How the United Nations ignored a Genocide
How the negligence of the United Nations and its member nations led to the Rwandan Genocide
The Rwandan Genocide was one of the largest losses of life after World War 2. It resulted in the loss of over 800,000 lives in Rwanda and Uganda and over 1 million people being displaced.
The Rwandan Genocide lasted from 7th April to 15th July 1994, a mere 99 days of fighting, but the effects of the losses are felt to this day.
The United Nations played a major role in the development and continuation of the fighting as will be discussed in detail below,
How did the United Nations reach Rwanda?
Rwanda has faced a great amount of internal conflict and civil war ever since it was colonized by the Germans in the 19th Century. The colonization by the Germans created a rift in the two previously peaceful tribes inhabiting Rwanda earlier- the Hutu and the Tutsi. The Germans placed the Tutsi on a higher standing to the Hutu and this created internal feelings of conflict amongst the two tribes.
Thus, a number of civil wars were fought between the two tribes for power between 1959 and 1990, the last of which resulted in the creation of the Arusha Agreement in 1990 which called for a creation of a Rwandan Government that was made up of both tribes. The agreement also called for the creation of a United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Rwanda called the United Nations Observer Mission Uganda-Rwanda to prevent Uganda from intervening in Rwandan affairs. In October 1993, another UN Mission, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) was formed to implement the terms of the Arusha Agreement effectively.
This was the reason that the United Nations were placed in Rwanda in the first place, giving them the ability to intervene in case of conflict and fighting in Rwanda.
What did the United Nations do wrong?
The Rwandan Genocide started when a place carrying the Presidents of Rwanda and Burundi was shot down. The perpetrator is still unknown, but was believed to be Hutu extremists. This caused major uproar and killings, with the Prime Minister, 10 of her UNAMIR Guards and cabinet ministers being the first killed. This led to widespread massacres all over Rwanda, killing and displacing hundreds of thousands of troops.
1. Early Withdrawl of Troops
When ten peacekeepers were killed by the extremists in the start of the fighting, Belgium acted quickly and chose to withdrawing all of it’s troops, and then lobbying for the removal of all troops from Rwanda in the United Nations. They did this under the pretext that peacekeepers would exist only in case of a ceasefire, and succeeded in their case. The UN passed Resolution 912, which reduced peacekeeping troops from 2548 to 270, and this was the biggest mistake that the United Nations had made.
There were over 2500 troops to be present in the area, who could, if adequately equipped, squash out the genocide in its early stages as a politicide.
The reason that Belgian was so scared was due to the previous Peacekeping Mission to Somalia, which was the biggest failure of the UN at the time, and caused widespread losses. The “shadow of Somalia” was present over all the Member Nations and thus they agreed on removing the troops.
2. Weak Mandate and Resources of UNAMIR
The troops that were sent to Rwanda were not adequately equipped to operate in this time of need. They were under constant pressure from the United Nations to save money, When Belgium withdrew its troops, it also withdrew its arms, which it brought a lot of. It was asked by the Secretariat to leave their arms, as UNAMIR was facing a shortage, but it declined to do so, and thus the troops were left with fewer arms than before. There was also a major constraint on the resources of the troops, with a low stock of ammunition, food, water, lubricant, and fuel.
The mandate of the UNAMIR, when deployed in 1993, was weak and ineffective. It called for the UNAMIR to enforce the Arusha Agreements, maintain peace, and simply “monitor”, “assist” and “investigate.” This weak mandate gave the troops no means to prevent attacks from occurring through violent measures like the use of arms. Even when the situation changed from a ceasefire to an emerging genocide, they received no permission for forceful action from the United Nations headquarters.
3. Fear of the word “Genocide”
Genocide was a very dicey word to use in the United Nations. As per the 1948 Genocide Convention, the international community is obliged to act if genocide occurs anywhere in the world. Thus, by skirting around the g-word, no effective action was taken by the more powerful western powers.
Both France and the USA were effectively aware of the state of affairs and termed it as an “ongoing civil war” instead of genocide to sway non-permanent nations into withdrawing troops from the affected regions instead of saving innocent lives.
The United Nations in New York even recieved a “Genocide Fax” from UNAMIR that unveiled the intention to kill Belgian peacekeepers and the Tutsi population. This message was sent three months before the plane crash even happened, showing that the peacekeepers were aware of the impending genocide.
The world powers effectively tried to supress and ignore the situation in Rwanda while they were on in order to not have to intervene in the situation, an act of pure cowardice.
What was the aftermath?
After the United Nations realized its mistakes in Rwanda it tried to remedy the situation. It passed Resolution 918, increasing United Nations troops to 5000 in number. Their late solution was ineffective. It took over 6 months to gather the troops from United Nations member nations, by which time it was too late. The massacre had reached the public and it had become a genocide, with thousands already dead.
It was the sheer ignornce of the world community and the fear of loss of military forces, as well as sheer cowardice that led to the Rwandan Genocide. This was a historic event that did not need to occur but it did. It could have been easily prevented much earlier in the conflict and have saved thousands of lives from beign affected. The effects of the Rwandan Genocide are seen up till today around the world. Migrants have still not returned to their homes and are still widely displaced.
We see from all the above information that the United Nations clearly committed heinous mistakes that affected millions of lives by displacing them and killing hundreds of thousands. These lives could all have been spared by the correct intervention of the United Nations in the UNAMIR mission in Rwanda. This was also seen by the United Nations itself, who issued a formal apology to Rwanda through the President of the Security Council in 1994 saying that the United Nations “utterly failed” Rwanda and its people. “Never Again” is always the motto of the world after a major tragedy, but they continue to occur. As the people of today, we must be vigilant in the warning signs of such issues and how they can have far reaching consequences.
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