Rwanda Genocide Analysis

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Central Africa continues to experience instability with civil wars, terrorism, ethnic violence and poor governance. Each conflict has its own individual history, perpetrators, victims and bystanders with difficult answers on how to find resolution and reconciliation between the different actors. Rwanda experienced one of the most horrific genocides of the last century. Since the end of the massacres, the nation rebuilt itself to become an example nation for transitional justice, political stability and economic development. Rwanda’s military capabilities within the institute of the Rwandan Defence Force (RDF) are well known for its organisation capability and effectiveness in compact. In a Gallup Polling 2013 Global States of Mind: New Metrics …show more content…

In its early days as a rebel group, it inspired to achieve the goals of establishing a ‘one Rwanda’, which encompasses a non-ethnic country and the right of return for the nearly one million Rwandan diaspora Tutsi community. However, the genocide greatly altered these objectives by the psychological impacts of the scale of the massacres as well as how it was able to conduct a full military victory against the genocide Rwandan government. By the end of the genocide, Rwanda was under the full control of the RPA and its political wing, the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF). Despite military victory, the previous genocide government was not destroyed; it instead was displaced out of Rwanda and into eastern Zaire. From 1994 to 1996, former Rwandan military personal alongside with genocide perpetrators conducted raids against Rwanda and planned to take back the nation from RPF control. The RPA’s desire to protect the state during the First (1996-1997) and Second (1998-2003) Congo Wars from former genocide fighters transformed the RDF into an offensively driven military force more similar to tradition forces than rebel groups. Since the end of the conflicts, the RDF has transformed itself into a more defensive posture to protect the state from terrorism and to participate in regional and global peacekeeping …show more content…

The effectiveness and drive of Rwandan peacekeepers in Central African Republic, South Sudan, Darfur (Sudan), Haiti, Mali, as well as in other conflict zones , stems from multiple sources starting with the historical experiences of Rwanda's own peacekeeping mission of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR). UNAMIR's ineffectiveness and near complete failure during the genocide became an infamous case example for other peacekeepers, especially Rwandan troops. The failures of the peacekeepers in 1994 Rwanda allowed one of the worst genocides to take place with one million dead Tutsis and moderate Hutus in just 100 days. Rwandan peacekeeping actions seem to stem from the previous peacekeeping failures in Rwanda, the reasons behind why the Rwandan government promotes its military to participate in peacekeeping missions is greater than this single reason. As argued in this paper, Rwanda participates in peacekeeping missions based on the country's history; to establish regional security and pan-Africanism through peace building rather than just peacekeeping; and for nationalism of pride of its troops'

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