rwanda, what should the world have done?

[whore]

what do ya'll think of the rwandan genocide http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Genocide ? do ya'll think that western powers should have interviened? or woud that just have been an example of imperialism?

i'm really of two minds on the issue. i would thouraly support a truely anarchist society intervining in a situation such as this, to protect the innocent, and the minorities.

however, capitalist countries intervining? well, i can certainly see what's wrong with that.

but, does the wrong out weigh the right?

of course, imperialism could be easily blamed for the conflict in the first place, if britain hadn't have setup the country so that conflict was inivitable...

so, should the un, usa, britain, etc. (or maybe just other african countries) have sent troops to stop the genocide?

[turquino]

The simple answer is that Britain and the United States were backing the Rwandan Patriotic Front and international action might have impeded a RPF takeover. As Robin Philpot points out in Rwanda 1994: Colonialism Dies Hard (2004), the Anglo-American strategy was simple: remove the French and make sure the RPF took power, then Rwanda would be their loyal client state and regional enforcer.

[A.R.Amistad]

The very same question has been bugging me. And honestly comrades, somebody else should have helped stop the slaughter. They shouldn't have left the RPF on its own. I think it would have been really good if Uganda had sent some military support to the RPF. The Ugandans had trained the exiled RPF rebels before the civil war, so relations between the RPF and Uganda were pretty amiable. And yes, the western powers should have sent some troops as well. I think there needs to be some sort of definitional balance between imperialism and benign intervention. I mean, I don't see anything wrong with alliances. As far as I see it, it would hve been perfectly ethical for the western nations to act in Uganda as allies of the RPF, not as invaders. But of course, that sort of happened in Cuba in 1898. Still, I don't think its right for a powerful nation to let a people be destroyed in a genocide. I think there can be a balance in which a nation sends military aide while respecting a nation's right to self determination, like when Cuba sent troops to aide the Angolan revolutionaries.

[The Red Next Door]

what do ya'll think of the rwandan genocide http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Genocide ? do ya'll think that western powers should have interviened? or woud that just have been an example of imperialism?

i'm really of two minds on the issue. i would thouraly support a truely anarchist society intervining in a situation such as this, to protect the innocent, and the minorities.

however, capitalist countries intervining? well, i can certainly see what's wrong with that.

but, does the wrong out weigh the right?

of course, imperialism could be easily blamed for the conflict in the first place, if britain hadn't have setup the country so that conflict was inivitable...

so, should the un, usa, britain, etc. (or maybe just other african countries) have sent troops to stop the genocide?
Rwanda was a colony of the Belgians

[The Red Next Door]

The world should of kick some racist ass but yet again there reason for not inverting is, Rwandans killing Rwandans in other words. They meant to say fuck those fucking jungle bunnies, let them off each other off. The Bosnians are more important, because they one of us.:rolleyes:

[ls]

The world should of kick some racist ass but yet again there reason for not inverting is, Rwandans killing Rwandans in other words. They meant to say fuck those fucking jungle bunnies, let them off each other off. The Bosnians are more important, because they one of us.:rolleyes:

Not really, they let plenty of killing happen there too, they then backed a murderous fascist group better known as the KLA and put them into government.

Meanwhile, some of the left were busy calling the KLA marxist-leninists, oh my.

The Rwandan genocide was basically Western sponsored, I don't see it in any other way, it is one of the most disgusting things ever to happen, but none of the pro-Western sources ever mention that it was actually Western sponsored directly so. It's disgusting.

What could the left have done in Rwanda? As far as I can see, the left was extremely weak there. Apart from supporting workers' taking up arms against those wishing to kill them but more importantly, fleeing from the genocide in large, organized blocs there is little that could have been done by us.

[The Red Next Door]

Not really, they let plenty of killing happen there too, they then backed a murderous fascist group better known as the KLA and put them into government.

Meanwhile, some of the left were busy calling the KLA marxist-leninists, oh my.

The Rwandan genocide was basically Western sponsored, I don't see it in any other way, it is one of the most disgusting things ever to happen, but none of the pro-Western sources ever mention that it was actually Western sponsored directly so. It's disgusting.

What could the left have done in Rwanda? As far as I can see, the left was extremely weak there. Apart from supporting workers' taking up arms against those wishing to kill them but more importantly, fleeing from the genocide in large, organized blocs there is little that could have been done by us.
kosovo liberation army?

[Nwoye]

The Rwandan genocide was basically Western sponsored, I don't see it in any other way, it is one of the most disgusting things ever to happen, but none of the pro-Western sources ever mention that it was actually Western sponsored directly so. It's disgusting.
Could you provide a reference for this.

[kalu]

Rwanda was a very complicated situation. No doubt genocide occurred, but under what circumstances, much is up for debate. Some people, like journalist keith harmon snow, have alleged that tens of thousands of Hutus were slaughtered, mostly behind RPF lines (I have always been curious about the phrase "hundreds of thousands of Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed"). The circumstances of Habyarimana's death alone are the subject of intense controversy (did the RPF shoot down his plane in an attempt to provoke the Hutu forces, or did Habyarimana's elite circle, 'Akazu', and his wife plan his own death, as journalist Phillip Gourevitch suggests?). Unfortunately, there appears to be little academic record on the matter, aside from the brief studies of Central African historians like Renee Lemarchand and Gerard Prunier. I myself have not come across any indigenous analysis of the situation, based on my admittedly cursory survey, which points to a problematic issue about what information is widely available.

Finally, one cannot mention the Rwandan Genocide without also including in their narrative the events of the Congo Wars, especially during 1996-1997, or the "first" war that culminated in the Rwandan-Ugandan led overthrow of Mobutu Sese Seko, the previously US-backed dictator who had allegedly sheltered interahamwe Hutu death squads in Eastern Congolese refugee camps. During this war, even mainstream journalists such as Howard French allege that over a million Hutus were killed in a "counter-genocide" as they marched west to escape advancing Rwandan and Ugandan soldiers. It is widely known that during the second war, 1998-2003, which in fact continues sporadically, Rwanda, Uganda and their allies pilfered diamond, coltan, copper, and other mines (there are several accounts of this exploitation in The African Stakes of the Second Congo War). Additionally, the genocide itself took place under the shadow of a (Tutsi-led) genocide in neighboring Burundi during the 1970s and 80s. Habyarimana was actually killed along with then Hutu President of Burundi Ndadaye (he became the President, I believe, after 1993 peace accords and election).

In terms of Western interests, the threads are too many to trace. Certainly, the French were involved given that they wanted to protect Francophone interests in Central Africa. French special forces carried out an infamous operation during the genocide, Operation Turquoise, that set up a "safe zone" in southwest Rwanda and allegedly allowed key interahamwe to escape into neighboring Congo during the RPF assault.

But there were also Anglo-American interests at stake. Human Rights Watch has documented the extensive abuses of Anglo-American PLC (based in South Africa) in Central Africa. And it is well known that coltan (shorthand for columbium tantalite), which is primarily found in Eastern Congo, is a critical element for everything from cellphone batteries to jet engines. Once again, keith harmon snow alleges that during the brutal Congo wars that have killed perhaps nearly six million people, Westerners (including Brits and Americans) operated with impunity, buying up Congo's forests and mining the shit out of the place in something reminiscent of the most brutal forms of colonial exploitation. Additionally, murky details have arisen about Paul Kagame (leader of the RPF) and his US Army-sponsored training in the late 1980s / early 1990s at Fort Leavenworth Kansas, at the height of the RPF's raids into Rwanda. These raids were led from Uganda, a noteworthy US ally in the region since Yoweri Museveni took power in the early 1980s. Some claim these raids sparked further Hutu animosity toward the Tutsi, although that could also be a case of blaming the victim for the subsequent genocide. Nevertheless, the RPF had its own ambitions to take power in Rwanda, and we can't overlook the US's own possible interest in the matter.

I have been out of the loop on these matters for the past three years, but I have to say a significant amount of research needs to be done before we can extract Ariadne's thread from this tale of plunder, what is too often written off as simple "African savagery", but which in fact contains the seeds of the most brutal forms of colonial exploitation (in addition to the alchemy of local legacies and modern political rationalities, such as the "ethnicization" of Third World politics). If Africa is an unknown quantity in the era of globalization, perhaps that is because it hides ambiguous and often violent regimes of extraction that make it "inconvenient" for celebratory analyses of the free market. Only cursory racism so far has offered a mainstream explanation of these issues that concerns the lives (and deaths) of millions of people, which is a crime in itself to say the least.

Additionally, it's interesting that all the mainstream literature on Rwanda has essentially been written by white Western liberals (this is not to denigrate their achievements, but to point to an incontrovertible fact). Where is the indigenous representation, where is the poetry (can there be poetry after colonialism? to subvert Adorno's phrase), and where are the analyses that make this part of the living problem and response of diverse African moral traditions rather than merely yet another case of "the white man's burden"? Such an occlusion is noticeable and yet sadly par for the course when it comes to discussing "Africa" in general.

So, in response to the relatively simple question of the OP ("should we have intervened"), I would say that I personally am frightened by what we, the US and other "Westerners", alone did while allegedly "not" intervening. I am paralyzed, however, by the fact that we had the logistics and resources to attempt an intervention. Again, however, what that would have achieved given the blatant history of Western aggression in Africa, I have no clue.

[ls]

Could you provide a reference for this.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8189


Madsen explains that the initial RPF invasion of Rwanda from Uganda in 1990, "had the military backing of the first Bush administration [1989-1993], including Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney," and that the aim of the RPF was to overthrow Rwanda's Hutu president.[22] Madsen exposed how the RPF deputy leader, Paul Kagame was trained at US Army installations in the United States and when, during the 1990 invasion of Rwanda, the RPF's leader was killed, "Kagame became the head of the guerrilla army, and his ties with the Pentagon, CIA, and State Department became closer." Classified UN documents revealed that Annan and Albright were aware of this information.[23]

It came out in a French National Assembly inquiry that, "the U.S. even supplied the RPF with the Soviet-made surface-to-air missiles that were used to shoot down the Rwandan presidential aircraft," and that a UN investigation team got a hold of information that, "a company linked to the CIA leased the warehouse used to assemble the missile launchers."[24] However, the investigation was closed down once the relationship to the US was realized.

I suppose people are just shocked at how the West can sponsor genocides? I mean, they're capitalists not fascists! :rolleyes:

..Except they've been doing it since the inception of capitalism.

[A.R.Amistad]

I still haven't been able to get a clear answer as to what foreign world powers, imperialist or not, should have or should not have done at the time of the genocide, the question of intervention.