Genocides Continue to Happen While Countries That Could Help Turn a Blind Eye

Twenty years ago, the plane carrying the president of Rwanda was shot down, unleashing one of the deadliest exterminations of the last century. More than 800,000 Rwandans lost their lives in three short months — with only a little more than one in four Tutsis surviving the violence largely perpetrated by the Hutu majority.

It was the tragedy that was supposed to collectively shame humanity to never let anything similar happen again. But what the world learned in the wake of the genocide is being ignored today as countries turn a blind eye to brewing conflicts and humanitarian crises or deflect responsibility to get involved.

There were two fundamental lessons of the Rwandan genocide. First, the warning signs of ethnic, religious or political and economic turmoil must be dealt with before tensions explode. Inaction leads to greater losses in lives and dollars.

Second, the international community has a moral obligation to intervene to prevent massive human suffering even when the national security interests are neither obvious nor immediate. The United States and other powers had the ability and the facts at hand to protect civilians and stop the systematic killing in Rwanda, they just chose not to.

Without question, Rwanda has proved how it has learned many of the lessons of its own history. Despite the odds, the country has gone a long way in solidifying the economic stability needed to forestall future bloodletting. The economy is nearly 10 times larger than it was during the genocide, and the World Bank ranks it second in all of Africa in ease of doing business.

This transformation is palpable when you first set foot in Rwanda. I haven't met a visitor in Kigali, the country's gleaming capital, who doesn't comment on how clean the roads are or how rapidly new high-rises and fancy restaurants are popping up. And on top of this, Rwanda has the highest proportion of female parliamentarians in the world and is a major contributor to peacekeeping operations on the continent, helping to prevent the next calamity.

But underneath this rosy exterior, Rwanda hasn't done enough. Its strongman rule is notorious for its lack of freedom, muzzling of the press, isolation of political opponents and meddling across its border in Congo, home of the deadliest conflict since World War II. Meanwhile, ethnic tensions in Rwanda linger perpetually at risk of being exploited for personal gain. No one knows what will happen when President Paul Kagame, who is only 56, eventually goes.

For its part, the international community has selectively failed to remember what it should have learned, seemingly forgetting the main teachings from Rwanda.

Donors, to their credit, poured money into the country to make amends for the world's neglect and deserve applause for helping to lift millions out of poverty, improve the health of mothers and children and increase life spans.

And there was real hope that Rwanda would lead to the dawn of a new era of defending human rights. With the Cold War in the rearview mirror, there was a luxury to think that humanitarian intervention could reshape international norms. NATO used this as justification for its bombing campaign to defend Kosovo, and a few years later the new concept of a "responsibility to protect" was born to address past failures to stop crimes against humanity. Sovereignty was no longer considered inviolable.

But this hope has been essentially lost.

Unfortunately, facts on the ground are again being overlooked and the same excuses for dithering are being employed now. The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the war on terror changed the discussion, and there is noticeable delay in finding solutions to the world's most urgent disasters.

Never again is happening again. Fighting in Syria has killed more than 140,000 people, displaced millions more and included the use of chemical weapons, while talks are going nowhere. The international response has been ineffectual at best, and the hesitation has only complicated the response.

Ominous signs are also mounting in the Central African Republic as violence spirals out of control with a real danger of full-scale ethnic cleansing by Muslims or Christians (depending on the back and forth of the conflict). Given all the competing priorities, there are insufficient attention and not enough peacekeepers to stem the tide.

The United Nations reports that more than 1 million people have been forced from their homes in South Sudan since December and warns that the situation could get even worse with violence continuing and millions more in need of humanitarian assistance.

To be fair, global powers aren't doing nothing. A multinational coalition used military force to end the civil war in Libya. France, with the African Union, took the lead in the Central African Republic to avert the worst, and the international community helped secure South Sudan's cease-fire agreement in January to try to contain the situation so the world's newest country isn't a failed state.

Crises are not always black or white, either. Syria is complicated. It's more than a humanitarian concern, and it's not just a refugee crisis — any outside involvement could have major regional and global ramifications, given the strategic nature of the conflict. Americans and Europeans are also hamstrung by infighting among U.N. Security Council members, with Russia, the Syrian regime's chief patron, or China often opposed to greater involvement.

But U.S. leadership is missing when it's needed most. The global response won't change unless the world's superpower changes other countries' calculations.

It has been only two decades since the Rwandan genocide — this is far too soon to forget what it taught us. Risks of humanitarian disasters must be addressed and the international community can't stand on the sidelines as crises unfold. The world doesn't need another tragedy to learn the lessons of history all over again.

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Source: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/03/forgetting-the-lessons-of-genocide-105222

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