Crimes against humanity and the international community - Research Paper Example

Genocide in Rwanda was a result of the sudden death of Rwandan president Juvenal, a Hutu when the plane he was traveling in was shot down in Kigali, which propelled ethnic tension between the country’s Hutu and Tutsi. Between 500,000 to one million lives of Tutsis together with thousands of restrained Hutus were slaughtered in the plain genocide since horrors of holocaust after the world withdrew and watched. The US policy at the time of genocide; even though, the US officials at the never convened to conspire or allow the genocide to unfold, their convictions regarding the occurrences indicate they the official actually sat and allowed the genocide to unfold.

This is evident since many of US policy makers who were able to make decisions knew enough regarding the genocide in time to allow them to save the lives of the Tutsis and Hutus that perished in the massacre, nevertheless, the US passed up numerous opportunities to intervene. There were many early warning of the Rwanda genocide but they were systematically brushed aside; for instance, the Belgian ambassador in Kigali in 1992 revealed that a secret group in Rwanda was planning to exterminate the Tutsis of Rwanda in an attempt to resolve for the last time the problem of ethnicity.

The 1994 Rwandan genocide has been considered remarkable for its speed of violence and widespread participation that had an estimated 200,000 killers who managed to massacre more than half a million Tutsi’s in mere 100 days. In early 1990s, Hutu extremists in Rwanda’s political elite faulted the Tutsi minority for the nation’s increasing economic, social and political pressures; moreover, Tutsi civilians were accused of supporting the Tutsi-dominated rebel group, which known as the Rwandan Patriotic front (RPF).

This propaganda and constant political maneuvering the then president together with his group increased the rifts between Hutu and Tutsi toward the end of 1992, considering the past, which was dominated by oppressive Tutsi rule; majority of the Hutu not only resented but also feared the minority. On April 6, 1994 following the downing of the plane that was carrying the Hutu president violence in the country began almost immediately killing high profile opponents of Hutu extremists and people suspected of being Tutsi.

During the genocide, families were killed at a time and women systematically and brutally raped by people who were part of the estimated 200,000 individuals who perpetrated and participated in the nation’s genocide. After a span of few weeks 800,000 men, women and children died in the genocide and as much as three quarters of the Tutsis; moreover, during this time many Hutus were murdered if they opposed the massacre campaign as well as the forces that directed the campaign (“Genocide in Rwanda”).

Therefore, it is evident that the Rwandan genocide arose from the conscious choice of the political elite to embrace hatred and fear in order to keep them in power, with the small privileged group setting the majority community against the minority in an attempt to counter the increased political opposition in the nation. However, when they were faced with the triumph of RPF within the battlefield as well as being in the negotiating table with them, the few holders changed the approach of