Jonathan Bonds Personal Reflection

The Rwandan genocide was one of the more hideous events in recent world history. It is defiantly in the top 10 biggest and most obvious violations of the Declaration of Human Rights. The Declaration of Human rights clearly states that all persons have the right to adequate diet, and shelter. That everyone has the right to security of person, and that all people, no matter how good or evil they may be, deserve a fair trial to whatever crime or crimes they are being accused of.
The Hutu, who composed approximately 90% of the Rwandan population, decided that they were not content with the way that the Tutsis were running the country. Although they only composed about 10% of the Rwandan population, they were more powerful (politically) and they were generally richer. The Hutu people of Rwanda decided to change this system of rich get richer and poor get poorer, so they overthrew the Tutsi Rwandan government, and began the Genocide of all Rwandan Tutsis. The horrific event lasted only one hundred days; from April 6th, to mid-July and the during the hundred days, over 800,000 Tutsis, and moderate Hutu were slaughtered.
The U.N., is an establishment to protect human rights, and maintain Global Peace. that is the job that they are required to do, but they rarely actually do any massive action. National Sovereignty is what usually is more important than individual rights to a government. i think this event is extremely close to the Holocaust. The minority , the Tutsi, and the majority, the Hutu. The Tutsi were forced into refugee camps and slave labor camps (hard labor). They were worked, murdered, or subject to unimaginable torture. while all this is going on, the U.N. did absolutely nothing physical to stop this mass slaughter. By the time any of the few concerned countries had even started voting about sending troops, hundreds of thousands of innocent Tutsis had been ruthlessly massacred by friends, family, or just a passing Hutu on the street. the Rwandan Genocide is a complete contradiction of the entire idea of Humanism. The Hutu Militia ( Impuzamugambi and Interhamwe) did things that were only equalled by Nazi SS officers. They ignored the individual, and focused on eliminating the entire ethnic group. This is the very idea of Ethnic Cleansing. to the Hutu Militia, a Tutsi was a Tutsi, and they did not posses the right to security of person, so they should die. The short lived Hutu Government was on a mission to exterminate an entire ethnic group of people. the individual did not matter, on either side. This was a definite contradiction of the Declaration of Human rights.
when i began to read about this horrific period in history, i was amazed at the rate of killing in Rwanda, and how much the two groups deeply hated each other for reasons that were not worth the cost in the end. the innocent people of Rwanda were sucked into a war between two groups in one government that was not entirely necessary.