0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
Could Rwanda's 1994 Genocide Have Been Prevented?It has been nearly eight years since genocide in Rwanda left an estimated 800,000 ethnic Tutsi civilians dead. United Nations officials continue their tribunal to bring those responsible to justice, and a debate continues over whether the massacre could have been prevented.Several human rights scholars and international aid officials recently met at a small college in the Midwestern United States to discuss the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, and whether international intervention would have made a difference.The killing began in April of 1994, after a plane carrying the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi was shot down, killing both men. Many believed the plane was shot down by ethnic Hutus who opposed a proposed power-sharing arrangement in Rwanda with the country's ethnic Tutsi minority. Within days, a systematic slaughter of Tutsis began throughout the country. Evidence has shown the Hutu government at the time planned the slaughter. Alison des Forges of the group Human Rights Watch, says there was opposition to the killing at first. "There were areas where people said, 'No, we are not going to kill our Tutsi neighbors.' But after two weeks, particularly after clear signals that the international community would do absolutely nothing, it was clear from the start there would be no interference from the international community and therefore the people who had begun organizing the genocide were able to carry it further into the country," she explains. Read more at: https://www.voanews.com/archive/could-rwandas-1994-genocide-have-been-prevented
