The potentially socialist tone of these articles can explain a delay up through the Cold War, but it does not excuse delaying ratification into the twenty-first century. Upon further review, the socialist motive for delaying ratification does not stand.
Part 2, Topic 4: The Rwandan Genocide
On April 6, 1994, the plane of Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana was shot down over Kigali airport, the main airport for Rwanda, a small country in Central Africa.. Habyarimana was killed in the crash, as was the Burundian president, Cyprien Ntaryamira. The President was a Hutu, the majority in Rwanda. Many believe the Tutsis, the minority in Rwanda, perpetrated the shooting. Some say Hutu extremists, to give them an excuse for what happened next, committed the murder. Within hours of the president's death, angry Hutus took to the streets and sought out those who supported peace between the Hutus and the Tutsis. They did not only kill Tutsis, their rivals; they also killed conservative Hutus who supported peace between the two ethnic groups and 10 Belgian soldiers who were present as part of a UN mission (Power, 2003).
Over the next 100 days, from April until June of 1994, about 800,000 Rwandans were killed. Most of the dead were Tutsis, and most of the killers were Hutus. This fits the legal definition of genocide, which is the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group. In this case, violent Hutus sought out, not only Tutsis, but all of those who sought to support the Tutsis (Power, 2003).
According to Power, the failure of the U.S. To intervene in the midst of this violent, bloody struggle may be another reason to classify it as genocide. Historically, the United States has been slow to action in helping countries that are faced with the problem of genocide. From the Armenian Genocide, which claimed over 1 million Armenian lives between 1915 and 1917, to the "ethnic...
Such was the case during the Rwandan Genocide in 1994.
While American officials did not conspire to kill thousands of Tutsi sympathizers, they did sit idly by and watch thousands of Tutsi sympathizers be killed. All of this came on the hells of a decision to "never again" allow genocide to take place. The United States does not have a problem sending military units to other countries. The U.S. has a military presence in more than 150 countries around the world, including South Korea, Australia, Germany, Kuwait, and Colombia, just to name a few. There is even a U.S. military presence in African countries such as Kenya and Egypt. Yet when the topic of genocide comes forth, the U.S. has behaved with hesitance and trepidation (Power, 2003). The lack of a U.S. military presence in Rwanda during the events of the summer of 1994 may serve as further proof that the atrocities committed may be classified under the title of genocide.
References
Glendon, Mary Ann. (2001). A World made new: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. New York: Random House.
Fromkin, David. (2001, April 22). Drawing a Line, However Thin. The New York
Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/22/books/drawing-a-line-however-thin.html?pagewanted=2
National Coordinating Committee for UDHR50. (1998). Eleanor Roosevelt. Retrieved From http://www.udhr.org/history/Biographies/bioer.htm
Power, Samantha. (2003). A Problem from hell: America and the age of genocide.
New York:Harper Perennial
Universal Declaration of Human Rights. (2010). Retrieved from http://www.ohchr.org/EN/UDHR/Pages/Language.aspx?LangID=eng
