Government Responses to Genocide

Is â€Å"any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the roup conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or In part; Imposing measures Intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group' (Article 2 CPPCG)_ By this definltlon certain acts of genocide may go on with no Interference. One of the most recent Genocides to day was at the end of the twentieth century. In the year 1994 in the East African country of rwanda an amount around eight- hundred thousand Rwandans were killed. The Genocide was soon started after the Hutu president plan was shoot down.The Hutu extremist soon started targeting the Tutsi civilians under the pretense of war. Any political leaders that could have t urned the situation was killed almost immediately. any one that was suspected of being tutsi was killed on contact. WThe Rwandan genocide resulted trom the conscious choice of the elite to promote hatred and fear to keep itself in power. This small, privileged group first set the majority against the minority to counter a growing political opposltlon within Human Rights). Many countries such ds the united States of America, France, and policymakers of the united Nations failed to ake steps to prevent the mass slaughterlngs that they know ot.Even though Rwandans are considered fully responsible for the organizing and carrying out the genocide. governments of the world and people everywhere all campaign. Governments such as United States of America were hesitant of getting Involved with foreign conflict after the somalla Incldent. uhe battle likely caused ‘an excessive concern [to] avoid risking American forces on the ground' during the Clinton Meaning that when President Bill C linton decided foresee the amount of casualties that would result. Somalia is an infamous event in he history of the United States military that has inspired the book Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden and a movie based off the book.The event in Somalia would prevent the US from even to classify Rwanda as a genocide, so that they would not have to intervene in the situation. Not only was the United States government at fault for not intervening, but the government of France also. France is often accused of adding the Hutus rebellion and doing nothing at the same time. As said by the French president Nicolas Sarkozy while at a rwandan memorial, â€Å"We are not here to have fun, to fiddle with vocabulary hat happened here is unacceptable and what happened here forces the international community, including France, to reflect on the mistakes that prevented it from anticipating and stopping this terrible crime. This comment can show how France is primarily known for ignorance of the Rwanda incident even though that it had some of the closest ties to the Rwandan government at the time. In the book Silent Accomplice: The Untold Story of France's Role in the Rwandan Genocide it is written,† in total, France sold $24 million of arms to Rwanda during 1990-94, though this fgure does not include non-authorized grants. It is clear that ‘secret deliveries' outside the knowledge or authorization of the ministry defence that were taking place. Because of this secrecy there was ‘a gap between the official commentary and the actual administrative reality. ‘ Much of huge stock received from france and egypt were handed over to the civilian militia. † (Andrew Wallis 32).The fact that so many weapons were able to get on the black market could be considered as astounding. If these weapons were never in the civilian militia hands the death toll of the Rwanda genocide might have been drastically different. Part of the international community is constantly called on for its lack of intervention during the Rwanda genocide. Troops were being sent in and taken out almost constantly. the belgian government sent in the largest amount of soldiers, but shortly after ten soldiers of theirs were killed, Belgian troops were withdrawn. French armies were said to take post after they had withdrawn, but apparently took too long. n the words of Ian Linden,†The withdrawal of the bulk of the UN forces and the failure of the Security Council to re-enforce them and acknowledge that genocide was aking place cost thousands of lives and will be recorded as one of the most culpable and tragic of the UN's many mistakes on intervention† (Sellstrom and Wohlgemuth, 1996).