocide, which made him the first person to acknowledge guilt for this offense before an international criminal tribunal, and marked the first instance in which a head of government was convicted of the crime of genocide. The “media case” found hassan ngeze, editor of the kangura newspaper, as well as ferdinand nahimana and jean-basco barayagwiza, founders of the radio station rtlm, guilty of genocide and direct and public incitement to commit genocide, among other charges. For example, rwanda has already abolished the death penalty in order to facilitate the transfer of cases to its jurisdiction. The trial chamber’s decision not to transfer the munyakazi case to rwanda was recently upheld by the appeals chamber. 69] another important factor, among many, is that rape is considered a war r, some disagreements and legal questions have been raised between the ictr and the rwandan government since the inception of the ictr. For instance, the rwandan government wanted crimes committed before the arusha accords to be under the jurisdiction of the ictr, and the government objected to the penalties prescribed in resolution 955. While the rwandan penal code provides for the death penalty, resolution 955 limits penalties to imprisonment. Moreover, the rwandan government objected to the location of the ictr in arusha, arguing that the deterrent effect of the trial’s punishments will be lost if they were to be held hundreds of miles from the scene of the crime. 70] also, human rights watch says “the rwanda tribunal’s prosecutor failed to bring charges against members of the rwandan patriotic front, which became the rwandan army, who had been implicated in war crimes.
Some important factors are the complexity of the cases, the need for voluminous disclosure and translation of documents, the transport of witnesses from all parts of the world, the unavailability of witnesses, and the need to interpret testimony between english, french, and kinyarwanda. 72] these challenges contribute to the fact that the ictr trials are more time-consuming than trials conducted at the national rwandan genocide was a very serious event, not only in rwandan history, but also in the history of the world. We can conclude that a combination of historical events and an ideology of hatred contributed to the genocide. Nevertheless, rwanda is rebuilding from the ash of the conflict and is trying to move on from the terrible memories of the past. It is not to say that the task of genocide prevention is impossible, but, the task of genocide prevention can be accomplished only through the mutual cooperation of countries around the world. The rwandan genocide revealed the governments of the world's ignorance and apathy, as well as their continuing selfishness and refusal to take killings were an attempt by a radical splinter, the hutu power, of the majority ethnic group, the hutus, to eliminate a small minority, the tutsis. The beginning of the genocide is usually traced to april 6, 1994 when a plane crashed with rwanda's president, juvenal habyarimanya on board. However, roots the genocide were established much earlier; the hutu power militia was being armed and trained for months before. Anyone passing through was required to show identification papers, and all tutsis were killed on the spot.
Father in rwanda searches for his lost child, victims become killers: colonialism, nativism, and genocide in ton university press,The rwandan genocide -- in which more than 500,000 tutsi were killed from april to july 1994 -- will be remembered as one of the seminal events of the late twentieth century. Indeed, due to the work of individual scholars and investigative commissions sponsored by several western countries, the organization of african unity, and the united nations, we now know with some certainty who plotted the genocide (the hutu-led government); how it was executed (by the army and by ordinary hutu); what were the consequences; and, to some extent, until what point intervention could have stopped the e the thousands of pages devoted to the rwandan genocide, however, we still do not have a good answer to the most basic question: why? Unlike the nazi killings, the rwandan holocaust was not an industrial process carried out by special units at the outskirts of the country. Victims become killers: colonialism, nativism, and genocide in ton university press,Get the best of foreign affairs' book reviews delivered to you.
