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Genocide: Rwandan Genocide
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The Rwandan Genocide was the systematic murder of members of Rwanda's Tutsi minority and the moderates of its Hutu majority, in 1994. This was both the bloodiest period of the Rwandan Civil War and the worst genocide of the 1990s. With the preliminary implementation of the Arusha Accords, the Tutsi rebels and Hutu regime were able to agree to a cease-fire, and further negotiations were underway. The diplomatic efforts to end the conflict were at first thought to be successful, yet even with the MRND and RPF (political wing of the RPA) in talks, certain Hutu factions, like the CDR, were against any agreement for cooperation between the regime, and the rebels, to end Rwanda's ethnic and economic troubles and progress towards a stable nationhood. The genocide was primarily the action of two extremist Hutu militias, the Interahamwe (military wing of the MRND) and the Impuzamugambi (military wing of the CDR), against dissenters to their Hutu extremism. Over the course of about 100 days, from April 6 to mid-July, at least 500,000 Tutsis, and thousands of Hutus, were the victims of this atrocity.[1] Some estimates put the death toll around the 800,000 and 1,000,000 marks.[2] In 2008, another estimate came to light that put the number of victims at 1,750,000.[3]
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Genocide may ... include indirect assaults on public health, as it did in Rwanda in 1994. There, massive displacement of persons from their homes created large-scale health risks to the internally displaced and refugees. While the high morbidity and mortality in the Rwandan refugee population was recognized as a public health crisis, it was also the product of genocide. Refugees from the genocide who were living in camps did not contract cholera solely because of the infectious agent, but also because they were forced to flee their homes and encounter grossly unsanitary conditions due to their status as members of an ethnic group (the Tutsi) and resultant attacks by the Hutu government.
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A major criticism of the international community's response to the Rwandan Genocide was that it was reactive, not proactive. The international community has developed a mechanism for prosecuting the perpetrators of genocide but has not developed the will or the mechanisms for intervening in a genocide as it happens. Critics point to the Darfur conflict and suggest that if anyone is found guilty of genocide after the conflict either by prosecutions brought in the International Criminal Court or in an ad hoc International Criminal Tribunal, this will confirm this perception.
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This posting contains the second part of congressional testimony by Holly Burkhalter on behalf of Physicians for Human Rights on the 1994 Rwandan Genocide and U.S. Policy, together with additional on-line references on Rwanda. The first part is continued in the previous posting.
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