December 15, 2007
World risks future genocides
By JOESPH QUESNEL
KIGALI, Rwanda — Rwanda has made me rethink my foreign policy
assumptions. While I am a realist in that I believe states are mainly
motivated by power and influence — and this is not in itself a bad
thing — I believe humanitarian values must play a much larger role in
the international system. In 1994, states acted as rational actors in
the international system and allowed genocide to occur. The United
States and other Western states, including Canada, did not believe
rescuing almost a million Rwandans was within their national
interest. France supported the Hutu-dominated government in order to
retain a French influence in the region, despite the Rwandan
government’s support for racial extremists.
The U.S. had just endured the humiliation of Somalia, where their dead
soldiers had been dragged through the streets of Mogadishu. They did
not want to see the same thing happen in Rwanda. I understand that.
I can even understand why Belgium reduced their peacekeepers in Rwanda
after 10 of their soldiers had been killed, even as the genocide grew.
These are all rational actions, but all of these factors allowed the
world to watch as checkpoints were established across Rwanda and
citizen militias murdered their fellow citizens and neighbours were
ordered to kill neighbours. I saw pictures of babies cut with
machetes and whole families buried alive in latrines.
After visiting the genocide memorial in Kigali where more than 250,000
civilians are buried, I came to understand we must change our way of
thinking about national sovereignty and the purpose of the state if
genocides are to be prevented.
While never being enthusiastic about violating territorial
sovereignty, there are grounds for it occurring in rare instances. If
a defining characteristic of the sovereign state is the monopoly on
force and the ability to protect citizens from foreign and domestic
harm, it is reasonable that if this is not happening, the state has
broken down and has, in effect, lost sovereignty.
A failed state loses its sovereignty because it is not performing
basic functions for its citizens. During the Rwandan genocide, only
Hutu citizens who supported the genocide received the protection of
their own state. Tutsis were excluded from protection, as were Hutus
who opposed the organized killings.
The Rwandan army, in murdering its own citizens, was not performing
its role of defending everyone.
A failed state, as in Rwanda, is not in the same standing as a civil
war, for even moral conduct is expected of the state actor involved.
During the genocide, the Rwandan Patriotic Front was liberator. As the
Tutsi-dominated rebel army, it acted on behalf of its Tutsi
cousins. It eventually defeated the forces responsible for the
genocide. But, to a certain extent, it rationally acted on behalf of
ethnic brethren.
What the world lacked was an armed force not connected to the
situation that could help restore the state to its proper functions of
protecting and defending citizens.
Of course, it must be proven this situation exists before such drastic
action is taken.
Until it does, the world risks another Rwanda.
_CANOE_ () home. Winnipeg, Canada