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Introduction
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights sets a high standard for nations across the world. Proclaimed on December 10, 1948, the Declaration recognizes the equality and dignity of all human beings. In particular, Article 3 acknowledges everyone’s right to life, liberty, and security. Article 5 prohibits torture and offers protection against inhuman or degrading treatment (United Nations [UN], n.d.). Established on the foundations of sovereign equality and maintenance of international peace and security, the United Nations and its agencies take responsibility for setting and upholding human rights standards (Mingst et al., 2019). However, in certain cases, the UN fails to fulfill its duties, which results in catastrophic consequences. Ghosts of Rwanda, a documentary film revisiting the heinous 1994 Rwandan genocide, explains why the UN and the governments of the developed countries silently witnessed such atrocities instead of protecting human rights. After watching this film, one can understand the real causes of seemingly unfathomable callousness and indifference.
Discussion
The fire of genocide was fueled for a long time, as tensions between the Tutsi and Hutu, two major ethnicities of Rwanda, had been brewing since the pre-colonial era. The Tutsi minority ruled Hutus for centuries, often treating them with disdain (runetek2, 2014). However, the Belgian colonial period played the most critical role in the tragic events of 1994. The Belgian government emphasized racial differences between the Tutsis and the Hutus to create a convenient system of colonial governance (Schimmel, 2021). Under Belgian colonial rule, Tutsis retained their privileged position in Rwandan society. This situation changed after the 1959 Revolution when Rwanda won independence from the metropole. Despite surrendering its sovereignty over Rwanda, Belgium maintained significant influence over Rwandan politics. The Belgians essentially switched sides and supported the new, Hutu-dominated Rwandan government (Schimmel, 2021). As a result, Tutsis have instantly lost their privileges and become a persecuted minority.
As the once-oppressed Hutu majority turned its wrath against the Tutsi, many Tutsis left Rwanda and organized armed resistance to the Hutu regime. In October 1990, the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) launched an invasion from neighboring Uganda (Álvarez, 2018). One should note that RPF also included so-called “moderate Hutus”, who did not support the anti-Tutsi discrimination in Rwanda. In August 1993, the fighting ended with a ceasefire — the RPF and the Hutu government concluded the Arusha accord, which was supposed to start reconciliation between the two peoples (Álvarez, 2018). At the same time, the UN launched the UNAMIR peacekeeping mission to oversee the peace process (runetek2, 2014). However, the hopes of peace died in a few months, and neither the UN nor other international actors could stop the horrible genocide.
More precisely, the UN and several Western powers had the opportunities and resources to prevent the genocide or stop it once it started but decided against doing that. In January 1994, General Romeo Dallaire, Commander of the UNAMIR forces, was informed on the preparation of attacks against Tutsis, moderate Hutus, and UN peacekeepers from Belgium (runetek2, 2014, 9:00). Dallaire took the information seriously and contacted Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, in order to receive permission to raid the weapon caches of the Hutu extremists. However, Annan explicitly instructed Dallaire to refrain from using force, so the raids were canceled. According to Michael Sheenan, the White House Liaison in Somalia, the UN and the U.S. were reluctant to intervene in another African conflict after the failure of the peacekeeping operation in Mogadishu (runetek2, 2014, 12:42). Eighteen American peacekeepers were killed on that UN mission, so the UN and the United States desperately tried to avoid similar failures (runetek2, 2014). Ultimately, the UN and the U.S. chose to wait, and the Hutu extremists exploited their willful indifference.
On April 6, 1994, the Rwandan president’s plane was shot down, and the Hutu extremists promptly put their genocidal plan in motion. Mass killings of Tutsis and moderate Hutus began immediately; the Rwandan army, presidential guard, and police assisted irregular militias in genocide (runetek2, 2014). In the aftermath, approximately 750,000 Tutsis were killed over ten weeks (Mingst et al., 2019). One may wonder why the UN, the United States, or the countries with long colonial history in the region, such as France and Belgium, did not act once the true scale of genocide became evident. The reason behind the inaction of Rwandans was clear – the extremist Hutu government created a genocidal frame, where a refusal to participate in killings was considered treason (Armoudian, 2020). Moderate Hutus had no choice but to flee the country or hide from bloodthirsty killers. However, even in such a dire situation, some Hutus risked their lives to rescue Tutsis. For instance, Pastor Augustine hid over 300 people despite threats from militias (Fox & Nyseth Brehm, 2018). Therefore, the true explanation of international inaction lies in bureaucracy and cynicism of global politics.
In terms of cynicism, the UN, the United States, Belgium, and France were more concerned about maintaining a good public outlook under difficult circumstances rather than helping Rwandan civilians. Before the beginning of mass killings, the UN and the United States strived to avoid another failure like Mogadishu. Once the genocide had begun, the United States, Belgium, and France preferred to prioritize the safety of their citizens. In particular, Belgium and France sent paratroopers to evacuate all Belgians and French from Rwanda (runetek2, 2014). According to Brent Beardsley, General Dallaire’s assistant, those soldiers could have stopped the genocide if they had been deployed to reinforce the UN troops (runetek2, 2014, 36:26). However, Belgium, France, and the United States decided to limit their involvement to saving their citizens instead of intervening in an undesirable conflict. In addition, the bureaucratic complexities associated with the legal definition of genocide created a deadlock. Governments across the world avoided calling mass killings in Rwanda “genocide” (runetek2, 2014, 1:25:51). As a result, the global community has become effectively paralyzed, which was a satisfactory outcome for major international actors and a tragedy for General Dallaire and ordinary Rwandans.
In other words, the inaction of the most culpable international actors — the UN, the United States, Belgium, and France, was a deliberate political move rather than an inability to act. Álvarez (2018) explained the rationale for leaving Rwandans to their deaths. Firstly, the UN was preoccupied with peacekeeping efforts in former Yugoslavia, a country in the middle of Europe. Secondly, the United States saw no reason for intervention due to the lack of national interests in Rwanda. Thirdly, the Belgian government showed the nation that the lives of Belgian soldiers matter by withdrawing all Belgian troops from the UNAMIR task force. Finally, France committed its troops to the UNAMIR II peacekeeping mission only in July 1994, when the military victory of RPF was evident (Álvarez, 2018). The criminalization of genocide in international law allowed the culpable actors to justify non-intervention by ignoring the genocide. An example of such a tactic can be seen in Christine Shelly’s words, who said that one has to know all facts before using the term (runetek2, 2014, 1:26:23). Consequently, UN and all states of the world had a perfectly legal justification for their indifference.
The media helped build the false narrative that served the goal of justifying inaction. According to Schimmel (2011), the Western media deliberately distorted the actual events to hide the true extent of atrocities. In the U.S. case, the genocide was portrayed as a part of the civil war rather than a standalone extermination of Tutsis and moderate Hutus (Schimmel, 2011). As a result, the U.S. audience perceived merciless ethnic cleansing similar to the Vietnam War, when the U.S. military intervened and suffered heavy casualties. Consequently, the public was unaware of the real situation in Rwanda and largely believed that only a massive military intervention would stop the fighting (Schimmel, 2011). The senior U.S. officials readily allayed such concerns and won public support by declaring that America would not be dragged into a pointless war. For instance, on May 28, 1994, U.S. President Bill Clinton stated that the U.S. involvement in ethnic conflicts depends on the weight of American interests at stake (runetek2, 2014, 1:30:13). In this regard, the media obfuscated the truth about genocide and helped to justify indifference that aided Hutu extremists in killing innocent Rwandans.
The responsibility to protect (R2P) norm introduced after the Rwandan genocide is unlikely to work in the future reliably. Most importantly, the R2P idea is not immune to the influence of perceived national interest, the root cause of global indifference during the Rwandan genocide. This issue had already caused significant controversy when the United States and Russia invoked R2P to justify the invasion of Iraq and the annexation of Crimea, respectively (Mingst et al., 2019). In its current state, the R2P norm may likely be abused by any powerful country. In contrast, the lack of national interest may lead to situations similar to the Rwandan scenario, when intervention is desperately needed, but international actors are reluctant to launch it. In addition, the R2P is still based on a moral, not legal, obligation. Consequently, R2P fails to articulate who is morally obligated to initiate protective interventions (Jemirade, 2021). One may argue that such responsibility falls on the UN. However, the UN does not have armed forces, so any R2P invocation depends on the goodwill of selected countries, which is an unreliable source of support.
Regarding the triggers of “bystander policy”, one can notice the negative effect of overextension and undesirable publicity. Prior to the Rwandan genocide, the UN launched a large-scale peacekeeping operation in former Yugoslavia. Furthermore, the UN mission in Somalia ended with disastrous results (Álvarez, 2018). The bad publicity had an extremely negative impact on the United States, as the Clinton administration desperately avoided the word “genocide” in order to stay out of the Rwandan conflict. Belgium pulled its troops away after the Hutu extremists killed ten Belgian peacekeepers (Álvarez, 2018). Once peacekeeping or humanitarian intervention becomes associated with high financial costs or military casualties, developed nations tend to activate the silent witness mode. The United States and Belgium adopted this course of action during the genocide in Rwanda. The willingness to participate in humanitarian interventions may be higher if a state or an international institution has significant interests in the country affected by a crisis.
Finally, the slow mobilization of Christian Churches and NGOs in response to humanitarian crises can be explained via the communal attachment theory. According to Jemirade (2021), communal attachments result in individuals valuing certain relationships more than others. The Jewish and Christian traditions may preach that humans have a moral obligation to safeguard the lives of other humans. However, a subconscious communal attachment would likely make an American Catholic more willing to help other American Catholics rather than Sunni Muslims in Sudan and Syria or Christians in faraway Rwanda. To a certain extent, the communal attachment might have influenced the general stance of the priesthood during the genocide in Rwanda. Rwanda’s Christian Churches were deeply interconnected with young Hutu communities after the 1959 Revolution (Schliesser, 2018). As a result, Churches have become a powerful source of anti-colonial and anti-Tutsi sentiment. When the genocide started, churches became death traps for many Tutsis and moderate Hutus, as church personnel frequently led the killers to their victims (Schliesser, 2018). In the Rwandan case, hate propaganda destroyed communal attachments based on religion and replaced them with fierce loyalty to the genocidal government.
Conclusion
In summary, the Rwandan genocide became possible due to the influence of colonial legacy and conscious neglect of threats by the UN, the United States, Belgium, and France. The UN and the governments of these countries tried to avoid overextension and potential negative publicity that would have followed an unsuccessful humanitarian intervention similar to the Somalia debacle. The media played a significant part in obfuscating the real scale of atrocities, thus aiding the Hutu extremists in mass killings. Instead of suffering the consequences of a potentially wrong choice, the UN and developed countries used bureaucracy as a convenient excuse to avoid any commitment to the situation. Given that R2P introduced after the Rwandan genocide is based on a loose idea of moral obligation, one cannot claim that the world is free from the Ghosts of Rwanda.
References
Álvarez, F. (2018). Failure to act: The Rwandan genocide and the international community. ARETE, 1-9.
Armoudian, M. (2020). In search of a genocidal frame: Preliminary evidence from the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide. Media, War & Conflict, 13(2), 133-152. Web.
Fox, N., & Nyseth Brehm, H. (2018). “I decided to save them”: Factors that shaped participation in rescue efforts during genocide in Rwanda. Social Forces, 96(4), 1625-1648. Web.
Jemirade, D. (2021). Humanitarian intervention (HI) and the responsibility to protect (R2P): The United Nations and international security. African Security Review, 30(1), 48-65. Web.
Mingst, K.A., McKibben, H. E., & , Arreguín-Toft, I. M. (2019). Essentials of international relations (8th ed.). W. W. Norton & Company.
runetek2. (2014). Ghosts of Rwanda [Video]. YouTube. Web.
Schimmel, N. (2011). An invisible genocide: How the Western media failed to report the 1994 Rwandan genocide of the Tutsi and why. The International Journal of Human Rights, 15(7), 1125-1135. Web.
Schimmel, N. (2021). A Postcolonial reflection on the Rwandan genocide against the Tutsi and statement of solidarity with its survivors. Journal of Victimology and Victim Justice, 4(2), 179-196. Web.
Schliesser, C. (2018). From “a theology of genocide” to a “theology of reconciliation”? On the role of Christian Churches in the nexus of religion and genocide in Rwanda. Religions, 9(2), 34. Web.
United Nations. (n.d.). Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Web.
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