Joshua James Kassner Rwanda and the Moral Obligation of Humanitarian Intervention New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2013Reviewed by Howard A. DoughtyIt has been about twenty years since the height (or depth) of the Rwandan genocide. In retrospect, world leaders of the day acknowledge a failure to have acted in a timely fashion to prevent or at least ameliorate the events in which no less than 500,000 and, more likely, as many as 1,000,000 Tutsis were slaughtered by members of the Hutu community. The carnage came after a ceasefire in a civil war that began in 1990. The ceasefire was arranged in 1993, but Hutu extremists believed too many concessions had been made to the minority Tutsi people (14% of the population). Then in 1994, Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana was killed when his airplane was shot down as it was preparing to land at the airport in Rwanda's capital city.The genocide followed, carried out with the active involvement of an informal organization of Hutu extremists closely associated with President Habyarimana, his wife and a number of close friends and relatives. The apparent intent was to exterminate the Tutsis. The government and civilian supporters succeeded in killing as much as 70% of the Tutsi people in Rwanda. At the same time, Tutsi soldiers defeated the Hutu government troops and about 2,000,000 Hutu refugees, anticipating a revenge genocide, fled to neighbouring countries. Only then was a massive humanitarian mission organized. By 1996, the civil war spread to Zaire. Fighting continued until 2003 and militarized factions remain active today.As knowledge of the brutality spread, the international community actively sought to avoid any responsibility ... and did little more than make threats of future consequences. - Joshua James KassnerMuch handwringing and a few platitudes have followed, some more sincere than others. Canadian soldier Romeo Dallaire (2003) counts as one of the former. At the time, he was commander of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda. He pleaded for additional UN support. He was largely ignored. Nonetheless, he has remained passionately committed to ensuring that the events in Rwanda remain to trouble the consciences of those whose moral failure allowed the butchery to continue. This is how he summed up the matter some years later (Dallaire, nd).Too many parties have focused on pointing the finger at others, beyond the perpetrators, as the scapegoats for a common failure. Some say the example of Rwanda proves that the UN is an irrelevant, corrupt, decadent institution that has outlived its usefulness or even its ability to stop the genocide. Some have blamed the media for not telling the story, the NGOs for not reacting quickly enough, the peacekeepers for not having showed more resolve, and myself for failing in my mission.He explains the events this way:There is no doubt that the toxic ethnic extremism that infected Rwanda was a deep-rooted and formidable foe, built from colonial discrimination and exclusion, personal vendettas, refugee life, envy, racism, power plays, coups d'etat and the deep rifts of civil war. ... Still, at heart, the Rwandan story is the story of the failure of humanity ... The international community...failed to move beyond selfinterest .... As a result, the UN was denied the political will and material means to prevent tragedy.IThe Rwandan genocide is an example of humanity's failure to come to the aid of others of our species who have begged for help and who died hideous deaths because of the silence with which their cries were met. I repeat their plea to make the point that, although Rwanda has faded fast from the memory of people who should know better-perhaps repressed out of an inchoate sense of guilt, but also merely driven off the current news cycle by similar events, this time entwined with a combination of religious extremism and geopolitical ambition. In any case, I mention it mainly to say that, although Rwanda has been conveniently forgotten by the bulk of the developed world, the moral issues of obligation and betrayal have yet to be addressed. …
Read full abstract
Jan 1, 2021
+ 5
Open Access