The Role Of International Community In Resolving Criss In Africa: Case Of Rwandan Genocide1994

Rwanda is a small land locked country in Eastern Africa bordered by neighbors of DR.Congo, Uganda, Burundi and Tanzania. It was relatively unknown before deadly violencebreak out in1994. It came into the international attention when over one million Tutsis andpolitically moderate Hutus were butchered in just one hundred days, making the Rwandangenocide the fastest, most well-organized killing spree of the twentieth century.In1994on April6th, a Hutu President Juvenal Habyarimana, and all others on board werekilled when the airplane he was travelling with was shot down by a ground missile whilelanding at Kigali airport. He was from the meeting in Arusha, Tanzania. The massacre ofRwanda’s minority Tutsi which was prepared well in advance by Hutu extremist began hoursafter the president’s deaths. On7April ten Belgian UN peacekeepers were killed. By doingthis the extremist who seemed to have done their assignment well, knew the UN would giveup the peacekeeping mission and pull out from Rwanda, and they were right.Within the following three months by using local garden equipment like machetes, hoes,pangs and other low-tech arms, the Hutus slaughtered over one million Tutsis in an attempt tofinish them all. The well prepared and coordinated government attempt to cruelly finish theTutsi population obviously meets the definition of genocide adopted by the UN GeneralAssembly in1948. By signing the convention, members of the UN have committedthemselves to prevent and punish the crime of genocide. If parties who have signed theGenocide Convention have committed to prevent and punish the crime of genocide, why didthe international community just watched when the Rwandan genocide was happening?This thesis will analyze the response of the international community with more attention tothe United Nations and the United States, to the Rwandan genocide. Why the UNpeacekeepers already in Rwanda did give up? Why did the US, the world’s most powerfulcountry in the world refuse to intervene? Was there any possibility to prevent, or at least stopthe genocide? All these questions are going to be answered in the following chapters.