Wang 27 Bosnia Rwanda And Darfur US Involvement In

wang 27 bosnia, rwanda, and darfur: u.s. involvement in genocides worldwide jessica wang spring quarter edge paper p

Wang 27
Bosnia, Rwanda, and Darfur: U.S. involvement
in genocides worldwide

Jessica Wang
Spring Quarter EDGE Paper
Prof. Bruce Lusignan
June 2, 2005
I. Introduction
===============
Never again. That was the world’s mantra after witnessing the horrors
of the Holocaust. Never again would the United States allow a brutal
dictator to come into power and wipe out an entire race of people.
However, even as we enter into the 21st century, genocide is still
taking place in the world today, and countries are standing by idly.
In the era following the Cold War during the 1990s, the U.S. was faced
not so much by threats to its national security but rather with
humanitarian crises and how to deal with them. With a bureaucracy that
is steeped in the realist tradition, there is little room for moral
arguments that seek intervention in other nations’ humanitarian
affairs. This paper seeks to analyze specific case studies from the
1990s to the present, including an analysis on the present situation
in Darfur.
II. What is genocide?
=====================
The United Nations defined the term “genocide” at the Convention on
the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in New York on
December 9, 1948. The objective of the Convention was to declare
genocide a crime under international law. It condemned genocide,
whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, and provided a
definition of the crime. Moreover, the prescribed punishment is not
subject to the limitations of time and place.1
The Convention defined genocide as any of a number of acts committed
with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic,
racial or religious group: killing members of the group; causing
serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately
inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about
its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures
intended to prevent births within the group, and forcibly transferring
children of the group to another group.2
The Convention also declared that no one was immune to being punished
of this crime, whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers,
public officials, or private individuals. Furthermore, the Convention
stipulates that persons charged with genocide shall be tried by a
competent tribunal of the State in the territory in which the act was
committed or by such international penal tribunal as may have
jurisdiction with respect to the Contracting Parties.3
Unlike other human rights treaties, the Genocide Convention does not
establish a specific monitoring body or expert committee. It
stipulates that any Contracting Party may call upon the competent
organs of the United Nations to take such action under the United
Nations Charter, which they consider appropriate for the prevention
and suppression of acts of genocide. Thus, the matter may be brought
before the International Court of Justice which may order interim
measures of protection for a country where genocide is occurring.4
III. The case of Bosnia
=======================
The Bosnia crisis is an example of when the world stood idly by and
allowed a brutal leader, Slobodan Milosevic, to come in and conduct
ethnic cleansing of an entire region. Initially, the U.S. chose to not
get involved despite the horrific media images coming out of the
conflict, because it did not believe that there were significant
national interests at stake. But eventually, by 1995, national
credibility was at stake and the U.S. had to step in and take action.
======================================================================
A. Background
-------------
Bosnia is one of several small countries that emerged from the
break-up of Yugoslavia, a multicultural country created after World
War I by the victorious Western Allies. Yugoslavia was composed of
ethnic and religious groups that had been historial rivals, including
the Serbs (Orthodox Christians), Croats (Catholics), and ethnic
Albanians (Muslims). During World War II, Yugoslavia was invaded by
Nazi Germany and was partitioned. A fierce resistance movement sprang
up under Josip Tito, and after germany’s defeat, Tito reunified
Yugoslavia and merged together all of the partitions. After his death
in 1980, Yugoslavia plunged into political and economic chaos.5
During the late 1980s, a Serbian named Slobodan Milosevic, a former
Communist who had turned into a nationalist with a platform of
religious hatred, gained power. He inflamed long-standing tensions
between Serbs and Muslims in the independent province of Kosovo.
Although Orthodox Christian Serbs in Kosovo were in the minority, they
claimed they were being mistreated by the Albanian Muslim majority.
Serbian-backed political unrest in Kosovo eventually led to its loss
of independence and domination by Milosevic.6

B. No vital national interests in Bosnia
Although the U.S. did have some incentive to go into Bosnia, it still
wasn’t enough to make it a priority in foreign policy. First, the U.S.
was concerned with the preservation of boundaries – it couldn’t allow
aggression to overturn boundaries. Second, the U.S. was concerned
about containment of the conflict – it couldn’t allow the aggression
to spill over to Greece and Turkey. And finally, there was the
humanitarian concern, the concern which appealed most to the public.7
Images from Bosnia of the Croatians being held behind barbed wire
brought back memories of images from the Holocaust. The media played
into this analogy as well, playing newsreels of Bosnia that would be
followed by Adolf Hitler or images from Auschwitz.8
However, there were no “vital national interests” at stake in Bosnia.
In a bureaucracy that is steeped in realist tradition, there was no
place for moral or humanitarian arguments. Most of the senior
officials in the Bush administration, including Secretary of State
Baker, Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney, National Security Adviser
Brent Scowcroft, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin
Powell, were traditional foreign policy “realists.” They believe that
the U.S. military did not have the most powerful military in the
history of the world in order to undertake humanitarian “social work.”
Rather, the foreign policy team should focus on promoting a narrowly
defined set of U.S. economic and security interests, expanding
American markets, curbing nuclear proliferation, and maintaining
military readiness.9
It is true that the U.S. had intervened in previous international
humanitarian crises, but the primary motives for intervention in these
cases still revolved around national interest rather than moral
obligation. The Gulf War was fought in order to check Saddam Hussein’s
regional dominance and to maintain U.S. access to cheap oil. The safe
haven for Kurds in Operation Provide Comfort was in order to provide
comfort to Turkey, which was anxious to get rid of Iraqi Kurdish
refugees.10
Additionally, there was an attitude among top policymakers that the
crisis should be handled by the Europeans, since Bosnia was much
closer in proximity. If the U.S. had handled the crisis, it would have
been affirming its role as the world’s policemen. Additionally, on the
domestic front, there was a presidential election going on, with
Democrat Bill Clinton challenging incumbent Republican Bush. At the
time, George H.W. Bush was fighting against the perception that he was
only interested in foreign policy, not domestic policy, and
intervening in Bosnia would have solidified that image in voters’
minds.11
Finally, a war – particularly a limited, surgical war – would have
been difficult to carry out under the limits of the 1984
Weinberger-Powell Doctrine. The Doctrine demanded that armed
intervention could only be used under the following conditions: (1) be
used only to protect the vital interests of the United States or its
allies; (2) be carried out wholeheartedly, with the clear intention of
winning; (3) be in pursuit of clearly defined political and military
objectives; (4) be accompanies by widespread public and congressional
support; (5) be waged only as last resort; (6) decisive force must be
used; and (7) there must exist a clear “ext strategy.”
The rationale behind the Doctrine was that the U.S. did not want to
put itself in another Vietnam situation, where there were no clearly
defined goals nor a clear exit strategy. The fear in entering Bosnia,
or at least the one the administration kept saying to the public, was
that the U.S. didn’t want what happened in Vietnam to happen in
Bosnia. There was resistance to sending ground troops into the region,
for fear that their lives would be lost. Subsequently, there was also
opposition to air strikes, because if the U.S. was not planning on
sending in troops, it shouldn’t conduct air strikes act all. The air
strikes may not work, and there was the question of what to do next,
after the air strikes were finished.
C. Public support for intervention
==================================
In terms of public support for an armed intervention in Bosnia, there
was weak public support and little political pressure to enter the
crisis. Looking at public opinion polls at the time, most people
believed that the U.S. did not have a responsibility to end the
fighting in Bosnia. Most also believed that the U.S. had done enough
in the region. An overwhelming majority believed that before taking
military action, the U.S. should insist that other European countries
go in first. In terms of support for intervention strategies, the most
popular strategies among the public were the ones that required
minimal U.S. commitment of money and manpower, while the least popular
were the ones that risked the lives of U.S. troops.

Thus even in cases where the public is in support of entering a
foreign conflict, particularly during humanitarian crises,
policymakers will not enter unless there are national interests
involved. The humanitarian crisis in Bosnia with the ethnic cleansing
in Kosovo was covered heavily by the media, which broadcast images of
the genocide into American living rooms beginning in 1992.12 A
substantial number of Americans were sincerely concerned about the
issue and pushing the administration to do something about the
atrocities going on under Milosevic’s rule. However, the U.S. did not
enter the war because there was a general consensus that it was
Europe’s responsibility, not the Unites States’ responsibility, to
stop the crisis in Kosovo.13 The United States did not have a clear
national interest in what was going on there, so although there were
humanitarian reasons for going in, it still neglected to intervene.
D. Clinton is pressured to act
==============================
Even though President Clinton had promised during his campaign that he
would do something about the crisis, but reneged on this promise and
continued to make empty threats to Milosevic. However, it is only
logical that Clinton did not take action, because public sentiment was
not strong enough to hold him accountable for his failure to take
action in Bosnia. Even though there was vague dissatisfaction with the
inability to get anything done on the issue, both Bush and Clinton
neither won nor lost popularity on the issue. But challengers in the
presidential elections tried to score points on the Bosnia issue to
use it to their advantage. In 1995, Senator Bob Dole challenged
Clinton on the issue, which forced Clinton to settle the issue before
the 1996 election.14
When Clinton put the pressure on Bush to respond to the Bosnian crisis
in 1992, he responded with an arms embargo, trade sanctions on Serbia,
the United Nations Protection Force, and humanitarian aid. But most of
these actions were counterproductive to the cause. The arms embargo
actually hurt the Serbs who needed to defend themselves against their
aggressors, which had access to the federal Yugoslav army reserve of
weapons. The U.N. peacekeepers were very vulnerable to the combatants,
and were even taken hostage by the Serbs. They had to pay bribes in
order to move around the country, and when they moved people from
besieged Muslim cities to places with all Muslims, they were
essentially helping out with ethnic cleansing by creating homogenous
enclaves.15
U.S. inaction combined with empty threats, however, only worsened the
situation in Bosnia and destroyed American credibility to the point
where it had to intervene for the sake of national interest. The day
after the Olympic city of Sarajevo came under fierce artillery fire in
July 1993, Secretary Christopher went on record saying that the U.S.
would continue doing in Bosnia all that it could to be “consistent
with our national interest.”16 National interests meant the U.S. would
continue to do what it could to help provide humanitarian relief, to
maintain economic sanctions against Serbia, and to support diplomatic
efforts.17 It did not mean, however, that U.S. would intervene
militarily. The next day, the Bosnian Serbs fired 3,777 shells into
Sarajevo in a sixteen-hour period, one of the highest counts ever
recorded.18
Thus the Bosnia issue became one of national interest since the
Clinton administration had to defend U.S. credibility, which was on
the line as a result of these empty threats. Scowcroft, who had
opposed using force during 1992, now believed that something different
was at stake in Bosnia: “Now we have a new element involved, and that
is just a total collapse of confidence in the capability and the will
of the West, and we cannot afford to let that happen.”19 Since the
Clinton administration’s policies had backed it into a corner where it
had to act in order to preserve credibility, the U.S. met its
international obligations and defended the provisions of the Dayton
Accords.20
IV. Rwanda
A. Background
Everywhere they live, the Tutsis are a small minority-about 15% of the
populations of both Rwanda and Burundi. Tutsis are known to be taller
and more elite than their Hutu counterparts, who make up the lower
class majority. Since the 1994 genocide, the Rwandan government has
insisted that there are no Hutus or Tutsis, only Rwandans. However,
the ethnic hatred runs deep there, as during the Belgian colonization
of the country, the Belgians assigned Tutsis to be the more elite
class with special privileges. By diverting the hatred of the Rwandans
towards one another, the Belgians found that it was easier to maintain
their rule.21
This genocide resulted from the deliberate choice of the elite to
foster hatred and fear to keep itself in power. This small, privileged
group first set the majority against the minority to counter a growing
political opposition within Rwanda. Then, faced with RPF success on
the battlefield and at the negotiating table, these few powerful
elites transformed the strategy of ethnic division into genocide. They
believed that the extermination campaign would restore the solidarity
of the Hutu under their leadership and help them win the war, or at
least improve their chances of negotiating a favorable peace. They
seized control of the state and utilized state resources to carry out
the slaughter.22
Like the organizers, those who executed the genocide were normal
Hutus; tens of thousands, swayed by fear, hatred, or hope of profit,
made the choice quickly and easily. They were the first to kill, rape,
rob and destroy. They attacked Tutsi frequently and until the very
end, without doubt or remorse. 23

Victims of the Rwandan genocide. Source:
http://www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2004/04/02/rwanda,0.jpg
Hundreds of thousands of others chose to participate in the genocide
reluctantly; some only under duress or in fear of their own lives.
Unlike the zealots who never questioned their original choice, these
people had to decide repeatedly whether or not to participate, each
time weighing the kind of action planned, the identity of the proposed
victim, the rewards of participating and the likely costs of not
participating. Because attacks were incited or ordered by supposedly
legitimate authorities, those with qualms about murdering their fellow
countrymen found it easier to commit crimes by convincing themselves
that it was the right thing to do.24
In July, the RPF captured Kigali. The government collapsed and the RPF
declared a ceasefire. As soon as it became apparent that the RPF was
victorious, an estimated two million Hutus fled to Zaire (now the
Democratic Republic of Congo), and these refugees include many who
have since been implicated in the massacres. UN troops and aid workers
arrived after the genocide was over in order to help maintain order
and restore basic services.25
B. International and U.S. inaction in Rwanda
============================================
Policymakers in France, Belgium, the U.S. and the U.N. all knew of the
preparations for massive slaughter and failed to take the steps needed
to prevent it. Aware from the start that Tutsi were being targeted for
elimination, the leading foreign actors refused to acknowledge the
genocide.26 Stopping the leaders and the zealots would have required
military force, which was a resource that most nations were unwilling
to pledge. Not only did international leaders reject this course, but
they also failed to take to take political action to challenge the
legitimacy of the genocidal government. They failed to declare that a
government guilty of exterminating its citizens would never receive
international assistance. Such simple measures could have crippled the
infrastructure of the new government, and shown the people of Rwanda
that their actions were seen as illegal and immoral by the rest of the
world.27
The UN did send UNAMIR to Rwanda prior to when the genocide in order
to aid with peacekeeping in October 1993 when the new government had
come into power. There were initially 2,500 peacekeepers which were
very small in number with a very limited mission. The UNAMIR mission
was designated as a UN Chapter VI mission – a mission that required
host nation agreement, was neutral towards both sides, and lightly
armed under UN command. It did not step into the realm of a Chapter
VII operation, which would be triggered by a “threat to international
peace and security,” did not have to be neutral, and was often carried
out by member states with forces under their own command and control.28
The militant Hutus captured 10 Belgian peacekeepers and massacred
them, correctly predicting that this drastic action would get the UN
out of Rwanda. Less than a week later, the Secretary Christopher said
the U.S. need to get out of Rwanda, and also gave Belgium cover to
withdraw.
C. Why didn’t the U.S .intervene?
=================================
There were several reasons that the U.S. decided to ignore Rwanda and
let the genocide simply unfold. After Somalia with the Black Hawk Down
incident, there was a lack of desire to enter the conflict in Rwanda
which was seen not as a humanitarian crisis but more as a civil
conflict. At the time, the U.S. was also tied up with a conflict in
Haiti which was more pertinent to the public interest, since refugees
were coming to the U.S.29
Within the Pentagon, there was bureaucratic resistance from the
outset, as it wanted nothing to do with Rwanda. Top policymakers also
refused to call the conflict a genocide because to do so would have
committed the U.S. to follow the genocide convention agreements.

The media and public opinion was also not completely aware or informed
of the situation occurring in Rwanda. It was difficult for reporters
to try to get into Rwanda, and there was a big spike in reports when
U.S. forces could get coverage in Zaire. In May of 1994, when there
was coverage in South Africa because of Nelson Mandela, the media also
reported on Rwanda since it was geographically convenient. But for the
most part, the American public did not care about the issue and had no
desire to enter. One of the theories for this lack of interest is that
racism may have been at play here – those in Rwanda were black while
the people in Yugoslovia were white. While the U.S. was willing to
help starving children which tugged at the heartstrings of the
American public, the way the media portrayed Rwanda – as a helpless
conflict of deep ethnic hatreds – fed into the image of Africa being
helpless rather than as a systematic genocide.30 With no public
interest in the events in Rwanda, Congress was also not interested.
Even the Congressional black caucus did not weigh in, as they were
focused on the possibility of intervention in Haiti.31

The U.S. could have taken several actions in Rwanda that would have
been beneficial to ending the genocide. The first possibility was U.S.
military intervention. Yet the Pentagon was not for this idea, as the
more troops the U.S. sent in, the longer it takes to get in, and the
more lives would have been lost in Rwanda.

Another possibility was the jam the infamous Rwandan hate radio
broadcasts which would encourage the Hutu militants by saying things
like “The graves are only half full with Tutsis” and broadcasting the
names, addresses, and license plate numbers of the militants’ targets.
The U.S. could have jammed radio broadcasts, but this plan was
rejected on the grounds of costs and uncertainty over whether it would
work.32 The U.S. also could have reinforced UNAMIR once the killing
started, but the question remains as to which countries would have
been willing to reinforce the troops already there.33 And finally, the
U.S. could have engaged in ”preventive diplomacy” that would have
prevented the genocide from happening in the first place. UNAMIR’s
mandate should have been larger and more extensive rather than its
limited goals at the outset.34 Yet none of these actions were taken
and nothing was done until it was too late.
IV. The Crisis in Darfur
========================
In Sudan’s western Darfur region, a massive campaign of ethnic
violence has claimed the lives of more than 70,000 civilians and
uprooted an estimated 1.8 million more since February 2003. Although
the events have been well publicized around the world, with the United
Nations calling Darfur the worst humanitarian crisis in a long time.
A. Background
The impact on people of the two-year conflict in Sudan’s western
region of Darfur has been described as the world’s worst humanitarian
crisis by the United Nations. Some two million people are estimated to
now live in camps, and at least 180,000 are though to have died during
the crisis. Sudan’s government and the pro-government Arab militias
are accused of war crimes against the region’s black African
population, although the UN has stopped short of terming it a
genocide.35
The conflict began in 2003 after a rebel group began attacking
government targets, claiming that the region was being neglected by
Khartoum. The rebels claim the government is oppressing black Africans
in favor of Arabs. The tension in Darfur has existed for many years
over land and grazing rights between the mostly nomadic Arabs and
farmers from the Fur, Massaleet, and Zagawa communities. There are two
main rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and
Equality Movement (Jem), which have been linked to a senior Sudanese
opposition politician Hassan al-Turabi.36
The government has admitted to mobilizing “self-defense militias”
following rebel attacks but denies any links to the Janjaweed, who are
accused of trying to “cleanse” large chunks of territory of black
Africans. Refugees from Darfur, however, say that following air raids
by government aircraft, the Janjaweed ride into villages on horses and
camels, slaughtering men, raping women, and stealing whatever they can
find, which leads many to believe that there is a link between the
government and the ethnic cleansing activities that are going on.
After strong international pressure and the threat of sanctions, the
government promised to disarm the Janjaweed, but there is little
evidence of this so far.37 And even though thousands of extra
policemen have been deployed, the refugees have little faith in the
Sudanese security forces.
This violence has produced what one team of medical researchers has
termed a "demographic catastrophe" in Darfur. By mid-October 2004, an
estimated 1.8 million people – or about a third of Darfur's population
– had been uprooted, with an estimated 1.6 million Darfurians having
fled to other parts of Sudan and another 200,000 having crossed the
border to Chad.38 Exactly how many have died is difficult to
determine; most press reports cite about 50,000, but the total number
is probably much higher. In October 2004, a World Health Organization
official estimated that 70,000 displaced persons had died in the
previous six months from malnutrition and disease directly related to
their displacement, a figure which doesn’t include violent deaths.39
Despite a huge influx of humanitarian aid since mid-2004, the
International Committee of the Red Cross warned in October of an
"unprecedented" food crisis; several months earlier, a senior official
with the U.S. Agency for International Development told journalists
that the death toll could reach 350,000 by the end of the year.40

A refugee camp in Darfur, Sudan.
B. U.S. involvement in Darfur
=============================
In the nineties, the Clinton White House imposed successive sanctions
against the Sudanese government, which had become a haven for
terrorists – including Osama bin Lade, who had settled there in 1991 –
and had repressed religious minorities in the South. In addition, I
had failed to crack down a slave trade that had emerged there.
President Clinton’s approach was largely confrontational. In 1996, he
withdrew the U.S. Ambassador, citing terrorist threats against
American officials. Also that year, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia
pressured Sudan to expel bin Laden, who subsequently left for
Afghanistan. After Al Qaeda’s 1998 attacks on the American Embassies
in Kenya and Tanzania, Clinton ordered a Tomahawk-missile strike on
the Al Shifa pharmaceutical factory, which was suspected of producing
chemical weapons, although these suspicions remain unproved. And
although in 1999, Clinton did announce the appointment of a special
envoy to Sudan, he never met with person who filled the post.41
President Bush was more attentive – he rejuvenated a multilateral
peace process that had been hosted by Kenya since 1993. On September
6, 2001, he appointed John Danforth, an ordained Episcopal minister
and a three-term senator from Missouri, his special envoy for peace in
Sudan. The reason Bush was so interested in the region went back to
his values from the Midland, the Texas town where he and his wife grew
up. The Midland is home to several churches with sister congregations
in southern Sudan. Sudanese refugees spent the weekend in the Midland
once a year and shared their stories to entire congregations.
Midland’s churches raised money for Sudanese schools, and local
religious and civi leaders petitioned the White House and wrote
letters to the government Khartoum. This commitment certainly made an
impact not only on Bush, but on the Chief of Mission at the Sudanese
Embassy in Washington which deemed “the town of George Bush” important
enough to respond personally to these letters.42
With this type of concern from the Bush administration, one would
expect action to have been taken, but unfortunately this has not been
the case.
C. What’s in a name? The “genocide” in Darfur
=============================================
Proponents of applying the “genocide” label emphasized two points.
First, they argued that the events in Sudan met a general standard for
genocide: the violence targeted an ethnic group for destruction, was
systematic and intentional, and was state supported. Second, they
claimed that under the Genocide Convention, using the term “genocide”
to describe what was going on in Darfur would trigger international
intervention to halt the violence.43 Salih Booker and Ann-Louise
Colgan from the advocacy group Africa Action wrote in The Nation, “We
should have learned from Rwanda that to stop genocide, Washington must
first say the word.”
In July 2004, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution labeling Darfur a
genocide. Then, in early September, after reviewing the results of a
government-sponsored investigation, Secretary of State Colin Powell
used the term “genocide” to describe the situation in Darfur. Next,
President George W. Bush followed suit in a speech to the United
Nations several weeks later. These admissions were significant, as it
was the first times such senior U.S. government officials had ever
conclusively applied the term to a current crisis and invoked the
convention.44
In the past, U.S. policymakers had been hesitant to apply the term
“genocide” to humanitarian crises in other countries. More often, they
tend to claim that atrocities are being committed by both sides of a
civil war – such as in the case of Bosnia – or that ethnic hatreds run
deep because they are historical in nature and nothing can be done to
stop it. Once the term “genocide” is invoked, the public expects
action to be taken. Contrary to expectations, invoking the term
“genocide” has not electrified international efforts to intervene in
Sudan. Instead, the UN Security Council commissioned further studies
and vaguely threatened economic sanctions against Sudan’s growing oil
industry if Khartoum did not stop the violence; one council deadline
has already passed without incident.45
D. Why hasn’t the U.S. taken definitive action in Darfur?
=========================================================
The U.S. has offered a variety of reasons why it cannot interfere in
the Darfur region. First, when former Secretary of State Colin Powell
called what was happening in Darfur “genocide,” he said we were
already doing all we could to counter it. In the six months since he
and President Bush used the term, however, not one measure has been
imposed on the ones responsible for the atrocities – Sudanese regime.
According to an editorial in the Wall Street Journal, the African
Union (AU) is struggling to deploy 2,000 troops to Darfur, a region
the size of France, while the French government recently announced
that it will deploy 41,000 police in Paris if it is chosen as the
Olympics site for 2012.46 Clearly the priorities of the international
community are not in aiding in humanitarian crises. Second, U.S.
officials say that if they pressure the regime any harder, it would
implode and the consequences would be grave.47 Third, U.S. officials
have said since the beginning of the Darfur war that they needed to
first focus on nailing a deal between the regime in Khartoum and
southern-based rebels, which would in turn have immediate and positive
impacts on the situation in Darfur.48 Fourth, the U.S. has repeated
said that justice must be done for the crimes that have been committed
in Darfur. But it has opposed referring the Darfur case to the
International Criminal Court, the ideal locus for timely and
cost-effective accountability.49 The U.S. has said that the Darfurian
rebels, not the government, have recently been the biggest obstacle to
forward movement. But evidence of continued government aerial bombing
and Janjaweed raping has largely silenced this excuse.50
Most likely, the reason the U.S. has not gotten involved in the
genocide in Darfur is similar to reasons it did not get involved in
Bosnia and Rwanda. There is little media coverage on the region, as
the media is occupied with the war in Iraq and domestic news. Foreign
affairs has never been of much interest to the American public,
especially those that are happening in non-white countries.
Additionally, the U.S. military currently is very involved in Iraq,
just as it was involved in Haiti during the time of the Rwanda
genocide. The Pentagon and State Department would probably much rather
invest its resources in rebuilding Iraq than in entering an entirely
new conflict in which many American lives would be lost. Even in terms
of an international coalition going into Darfur to end the genocide,
getting the UN to cooperate and take action is difficult, as there is
a great deal of shifting of responsibility from one’s own country to
another. Even though in theory, everyone would like to help out, such
as in the case of Rwanda, no one is willing to volunteer the manpower
or resources required for a proper intervention.
VI. International Organizations: The Responsibility to Protect?
In December 2001, the commission issued a report, titled “The
Responsibility to Protect,” that took on the meaning of sovereignty.
The Evans-Sahnoun Commission argued that the controversy over using
force for humanitarian purposes stemmed from a “critical gap” between
the unavoidable reality of mass human suffering and the existing rules
and mechanisms for managing world order.51 To remedy this gap, there
should be an international obligation – the “responsibility to
protect” – which requires states to intervene in the affairs of other
states to avert or stop humanitarian crises.52
This concept implies that in order to be a sovereignty, there are
certain responsibilities attached. According to the commission,
sovereignty means that “the state authorities are responsible for the
functions of protecting the safety and lives of citizens and promotion
of their welfare;” that “the national political authorities are
responsible to the citizens internally and to the international
community through the UN;” and that “the agents of state are
responsible for their actions; that is to say they are accountable for
their acts of commission and omission.”53
Not only does the responsibility to protect bind the individual
states, but it also binds the international community as a whole. An
individual has the primary responsibility to protect the individuals
within it. But where the state fails to carry it out, a secondary
responsibility to protect falls on the international community acting
through the UN, even If enforcing it requires infringing on state
sovereignty.54 Thus the international community acts as a safety net
for people in the world who may be mistreated by their own government.
VII. Conclusion
===============
Bosnia, Rwanda, and Darfur are three unique examples of instances
where the international community, including the United States either
hesitated too long to condemn the actions that took place, or failed
to take any action due to a lack of perceived benefits. The elements
of this paper have shown that public opinion often drives the
international community towards inaction when genocide is being
committed. Other times, the U.S. does not act, because it believes
that it is Europe’s responsibility, due to its proximity to the
violence, like in Bosnia. This analysis has shown that in many cases
it is not necessary to send peacekeeping troops right away, but to
start by pooling powerful nations together and issuing a statement
claiming that the acts are genocide and condemning the government for
these actions.
A clear hard-line against the actions could have helped those in
Rwanda, for instance, as many of the citizens may have been humbled by
such vivid opposition to their actions. Indeed, powerful actors in the
international community such as the U.S. must be at the forefront if
such crimes against humanity are being committed. This analysis has
shown that failing to take swift action in the past has cost millions
in lives – a more strict, hard-line policy condemning genocide is
necessary for the United States to prevent these atrocities from
taking place again in the future. Genocides around the world force the
United States to consider serious moral and national interest
questions. What do Americans consider the exchange rate for lives
saved in genocides versus one single American life? How many resources
are we willing to risk? Is it in the U.S. national interest to prevent
genocides from happening, to make the world a safer place for everyone
who lives in it? Or should it step back from the role as the “world
policeman”?
As we can see from the current crisis in Darfur, genocides around the
world are not going to end any time soon. What the U.S. can and should
do, however, is to work more closely with local communities to prevent
these crises from flaring up in the first place. In all of the cases I
have examined in this paper, the crises could have been prevented had
the international community paid more attention to the region when
they knew to begin with that it was a troubled region. Rather than
waiting for a time bomb to explode into a humanitarian crisis,
proactive measures should be taken to diffuse potential crises before
it is too late. As a world leader, the U.S. needs to be at the
forefront by implementing a foreign policy that will show other actors
in the international community the consequences of committing
genocide.
1 United Nations, “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the
Crime of Genocide,” 9 Dec. 1948.

2 United Nations, “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the
Crime of Genocide,” 9 Dec. 1948.

3 United Nations, “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the
Crime of Genocide,” 9 Dec. 1948.

4 United Nations, “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the
Crime of Genocide,” 9 Dec. 1948.

5 http://www.unitedhumanrights.org/Genocide/bosnia_genocide.htm
6
7 lecture from Kenneth schultz
8 from the Power book
9 Power, 261.
10 Power, 262.
11 Lecture, Schultz
12 Prof. Kenneth Schultz, May 2, 2005.
13 Schulz, May 2, 2005.
14 Schultz, lecture.
15 Schultz, lecture.
16 Power, 310.
17 Power, 310.
18 Power, 311.
19 Power, 431.
20 Schultz, May 4, 2005.
21 BBC News. “Rwanda: How the genocide happened.” 1 April 2004. BBC
News, UK edition.

22 BBC News.
23 BBC News.
24 BBC News.
25 BBC News.
26 Prof. Kenneth Schulz, American Foreign Policy, May 14, 2005
27 BBC News.
28 Schultz, May 9, 2005.
29 Schultz, May 9, 2005.
30 Schultz, May 9, 2005.
31 Schultz, May 9, 2005.
32 Schultz, May 9, 2005.
33 Schultz, May 9, 2005.
34 Schultz, May 9, 2005.
35 Schultz, May 9, 2005.
36 Power.
37 Power.
38 Straus, 21.
39 Straus, 21.
40 Straus, 22.
41 Power, crisis in Dufar. New Yorker article.
42 Darfur article by Power
43 Scot Straus, “Darfur and the Genocide Debate,” Foreign Affairs,
January/February 2005, 25.
44 Straus, 25.
45 Straus, 22.
46 Cheadle, Don and John Predergast. “The Darfur Genocide.” The Wall
Street Journal. 24 March 2005.
47 Cheadle
48 Cheadle.
49 Cheadle.
50 Cheadle.
51 Lee Feinstein and Anne-Marie Slaughter, “A duty to prevent,”
Foreign Affairs, vol. 83 (Jan./Feb.2004), 140.
52 Feinstein and Slaughter, 141.
53 Feinstein and Slaughter, 141.
54 Feinstein and Slaughter, 142.