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Genocide Has Yet Cease to Exist
Maus paints a picture of what it was like for one man to survive the holocaust and to lose everyone around him, but
what of those who did not survive? What about the millions of Jews who burned in the ovens at Auschwitz? It was evident
to me that as long as the story of their tragedy was not only remembered, but that the people of this world learned from
their loss, that alone may have begun to serve some justice for them. The story of the holocaust has been told time and time
again, and having been educated in the , I have heard their story an innumerable amount of times. The United States is extremely conscious of the atrocities that occurred during Hitler’s reign in power. In Elie Weisel’s Night, we read a
survivor’s account on what occurred during the holocaust. We read about the ovens at the concentration camps and the
piles of dead bodies. We read about the systematic and planned extermination of the Jewish people. We read about
genocide. As well publicized and talked about the massacre of the Jews was, I have found that genocide is not exclusive to
the Jewish people.
When Adolf Hitler orchestrated the mass murdering of over six million Jews, the world said we will never let this happen again. However, we have seen genocide occur in our world history before the tragedy of the Jews even began. Why had we not learned from their mistakes? Genocide, still existent, has risen against humanity in the decades following the end of the holocaust. It is observed that the holocaust will never truly end; the genocide of humans will simply shift from people to people. More than fifteen hundred thousand Armenians; three million Ukrainians; six million Gypsies and Slavs; twenty-five million Soviets; five hundred thousand Indonesians; twelve hundred thousand Tibetans; one million Ibos; fifteen hundred thousand Bengalis; seventeen hundred thousand Cambodians; two hundred thousand East Timorese; five hundred thousand Ugandans; two hundred and fifty thousand Burundians; two hundred thousand Guatemalans; two million Sudanese and counting; sixteen hundred thousand North Koreans and counting; ten thousand Kosovars and counting have suffered in the hands of genocide. In addition, a more recent example of genocide is the eight hundred thousand Rwandans that were murdered during the Clinton administration.
The genocide of any people today may seem non-existent, but it is apparent that this ghastly human rights crime is presently active in our world. Why has this crime against humanity not cease to continue? Perhaps it is possible that people are by nature, greedy, cruel and do what is best for only them. Conceivably, if we had done something to stop the mass murdering of the Rwandans, we can argue against this claim. It seems that we have learned nothing from the slaughtering of the Jews. Why the United States let the Rwandan tragedy happen is controversial. Nonetheless, we were once again bystanders to genocide, as we were when the Jewish people suffered horrible deaths by German troops.
In a span of almost a hundred days, the Hutu government of Rwanda nearly succeeded in exterminating Rwanda’s Tutsi people. Ten years ago this month, the Rwandan government called upon everyone in the Hutu majority to kill the entire Tutsi minority. After this claim of war against the Tutsi people, over eight hundred thousand Tutsis perished in the most unmistakable case of genocide since Hitler's warfare against the Jewish people. The mass murdering of the Tutsi people is not exclusive to the Hutu Militiamen and soldiers, but citizens as well. Everything from firearms, garden tools, knives, and a variety of other instruments were used to kill the Tutsi people. The horrific accounts were not just another tribal dispute between the Tutsi and the Hutu, but rather the genocide of the Tutsi people.
It is not necessarily the responsibility of the United States alone to have stopped the genocide of the Tutsi people. However, the United States did not simply turn the other cheek during the outrageous extermination of the Tutsi people, but they aided the murder of this Rwandan minority. The United States, did not sit idle while these people were being slaughtered, but rather they led a successful effort in removing the UN peacekeepers who had been present in already. As more details emerged about the Tutsi tragedy, it was found that the United States had been the motivating force behind the blockage to the successive authorization of UN reinforcements in Rwanda. The United States later apologized for not putting in more effort to stop the massacre of the Tutsi tribe.
The United States knowing very well that the Rwanda people were in a state of chaos, refused to use their technology to block the radio broadcasts that aided the Hutu people in their quest to eliminate the Tutsi. With these findings, it is apparent that the United States did not simply ignore the genocide of the Tutsi people, but rather were crucial in the perpetuation of it. An average of over eight thousand Rwandans was murdered daily and the United States would not proclaim that genocide was actively occurring in Rwanda. America did nothing to limit or control what occurred in; in fact they turned their heads and ignored the dying people of Tutsi. It is argued that the United States acted to remove the UN peacekeepers because they were being slaughtered as well, but we must ask why did the United States not send in troops or intervene to prevent such activities. If UN peacekeepers were being murdered in their attempts to cease the genocide of the Rwandans, then it is plausible that the U.S. should have seen that this was not just a war on the Tutsi people, but rather a cry against humanity.
Throughout my education, the holocaust has been such an important event in history. I have read book after book about the years of hiding and deaths these people suffered, everything from Anne Frank’s Diary to Elie Weisel’s Night. And until I began to research the genocide of the Rwandan’s Tutsi minority, I never thought that the Jewish experience would be relived in the world today. The holocaust, whether it is the six million Jews or the eight hundred thousand Tutsi, should never happen again. Perhaps the lessons in history will never be learned. Genocide, like many other occurrences in history, is a repeated mistake. As I began reading more about genocide, I was bombarded with one appalling story after the next. The numbers of dead that were murdered in attempts to elliminate a single ethnicity was shocking. And to my amazement, as I read more stories, I found that we continue to be bystanders to genocide as we were during Hitler’s war against Jews.
Posted by WaiSau Sit on 5/27/04; 5:52:22 PM
from the dept.
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