Submitted by Character-Rabbit-127 t3_102irhz in history
Cetun t1_j2v9ujb wrote
Reply to comment by [deleted] in Rwanda report: France ‘complicit’ in 1994 genocide | Human Rights News by Character-Rabbit-127
The problem at the time is that intervention was seen as neo-colonialist and bad. The US got roundly criticized for intervening in Somalia. People rightfully asked why the hell western troops were being sent to third world nations on peacekeeping operations which seemed to only produce collateral damage and bad blood between the occupiers and occupied.
Then Rwanda happens, all the western nations are frozen. Do they send in troops and get shit on at home and abroad about being the "world police"? Needlessly interfering with other people's problems. Perpetuating warfare by being in a place no one asked them to be in. They clearly were stuck in a catch-22, chose to try to downplay the genocide and hope it blows over so they could get out of having an occupying force overseas. Didn't happen and it looked bad.
A couple years later Kosovo happens, You see the USA and UN step up, they didn't want a repeat of Rwanda.
grundar t1_j2vk3q7 wrote
> The US got roundly criticized for intervening in Somalia.
> ...
> Then Rwanda happens
For reference, those were only 6 months apart:
- Oct 3, 1993: Battle of Mogadishu ("Black Hawk Down")
- April 7, 1994: Rwandan genocide starts
The fact that so little time passed between those two events is highly likely to have played a role in determining the response to the latter.
Niccolo101 t1_j2vl4s8 wrote
>Then Rwanda happens, all the western nations are frozen. Do they send in troops and get shit on at home and abroad about being the "world police"?
No that's fair enough - but I think the crux of the issue here is that France was already operating in Rwanda. Civil war had broken out a few years earlier and France were already there, supporting the government against the rebels, training them, supplying them, etc.
Then, government-sanctioned gangs start up the genocide and France just... ignores it, because they don't want the rebels to gain ground. Hell, the French govt were aware that the "Presidential Guard", who they had trained, were actively murdering civilians (page 327).
It's one thing to jump into another nation's affairs, but it's another thing entirely to do nothing when you've already jumped in.
Seriously.
One of the stories (Page xviii) is of a terrified woman being chased by a gang. She runs out and collides with a parked car that two French soldiers are sitting in, desperate for help. One of the murderers comes up, sees the French soldiers, sees that they don't move, and drags the woman off. Later, they "kindly acknowledge" the French soldiers with a "smile and a friendly wave".
RevolutionaryHair91 t1_j2vrxta wrote
While I understand your point I think we also need to think in a very pragmatic way. Those soldiers in the story had orders and can't act on their own gut feelings. Taking a stance here would have had so many implications.
I don't see a way where France would not be blamed. If the French army had taken a strong stance and toppled the Rwandan power, I don't know if it could have prevented anything in terms of civil war and massacres, but it would have been sure to create a power vacuum in the middle of a bloody civil war from a western former colonial power.
I guess the best option was to leave completely, impose fast sanctions, and not get involved further. Still a massacre with a loss of influence as well for the aftermath.
Niccolo101 t1_j2vxbfb wrote
Point.
I am no politician and have, like, zero knowledge of the delicacies of international politics, so I can't authoritatively say what the correct action for the French government would have been. And I am not a soldier either, so I can't really fault the soldiers in the story too much - they did have orders of some kind. I have no idea what I would do when faced with such a scenario, so I'm not going to sit here in my armchair with 20/20 hindsight and say "Oh they all should have done X or Y".
But I can say that refusing to condemn the acts, lying to their own troops, not asking their allies what the hell they were doing, and even stymieing efforts to bring the perpetrators of the genocide to justice, were almost certainly not the right actions to take.
RevolutionaryHair91 t1_j2vy2x9 wrote
Fair points in your last paragraph.
[deleted] t1_j2vu5n3 wrote
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[deleted] t1_j2vxh7g wrote
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iThinkaLot1 t1_j2vgsk2 wrote
The West is always in a damned if you do damned if you don’t in these sort of situations. You’ll have just as many people on one side saying its right to intervene to stop genocide / revolution / terrorism, etc than you will on the other saying its neocolonialism / tyrannical, etc.
Dangerous-Leg-9626 t1_j2vyxng wrote
Lol they're not
French did intervene but on the guilty side
They don't have those "damned you do or don't" mentality when the rebel regroups and launched a fanatical counter offensive (or to be exact, a counter genocide) to avenge all the previous atrocities
They went straight to action, deploy by the thousands, and help the government evacuate. This was after they deployed tens of advisors helping the govt army
Oh and this is after they refused to evacuate the Tutsis that's gonna be killed en mass, they only let foreigners in. Not even Tutsi spouses were welcome
but when the genocidal Hutus came running? Lo and behold their attitude changed
almuqabala t1_j2vv5eq wrote
That's my picture as well.
fvb955cd t1_j393x0m wrote
There are also allegations that Kagame and the RPF didn't really want American intervention, and were pushing against intervention with soft politics in the US. The UN means some degree of stasis being placed on both sides, and the RPF, at the expense of civilian casualties in the ethnic cleansing, was routing the government forces very successfully, and did successfully push the government into a total, French protected rout out of Rwanda. Leading to Kagame's total control over the country to this day. Put a full UN mission in place and you conceivably just kick the can
DeadTime34 t1_j2vvc7o wrote
I wrote a paper about this, Rwanda directly led to the United Nations "Responsibility to Protect" doctrine which has been invoked more than 80 times since its introduction.
I argued that intervention to stop atrocity is needed, but we also need a democratization of the security council if allegations (and instances) of neo-imperialism are to ever be effectively resolved. Unfortunately that seems very unlikely, especially with the resumption of great power politics on the world stage.
sartres_ t1_j2vvxyk wrote
You can't democratize the security council, that's the whole point. Why would any of the countries on it listen to weaker ones, if they were appointed? They'd just quit or ignore anything "binding."
DeadTime34 t1_j2vwc9n wrote
Right, it's clearly a contested idea, but this article details what it might look like. It doesn't advocate a complete democratization, but one in which a veto is tied to atleast one other country, so not unilateral (among other things). Don't get me wrong, I highly doubt this will ever happen in my lifetime, but it's not an unreasonable notion in and of itself.
incomplete-username t1_j2vlmqv wrote
The US certainly had a hand to play, and did more then inaction to make the situation worse.
"Kagame is only in place at all because he serves a purpose
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/sep/12/americas-secret-role-in-the-rwandan-genocide
https://harpers.org/archive/2019/08/brutal-from-the-beginning-paul-kagame-rwanda/"
Links were provided to me from a fellow i was discussing with on matters related to kagame and how much a shite guy he was.
[deleted] t1_j3llrci wrote
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Domascot t1_j2vjze7 wrote
Your description of the US (and the west in general) as a morality-driven force doesnt reflect the reality at all.
iThinkaLot1 t1_j2vl791 wrote
The West stopped ethnic cleansing in the Balkans. The UK stopped a civil war in Sierra Leone. France was helping fight against Islamic terrorists in Mali.
I agree its not always morality driven. In fact I’d say its mostly not - it’s mostly driven by self interest. But there has been times where interventions have had in part been driven by morals.
Domascot t1_j2vpjjk wrote
I think you should rather reverse the statement: it is rarely
driven by anything else than self interest. If you take a closer look
at any of your examples, you ll get a different picture.
The UK intervention was primarly meant to evacuate british
and other foreign citizens from Freetown, where they were eventually
attacked by the rebel forces. The biggest diamond mining corporation
happens also to be british (Sierra Leone´s President used to sell-out
the diamond mines for military support, it was only after the long
civil war that a ban on "blood diamonds" was installed).
Uranium and oil in Mali as well as in Niger are big part of France´s
strategical interest in Westafrica so their intervention is not surprising
and can be clearly considered as a means to save "their" resources.
And speaking about the Balkans, you might want to read what Taylor
Branch had to say about the leaders of the "west".
I understand the desire to see the west, especially the US, as some kind
of a "good" world police force, at least to some extend, but it simply doesnt
hold true, except in Hollywood movies.
IngloriousTom t1_j2vy94o wrote
> Uranium and oil in Mali
There are neither uranium nor oil in Mali.
[deleted] t1_j2w0h75 wrote
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Domascot t1_j3mg5u2 wrote
See my links in other comment. Initialy i knew only about uranium in Mali, but i already suspected that
the oil fields in the neighboring Niger wouldnt stop at the border (despite not yet being extracted).
IngloriousTom t1_j3n9ti6 wrote
So France went to Mali to secure non exploited resources? Some of them discovered after they left?
Yeah you can believe it if you want, but that sounds stupid.
Domascot t1_j3og2j4 wrote
IngloriousTom t1_j3orv7s wrote
Yeah, they protected non-exploited deposits, in the ground.
Sure, lmao.
Edit: as you could expect, the lunatic blocked me once he realized how absurd his ideas were.
[deleted] t1_j3oxtki wrote
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iThinkaLot1 t1_j2w27fc wrote
> and other foreign citizens from Freetown
That doesn’t sound like self interest then does it?
> Uranium and oil in Mali
As the other commenter said. There is none.
> you might want to read what Taylor Branch had to say
Why would I care what Taylor Branch had to say with regards to genocide in the Balkans. I care more about what the people of Kosovo had to say - you know the people who where slaughtered. In that case I’ll just leave this here:
> Tonibler is a male given name in Kosovo, given in honour of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair following his role in the 1999 NATO air campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War.
Domascot t1_j3mg1zs wrote
Apologies for the late replay, but anyways..
About the uranium in Mali.
About the [oil](https://theconversation.com/how-oil-exploration-is-adding-to-malis-security- woes-85268) in Mali.
If you search around a little bit, you will find more sophisticing sources, but these should
be already sufficient.
> That doesn’t sound like self interest then does it?
Uh, i cant imagine a scenario where british troops would evacuate british citizens and tell
citizens of the commonwealth to wait for the next bus without damaging their "savoir"
reputation forever...
> I care more about what the people of Kosovo had to say
Then you should have probably read the article you left there thoroughly, because there is
an example why the name Blair was popular for a short term back then:
> The name was suggested by an Italian business partner and friend who sheltered the family when they were driven out of Kosovo in March 1999. "He had told me before the war that the only ones who would help us would be the English,"
The article is indeed very interesting, especially if you take a closer look at the actual economy of Bosnia,
which is overwhelmed by the influx of products imported by stronger economies. I could also throw in
how the bosnian people (actual people, who fled during that time) i know have a differentiated opinion
than simply looking at Blair as their "savior" or my personal (and certainly quite minor) participation,
but all this doesnt matter. Because either way, it would only mean that you have picked up
the one occasion after WWII, where western forces (mainly: US) got voluntarily involved for
a case not related to their interests or their citizens.
And now maybe compare this one time with the loong list of western(usually US) interventions..
Good luck filtering out those which support your opinion, i m honestly too lazy to do the same vice-versa :P
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