The Rwanda Genocide of 1994 was an international disaster and the question of how much the international community was to blame for it has been debated to this day. Sure, the Rwandans who organised and executed the actual genocide must be fully responsible, but the word genocide implicates everyone. Governments and powerful people failed to prevent and halt the killing campaign. Everyone shared the shame of the crime. Belgium withdrawing their troops and leaving the peacekeeping force; the US putting saving money a higher importance than saving lives and slowing the sending of the relief force; and France supporting a Rwandan government who engaged in genocide by providing them weapons were the reasons why the international community was to
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In fact, they went to an effort justifying why they shouldn’t be involved. As early as 1993, there were CIA studies warning the US Government of the imminent massacres with the potential to be up to 500 000 deaths. Before it even began, most major powers knew there were plans for genocidal killings and that “something terrible was underway [already] in Rwanda”. It was public knowledge that by April 20, the US had to have known about the mass killings. However, you do have to realise that their role in the genocide prevention was directly inspired by their defeat during their peacekeeping intervention in Somalia around six months earlier. The US at that time according to President Clinton said they were going to “stop placing the agenda of the UN before the interests of the US”. Clinton, who was more concerned about his poll rating rather than the lives of millions of people after the bringing home of body bags from African mission decided that there had to be a qualification in order for the US to approve for a UN peacekeeping mission. For the people in Rwanda, it was bad luck as they did not “qualify” for US-sponsored peacekeeping operations. Secondly, the US had no “national interest” in Rwanda. It was contended that Washington simply remembered Somalia and heard no American public demand for intervention” – The White House. According to them, citizens had a powerful voice on topics in policy agenda. However, there was no such pressure when it came to the 1994 genocide. This was probably due to Western misunderstanding and lack of communication from the UN Secretariat of African conflicts. Instead of seeing the killings as out of the ordinary and a massive problem, they saw it as - no it’s okay, these things happen all the time in Africa! Finally, under the 1948 Genocide Convention, the international community is “obliged to act if genocide occurs anywhere in the
In fact, they went to an effort justifying why they shouldn’t be involved. As early as 1993, there were CIA studies warning the US Government of the imminent massacres with the potential to be up to 500 000 deaths. Before it even began, most major powers knew there were plans for genocidal killings and that “something terrible was underway [already] in Rwanda”. It was public knowledge that by April 20, the US had to have known about the mass killings. However, you do have to realise that their role in the genocide prevention was directly inspired by their defeat during their peacekeeping intervention in Somalia around six months earlier. The US at that time according to President Clinton said they were going to “stop placing the agenda of the UN before the interests of the US”. Clinton, who was more concerned about his poll rating rather than the lives of millions of people after the bringing home of body bags from African mission decided that there had to be a qualification in order for the US to approve for a UN peacekeeping mission. For the people in Rwanda, it was bad luck as they did not “qualify” for US-sponsored peacekeeping operations. Secondly, the US had no “national interest” in Rwanda. It was contended that Washington simply remembered Somalia and heard no American public demand for intervention” – The White House. According to them, citizens had a powerful voice on topics in policy agenda. However, there was no such pressure when it came to the 1994 genocide. This was probably due to Western misunderstanding and lack of communication from the UN Secretariat of African conflicts. Instead of seeing the killings as out of the ordinary and a massive problem, they saw it as - no it’s okay, these things happen all the time in Africa! Finally, under the 1948 Genocide Convention, the international community is “obliged to act if genocide occurs anywhere in the