Rwandan Genocide Essay

Rwandan Genocide: The United States, France and the Failure of the UN Security Council.

Between the months of April and July in 1994 approximately one million people were killed in Rwanda. There are three ethnic groups in Rwanda, Hutu, Tutsi, and Aboriginal Twa. The genocide occurred between two different groups, the Hutu and Tutsi people. The Hutu composed close to 85% of the population while the minority Tutsi people make up approximately 14% with the Twa people composing the remaining 1%. The Republic of Rwanda like most African nations has a history of colonization from different European countries with different and conflicting ideas of governance and how a colony should be developed and used. It can be argued that many of the problems occurring in all African nations stem from previous colonization and subsequent exploitation. “ A Brief history” UN.org n.p. n.d. Web. 16 April 2014.

Although every country on the UN Security Council expressed outrage and horror once it was accepted and confirmed that there was a genocide occurring within Rwanda there was no major outreach or assistance from the international community. Daily reports of mass killings and rape were coming out of Rwanda and even though the Security Council met every day and discussed possible options it seems apparent that all of the permanent members were reluctant to intervene. After a botched intervention in Somalia no country was very eager to intervene in another African nation. The UN Security Council watched a genocide unfold in Rwanda with very little intervention and aid. The Rwandan Genocide will be remembered as one of the largest failures of the international community to intervene in a situation that could have been stopped using potentially very ...

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...ll its own personal goals. Personal agendas will perhaps always trump UN nation building but the more aware the UN is of this perhaps the more it will be able to use this in some way to force cooperation in the Security Council.

Rwanda will be remembered as one of the biggest failures of the United Nations Security Council. The international community learned many lessons from the Rwandan Genocide and should feel a certain amount of guilt for not stopping it. Most of Africa was colonized at one point in time and for these reasons many of these countries are full of ethnic and political strife. It is up to the more developed countries of the world to monitor and stop crimes against humanity. All of these lessons learned are not important though if the international community cannot move past personal ambitions and policies and move towards more cooperative actions.