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Rwanda Injustice

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The Injustice of Partial Justice: the Impunity Gap in Rwanda
On the 6th of April in 1994, Rwanda stood at the outset of a genocide that, in three short months, would kill over half a million people. By July, roughly three-quarters of the entire Tutsi minority and thousands of moderate Hutu’s had been exterminated. In response, on the 8th of November, that same year, the Security Council established an international tribunal with the purpose to prosecute individuals responsible for “[g]enocide and other serious violations of international humanitarian law committed in the territory of Rwanda, or by Rwandans in neighboring countries, between the 1st of January 1994 and 31st of December 1994” (Goldstone & Smith, 2009 p.99). Since trials began …show more content…

Moreover, when Carla Del Ponte publicly criticized the Rwandan government for its lack of cooperation concerning the investigations on RPF crimes and promised to make its first arrests by the end of the year, the Rwandan government responded with the implementation of travel restrictions that prevented prosecution witnesses from going to Arusha to testify at the ICTR in genocide cases. This resulted in a significant delay of three ICTR trials due to lack of witnesses and forced Carla Del Ponte to drop all special investigations concerning the prosecution of the RPF. Carla Del Ponte was not allowed to pursue crimes committed by Tutsi against Hutu, and was removed from her role at the ICTR because her wanting to do so strongly jeopardized relations with Rwanda (Forsythe, 2012; Haskell & Waldorf, 2011). - Her replacement did not pursuit any more efforts concerning the jurisdiction of the …show more content…

“The raison d’être of international tribunals is the need to deliver justice for serious violations of international humanitarian law where national courts cannot deliver effective justice (Haskell & Waldorf, 2011 p.83).” Their legitimacy stems from the notion that international criminal courts are more impartial than national ones, governed by international law rather than domestic criminal law. However, the dependency of the ICTR on the cooperation of the Rwandan government proves how easy justice can be manipulated into serving the political interests of the targeted country. My primary concern is that the ICC is too dependent on national proceedings of the targeted states. As illustrated in the case of the ICTR, international tribunals may not want to endanger relations with state parties on whose cooperation jurisdiction depends. The ICTR has shown that, through cooperation, some justice can be served, but the quest for impartial criminal justice is yet to be fulfilled (Forsythe,

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There are two arguments in Frontline's the "Ghosts of Rwanda. " The genocide was prolonged due to inactivity of the United Nations, including western supporters such as the United States. The inactivity of the United States was from a lack of political or financial interest in Rwanda, and a fear of being involved in a situation which could be similar to the recent tragedies in Mogadishu, Somalia. Each of these points is argued mostly through personal interviews with the diplomats, soldiers, and civilians that were prominent inside and outside of Somalia. The interviews with Lieutenant-General Romeo Dallaire, of the U.N. forces, and Philippe Gaillard, of the Red Cross, act as Logos, Pathos, and Ethos devices in the different acts of the Frontline presentation.

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In 1994, Rwanda was gripped with murderous fervor as Hutus across the country took up machetes against their Tutsi neighbors in what became 100 days of genocide that left 800,000 dead. Does the history of Rwanda provide any evidence of the implementation of the ten steps of genocide? How did Belgian imperialism influence the relationship between Hutus and Tutsis? What ultimately made the average Hutu decide to murder their Tutsi neighbors? In this paper I will investigate how the ten steps of genocide was used in Rwanda, the effects of imperialism on Rwandan culture and gain insight into why Hutus decided to kill Tutsis through the analysis of the book Machete Season by Jean Hatzfeld.

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1323 Words | 6 Pages

C. Introduction The Rwandan genocide lasted three months and in those three months it is said that 1 million Tutsis were killed. The Holocaust lasted 4 years and 6 million Jews were killed. Bearing this in mind it would be expected that The Rwandan genocide should be extremely well known because of the loss of lives, impact and brutality of the event and the similarities it holds with The Holocaust. The fact is that the Rwandan Genocide is not very well known and is not thought to be in the same category as The Holocaust, where in fact it is.

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1140 Words | 5 Pages

When the international community responded indifferently toward the Rwandan genocide, “labeling it an ‘internal conflict’,” as the U.S. Holocaust Museum states, perpetrators could commit those genocidal crimes with little constraint; this directly led to the genocide later in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. “Adding fuel to [the Congo’s] unstable mix, some one million refugees, mostly the Hutu fearing the… Tutsis, fled into [the Congo]… at the end of the Rwandan genocide” and before the first war of the Congo. Additionally, leaders of that genocide followed, and “Organizing themselves in the fertile grounds of the massive refugee camps in Eastern Congo,... [they] began preying on the local Congolese population and making incursions back into Rwanda” (The U.S. Holocaust Museum 1).

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(document 9) Also, in one hundred days more than 1 million murdered. The UN troops ' arrival helped keep order and restore basic service, furthermore; the government of Rwanda is pursuing the policy of punishment and reconciliation. Throughout history, these denials of human rights affected many.

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635 Words | 3 Pages

The American Government 's Response to The Rwandan Genocide The United States often have an had interest in the political, social and civil crises of other countries in order to benefit themselves. American senior officials hid the truth of the Rwanda Genocide to avoid public moral obligation. The government did not give any financial or political support to the country because Rwanda did not offer minerals or political advantages and stability; the US ' government did not want to be involved in another conflict, even though it has helped other countries in the past.1 But what is truly deeper hidden, are the stories of people like Immacule, a young girl, who, unlike thousands of others, survived the catastrophic genocide in Rwanda.

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1372 Words | 6 Pages

After many years of pushing aside the unlawful subject of genocide, in 1948 the UN General assembly held an international convention on the prevention, and punishment against the crime of genocide; it was finally put to work in 1951. (Doc. B) Even though we knew genocide was happening in the past with the holocaust, it took us around four decades to go through creating an international criminal tribunal until 1994. (Doc. B) The main question leaves us in document B saying, “Why did it take so long, despite atrocities and mass killings in Cambodia, East Timor, and elsewhere?”

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D). In Document A “study the problem of genocide and to prepare a report on the possibilities of declaring genocide an international crime.” Although this would have been a great action to protect civilians value during the Nazi crimes, which were inhumane. However, due to the “lack of adequate provisions and previous formulation of international law, the Nuremberg Tribunal had to dismiss the Nazi crimes,” (Doc. A). The international government have not payed attention to serious issues concerning their people.

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877 Words | 4 Pages

Origins of the Tutsi’s -Hutu’s conflict, Belgium had colonized Rwanda after WW1 and openly showed favourites towards the Tutsi’s who made up the minority of the population (15%) and the Hutu’s made up 83% of the population in Rwanda the majority. The Belgium’s believed that the

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1339 Words | 6 Pages

One cannot fight fire with fire. While massacre reigns in Rwanda and people take betrayal to the extreme, Paul Rusesabagina in his book, An Ordinary Man, proofs how violence is unnecessary while standing against the power of the word. As Rusesabagina states, words are “powerful tools of life”(Rusesabagina, 19). The war between the two different ethnic groups, Hutus and Tutsis, and the death of thousands left a mark Rwanda’s memory; the author says: “It is the darkest bead on our national necklace” (222). Even though a large part of Rwanda’s population is massacred, many are saved by one of Rwanda’s timeless heroes.

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2030 Words | 9 Pages

International failure to stop the Rwandan genocide is a matter of shame for the western world and the rest of the world need to learn lessons from this slaughter. It is pertinent to mention that genocide is the result of a systematic development, culminating in the crime of crimes which implies that it is possible to prevent genocide by finding its causes. Prevention is better than cure always. It is best to detect the roots of genocide early on or before it even begins. The world should adopt the political re-socialization to replace nationalistic attitudes and value systems with more international and humanitarian based ethos (Krugar 103).

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896 Words | 4 Pages

When the Rwanda genocide began in 1994, its population stood at more that 7 people. Roughly 85% of the population was Hutu, 14% Tutsi, and 1% Twa (un.org). The decades following Rwanda’s independence from Belgium in 1962 saw growing ethnic tensions and periodic violent attacks and reprisals between Rwanda’s Hutu majority and its Tutsi minority. On April 6, 1994, the deaths of the Presidents of Burundi and Rwanda in a plane crash caused by a rocket attack, ignited several weeks of intense and systematic massacres.

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656 Words | 3 Pages

The death of the Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana whose plane was shot down above the Kigali airport in April 6 1994 was the last straw. A French judge blamed the current Rwandan President, Paul Kagame, at the time the leader of a Tutsi rebel group (“How the Genocide Happened-BBC News”). The rebel group wanted to overthrow Habyarimana and return to their homeland. After months of fighting they finally signed a peace treaty but it did little to stop the arguments between the two cultures (“How the Genocide Happened-BBC News”). Then when the plane was shot down the genocide

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848 Words | 4 Pages

The genocide was an after affect of the scramble for Africa by European countries who help no regard for the people who already lived their. In the scramble for Africa many European countries raced to make claims on land in Africa that was already lived on by natives, they mistreated the natives and killed and enslaved many of them. This was prevalent in Rwanda when the belgians imperialized the land. The belgians sent the Hutus who were the majority of the population into slavery and lead to mass deaths of their people. But they lead the land through another ethnic group the tutsis who made up about 15% of the population compared to the 85% population of Hutus.

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1464 Words | 6 Pages

Rwanda has a history of deep rooted conflict which originates back to when it was once a colony of Germany. Once it became a colony of Belgium after world war one this conflict also came with it, The conflict that exists is thus of two ethnic tribal groups the; Hutus and the Tutsis and their strong hatred of one another. Rwandans myths seems to indicate that Hutu and Tutsi identities did exist before the colonization but the hatred of two predominate ethnic tribal groups of one another only came into existence after colonization. This conflict between them has nothing to with religion, race or language it is to do with territory and the ownership of Rwanda. It is because of the colonies exploitation and classification of the Rwandan people into“an ethnic group” that the conflict seemed to come to a head.

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