Genocide has its roots in the Belgian occupation: Bruno Charbonneau.
Did the world learn a lesson in Rwanda?
By: Heidi Ulrichsen - Sudbury Northern Life
Apr 25, 2014
Laurentian University political science professor Bruno Charbonneau
was part of an April 24 panel discussion on the 20th anniversary of
the Rwandan genocide. Photo by Heidi Ulrichsen.
Laurentian professor says lessons learned aren't being acted upon
Laurentian University political science professor Bruno Charbonneau,
who participated in an April 24 panel discussion at Cambrian College
on the 1994 Rwandan genocide, said it is hard to say if the world
learned a lesson from the tragedy.
At the time of the slaughter, there was a United Nations mission in
the country led by Canadian Lt. General Roméo Dallaire, Charbonneau
said. Dallaire is now a member of the Canadian Senate.
He wrote a book about his experience, "Shake Hands with the Devil," in
which he details his fight to protect people from slaughter and the
debilitating post-traumatic stress disorder he was left with.
Instead of bringing in troops to stop the killing, as Dallaire
repeatedly demanded, the United Nations essentially pulled out and
allowed the genocide to happen, Charbonneau said.
He speculated the U.S. didn't want to get involved in another African
conflict after failing in Somalia the year before. The French were a
different case, having supported the genocidal regime, Charbonneau
said.
After the genocide, the United Nations strengthened its rules
surrounding its duty to protect people against such events, but
Charbonneau points out there's currently genocide in several parts of
the world, including in his view the Central African Republic and
Syria, and not much is being done to stop it.
"Did we learn something from Rwanda?" he said. "Well, we did learn
quite a few things. But did we act upon that knowledge?
"That's another question. I think that the way that the system works,
another genocide like Rwanda is definitely possible."
He said the genocide has its roots in the Belgian occupation of the
country after the First World War.
The occupiers reinforced divisions between the Hutus and the Tutsis to
solidify their rule.
"Starting in the 1960s, there's all sorts of tensions between these
communities," he said.
In the 1990s, Rwanda was under the control of an "extremist"
Hutu-dominated government that was at war with the Rwandan Patriotic
Front (RPF), a group of Tutsi refugees who were attempting to take
back Rwanda.
It was in this tinderbox environment that, starting April 7, 1994,
Tutsis were slaughtered -- often using machetes -- by the Rwandan army,
the national police, government-backed militias and the Hutu civilian
population.
The genocide came to an end after 100 days when the RPF seized control
of the country. The RPF's leader, Paul Kagame, is currently the
country's president.
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