The Y-axis is Mandate Met (did it do what it was supposed to do?) and the X-axis is A Force For Good (did it make the world a better place?). When asked, place each event on the grid.
This video provides an overview of the Rwandan Genocide. Please note that the video contains disturbing images.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/KqJr46_yUH8?rel=0
Hutus and Tutsis, the two main ethnic groups in Rwanda, had lived in relative peace for hundreds of years. In the late 1800s, when Europeans began colonizing Rwanda, the Tutsis were given more education, government jobs, and opportunities. By the time Rwanda gained independence from Belgium in 1962, the inequities had risen to hatred and killings, which continued over the next 30 years. For example, in 1972, the Tutsi army in neighbouring Burundi massacred over 100 000 Hutus. Rebel fighters opposed to the Rwandan government also moved to neighbouring Uganda to continue the fighting. A peace treaty was signed between Uganda and Rwanda in 1992, and the Rwandan government requested UN assistance to help keep the terms of the treaty.
The UN responded by creating a peacekeeping force for Rwanda, UNAMIR (United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda). Its immediate mandate was to help implement the peace agreement signed between Rwanda and Uganda. UNAMIR was to have a total of 2548 peacekeepers, but it took a long time to get to this number. In the meantime, a plane crash in Kigali, Rwanda’s capital, killed the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi. This was the trigger event that pushed longstanding tensions between the two largest ethnic groups in the country, the Hutus and the Tutsis, to the breaking point. Tutsis and moderate Hutus were targeted, and killings in mass numbers began. UNAMIR members were also targeted, so the UN reduced its contingent to 270 members. A few months later, the force was strengthened again. However, the mass killings left an estimated 500 000 to 800 000 people dead. Another two million Rwandans became refugees and fled the violence.
The UN was accused of not doing enough during the conflict. Below is an excerpt from the UN’s response to an inquiry into its role in Rwanda:
“The findings of the inquiry were made public on 15 December 1999. The inquiry concluded that the overriding failure in international community’s response was the lack of resources and political will, as well as errors of judgement as to the nature of the events in Rwanda. Expressing deep remorse over the failure to prevent the genocide in Rwanda, the Secretary-General, in a statement on 16 December, said that he fully accepted the conclusions of the report. He welcomed the emphasis which the inquiry had put on the lessons to be learned, and its recommendations to ensure that the United Nations and the international community could and would act to prevent or halt any other such catastrophe in the future.” (Source: UN, Rwanda UNAMIR Background, N.d., http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/past/unamirS.htm)
It is very important to note that there were individual representatives of the UN who worked tirelessly to protect lives in Rwanda. Canada’s Lieutenant General Romeo Dallaire, UNAMIR’s commander, is well-known for his role in trying to get the UN to expand the mission.
Read the following transcript of an interview with General Dallaire in 2004 with PBS Frontline about the situation at the time and his plea to UN headquarters in New York.
Source: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/ghosts/interviews/dallaire.html
By New Year's Eve, what was going through your mind, looking ahead?
… A sort of gloom came in. We weren't going anywhere with increasing the capability of the mission. I was spending 70% -- at least -- of my time fighting for batteries and flash lights, just the most simple of requirements. Even just furniture, chairs and tables. I had officers still working off the floor at that time, a couple of months into the mission. …We had been going flat out, but we seemed at that point to be simply running in place, and there was nothing that was going to leap us ahead. There would not be a breakthrough, or didn't seem to be one, politically. There was certainly none militarily. There was no troop movements to Kigali. And so there was an atmosphere that things were starting to close in, that we might be more limited than I had ever imagined . …
Plus the fact that the political dimension was now degenerating, or was now becoming the major impasse. The hardliners were becoming more hard-line than expected. We were already getting all these stories about a third force, squadrons of killers, both political and military, or paramilitary, that was around. But we couldn't confirm anything. We were just getting all that as rumors, innuendoes and we couldn't crosscheck the damn stuff, because I was not allowed to have an intelligence capability.
…[As a] Chapter VI peace keeping [mission, our mandate included] just self defense and responding to what either side are telling us in our patrolling. I had no intelligence capability, officially. … I could not conduct any covert operations. I could not conduct hard intelligence gathering on either side, in the classic sense. I was totally dependent on the good will of both sides, and my ability to monitor. That was it. The ability to monitor is not necessarily always the most effective intelligence gathering; you do need other operations. You need even signals intelligence', the phones, the radios, all that kind of stuff.
So although there was lots of rumors of this third force and the extremists and the militias and stuff like that, we still couldn't get our hands onto something that I could [use as] tangible proof.…
Source: http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/philip-gourevitchs-the-genocide-fax
Caption: This is part of the of the fax sent by Dallaire to the UN’s Military Adviser. In the fax, Dallaire outlines the need to protect an informant who was sharing valuable information with the Dallaire. The full fax also warns of potential violence in Rwanda.
ALT: This excerpt lists two key points from Dallaire. 1. Force Commander put in contact with informant by very very important government politician. Informant is a top level trainer in the cadre of interhamwe-armed militia of MRND. 2. He informed us he was in charge of last Saturday’s demonstrations which aims were to target deputies of opposition parties coming to ceremonies and Belgian soldiers. They hoped to provoke the RPF in to engage (being fired upon) the demonstrators and provoke civil war. Deputies were to assassinated upon entry or exit from Parliament. Belgian troops were to be provoked and if Belgian soldiers resorted to force a number of them were to be killed and thus guarantee Belgian withdrawal from Rwanda.
Upon learning of potential violence across Rwanda, Dallaire attempted to secure the support of UN headquarters to act. He sent a fax to the the UN’s Military Adviser, which was a breach of protocol. Dallaire, however, believed that such action was necessary given the potential for violence.
His response to the fax is from the same 2004 interview with PBS Frontline (Source: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/ghosts/interviews/dallaire.html)
I woke up and this cable came in, signed by Kofi Annan in his normal staff responsibilities that essentially said cease and desist. Conduct no such operations. It's out of your mandate. On top of that, in the proper process of a Chapter VI, you will inform the ex-belligerent of the shortcomings that we notice and make it quite clear that he's got to rectify these shortcomings within a very short time frame, or else we will be in a position to have to review the mission, and ultimately their commitment to the peace agreement.
Your fax now is often referred to as the "genocide fax," and understood to mean that you were warning of the genocide.
That's a bit erroneous inasmuch as it's a fax to say that they were planning to conduct huge massacres, or massacres on a larger scale. Now you're going to say, "Well, wait a minute. What's a massacre? And what's large? And when does a massacre end and when does genocide start?" Well … we then expected that there would be killings on a large scale and it could in fact take the nature of the ethnic cleansing. That we knew from Yugoslavia. … In fact, I couldn't even fathom the term "genocide." …
You were not warning of an impending genocide?
No, no, no. I was warning that there would be significant killings and massacres that would destabilize the whole political process, and that in fact we would ultimately not have a mandate anymore, because it would be totally destroyed by the extremists' actions. …
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The videos below provide an overview of Apartheid, racial segregation in South Africa that lasted 46 years. Both show that Apartheid was a consequence of colonialism, racism, and a desire for a cheap labour force.
Video
https://www.youtube.com/embed/2f2k6iDFCL4?rel=0
Video
https://www.youtube.com/embed/S7yvnUz2PLE?rel=0
Like the Rwandan Genocide, Apartheid garnered considerable attention from the international community. Circumstances, however, required a fundamentally different response. Rwanda plunged into a civil war which led to the murder of 800 000 people in 100 days, necessitating a worldwide response. Apartheid, on the other hand, was a domestic policy of South Africa, which meant that United Nations had no power to step in directly.
Even events like the Sharpeville Massacre of 1960 did not provide the international community with grounds for direct intervention. It had started as a peaceful protest against laws that forced black men to carry passports at all times for identification. The 20 000+ protesters grew increasingly agitated, throwing stones at jets sent in to scatter them and at police barricades. When one of the approximately 150 police officers in attendance attempted to arrest one of the protesters, a scuffle ensured. Moments later, shots were fired. In the massacre that followed, 69 people were killed, 180 injured, and thousands arrested. Still, this was an internal event. The United Nations could condemn the government’s policies and the actions of its law enforcement, but it could not act directly.
Caption: The wounded being tended to after police opened fire on an anti-apartheid demonstration in Sharpeville, South Africa, 1960.
apartheid". Photo. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Web. 31 Oct. 2016.
<https://www.britannica.com/event/Sharpeville-massacre/images-videos/The-wounded-being-tended-to-after-police-opened-fire-on/139749>
Alt text: This is a black and white photo of the Sharpeville massacre. There are several people lying on the ground, injured or dead. Many men and women are gathered in the background. They appear to be on a road. There are bicycles, but no other vehicles.
In 1962, apartheid was labelled a violation of the UN Charter, and thus a threat to the international community, by the UN General Assembly. This provided its members with the means to suspend relations and trade with South Africa. While few Western states acted, the resolution set a precedent for stronger responses in the future.
Cultural isolation was much more effective. It came in a variety of forms, all of which contributed to the erosion of South Africa’s stance. Examples include:
Video
http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/media/video/game-cancelled-in-hamilton).
The biggest factor in the end of apartheid may have been a financial crisis in the mid-1980s caused by a decline in foreign investment. Few companies were willing to do business in South Africa. Banks refused to refinance South Africa’s foreign debt, which severely limited its access to capital and devalued its currency. By 1987, South Africa had one of the slowest growing economies on the planet.
Still, political change was slow. Minor changes to apartheid were made throughout the 1980s, but they had little real impact. In 1989, F.W. de Klerk became president. He called for an end to discriminatory laws, the legalization of anti-apartheid groups, and the release of Nelson Mandela, a leading anti-apartheid figure who had been in jail for decades. The period that followed was tumultuous, but it also produced tremendous change. By 1994, just 4 years after the process for ending apartheid had been officially begun, Nelson Mandela was elected president of South Africa.
Source: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/mandela-president-south-africa-1994-article-1.2212483
In this May 10, 1994 photo, President Nelson Mandela dances at a celebration concert following his inauguration as president of South Africa in Pretoria.
(JOHN PARKIN/AP)
Alt Text: This is a photograph of Nelson Mandela, he is smiling and joyful. He is wearing a blue suit and he has grey hair, he is dancing.
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Crimea is a very complicated place, not only because of its history, but also because of its strategic location. A peninsula, Crimea had been part of the Soviet Union, but after its breakup in 1991, the area reverted to Ukraine's possession. However, a majority of its population had close ties to Russia through their ethnicity and language. For Ukraine, split between association with Europe to the west and loyalty to Russia in the east, Crimea had always had some special privileges that reflected both perspectives. It was given some autonomy and had its own parliament. However, it was still subject to Ukrainian laws.
One way in which Russia had retained some control was through its ability to have its fleet remain stationed at the Black Sea port of Sevastopol. Successive Ukrainian governments differed in their willingness to let the Russian fleet remain at Sevastopol.
In 2013, Ukraine’s president, Viktor Yanukovych, rejected closer ties with the EU in favour of support from Russia. Protests ensued. At first, the protests were peaceful but by the beginning of 2014, they had turned increasingly violent. In February, Yanukovych disappeared, and protesters took control of official government buildings. Days later, however, pro-Russian soldiers appeared, supported by troops who were not wearing any national identification; observers believed that these soldiers were actually Russian troops.
Caption: Protesters inspect damage caused by recent anti-government protests on Independence Square following recent clashes in Kiev, Ukraine, on Thursday, Feb. 20, 2014. Vincent Mundy / Bloomberg
Alt text: This image shows Independence Square in Kiev. There is a large column and arch in white stone and gold leaf in the centre of the square that is still standing, but all around it , the ground is blackened by fires, some of which are still smouldering. There is rubble, and destruction and several of the buildings in the background are burned out. There are thousands of people gathered in the square behind the column.
In March 2014, two important events occurred:
1) the Russian parliament supported Vladimir Putin's request to protect, with force, Russian interests in the Ukraine
2) Crimea held a referendum to decide whether or not it should secede from the Ukraine.
The results, which showed that 97% of voters supported secession, were openly questioned by the international community. The United Nations declared the referendum illegal on the grounds that Russia had sent in troops prior to the referendum, an act it deemed a disruption of “Ukraine’s national unity and territorial integrity, including by modifying its borders through the threat or use of force.” Source: http://www.un.org/press/en/2014/ga11493.doc.htm.
It also claimed that the referendum was in violation of the UN Charter which calls for respect of a country’s sovereignty; in this case, Ukraine. Russia, on the other hand, saw the vote as an act that “had reunified Crimea with his country. ‘“We call on everyone to respect that voluntary choice.’” The United Nations voted on whether to accept the results of the referendum. There were 100 votes against accepting the results, 11 in favour, and 58 countries abstained. The resolution was brought to the Security Council several times, but was vetoed by Russia. Russia went on to annex Crimea, and tensions between Russia and the West escalated.
Definition: secede - to formally withdraw from an alliance, federation or union of states.
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