Classical Realism Rwanda And The Rwandan Genocide

In the spring of 1994, what is now known as the Rwandan Genocide began the day after the Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu man, was killed when his plane was shot down while attempting to land in Kigali. This caused the tension between the two main ethnic groups in Rwanda, the minority Tutsi and the majority Hutu, to implode. The ethnic cleansing was led by the Hutus as a way to rid the country of Tutsis, an estimated eight hundred thousand people were murdered during the one hundred days of the genocide and millions more were displaced.
The question that arises is, how and why did the international community watch an ethnic cleansing unfold without taking action? This essay will discuss why the political theory of classical realism …show more content…
Under Belgian rule ethnic tensions grew, Rwandans were required to carry identification cards stating their ethnic identity, which exasperated the already present variance between the two groups. During the decolonization process much of the power was transferred to Tutsis which deepened the ethnic divide, as they were chosen because of their ethnicity and they were the minority group. Tutsis were preferred over Hutus due to their features and overall build being similar to the white colonialists, physical differences are hard to hide in public and this allowed for the mass murders to happen because not only did people have their identity cards but it was also easier to murder everyone that did not look Hutu. The ethnic tensions and genocide can, arguably, be blamed on Belgium colonization, so the question is why did they not intervene. This can be explained by remembering that there is no place for empathy or morality in international affairs or actions, as per the realist theory. In the qualitative study of the New York Times, there was little coverage by American media that discussed Rwanda’s colonial