Formal law essay on Romeo Dallaire and Rwanda

Rwandan Genocide is the greatest massacre of human beings since Holocaust since most of the victims were murdered using machetes and would have known their murderers. While the war was mainly fueled by the ethnic tensions between Hutus and Tutsis, it escalated into genocide because the world turned their back on Rwanda. There are several arguments demonstrating this claim including the failure by the United Nations to offer protection and decision to withdraw its troops. Secondly, the decision by the United Nations to restrict its engagement with Rwanda to the Arusha Accord contributed to the genocide by promoting inaction. Thirdly, the UN and the international community failed to initiate peace enforcement efforts and interventions at a time when Rwanda needed help. The escalation of the ethnic war between Hutus and Tutsis into a genocide that lasted for 100 days was partly fueled by the fact that the world turned their back on Rwanda.

Dallaire and the Rwandan Genocide

One of the arguments in support of the claim that the world turned their back on Rwanda was the decision by the UN to remove its troops despite being capable of offering protection. According to Cahill (2013), the world turned their back on Rwandan and the United Nations decided to remove its main body of Blue Helmets (p.110). Actually, the United Nations could have utilized its troops to offer protection of schools, churches, hospitals, and other social amenity areas where Tutsis were seeking for refuge during the massacre. Even though this organization could have acknowledged the Rwandan Patriotic Front as the legal Rwandan government, it could have stopped its link with RPF that orchestrated the genocide.

The failure by the UN to provide protection and eventual withdrawal of the troops can be attributed to Romeo Dallaire's failure to report the rising ethnic war between Hutus and Tutsis. The emergence of the Rwandan Genocide is largely attributed to plans by Hutus to attack Tutsis after taking over the government. While Dallaire knew about these plans, he did not provide adequate reports to the UN that would have provoked the organization to carry out necessary preventive actions. Actually, Dallaire was informed about shipment of weapons by Hutu elite and regarding the plan to attack as well as knowing the origin of those weapons. Dallaire had several meetings with the leader of the Hutu-led military and learnt of their plans to take over the government and kill Tutsis (Mackenzie, 2008, p.16). However, he did not take necessary measures to avert the coming war and commanded his troops to fire only if fired upon.

Secondly, the decision by the United Nations to limit its engagement with Rwanda to the Arusha Accord was a demonstration of how the world turned its back on Rwanda during the genocide. Romeo Dallaire's mission in Rwanda was to evaluate a peace agreement between the Hutus and Tutsis, which were two warring ethnic groups (Shiffman, 2008). He was the commander of the UN Observer Mission Uganda-Rwanda (UNOMUR), which was to evaluate the border between Uganda and Rwanda to ensure no military help was being provided across the border (Grunfeld & Huijboom, 2007, p.47). Even though the UN sent Dallaire to assess the possibility of a UN mission in Rwanda, he was given clear instructions that such an operation would be subject to strict restrictions. Despite the need for more help in Rwanda during the genocide, the UN sent a limited number of troops for a small mission.

At the start of the genocide, Dallaire asked permission from the United Nations to intercept and siege weapons that were acquired by the Hutu elite. The UN turned down the request and limited its engagement in Rwanda to the Arusha Accord and the small UNOMUR mission. The United Nations turned down Dallaire's request for interception and seizure of shipped weapons on the premise that the weapons were sent before the signing of the Arusha Accord, which implied it could do nothing about it. In this case, while Dallaire had done his best to try salvage the situation, the United Nations limited its engagement with Rwanda to the Arusha Accord and demonstrated that the world turned their back on Rwanda in 1994.

Thirdly, the world turned their back on Rwanda by refusal to endorse an extension of the UN mission from peace keeping to enforcement of peace. Gigliotti (2007) argues that the international community and the United Nations did not effectively intervene in the genocide in a manner that would prevent the killings from developing into genocide. One of the demonstrations of this failure to intervene effectively was the decision by Dallaire and his troops to only fire if fired upon rather than use force to prevent crimes against humanity as required by UNAMIR's rules of engagement. Together with the international community and the United Nations, Dallaire and his troops could have helped prevent the escalation of the massacre to genocide through implementing peace enforcement initiatives like using force to prevent such kinds of crimes. Apart from the UN, the U.S. refused to recognize the situation in Rwanda and was reluctant to assist because of recent problems in Mogadishu involving the downing of Black hawk and murder of 18 soldiers. Therefore, the world turned their back on Rwanda by failing to demonstrate leadership and international will in establishing peace enforcement efforts.