Human Rights and Intervention in the Rwandan Genocide
Human Rights and Intervention in the Rwandan Genocide Human rights are known as “inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled to simply because he or she is a human being”. These rights are known to be universal and are the same to everyone living on earth. These rights are said to exist in both national and international law. The Universal Declaration of Human rights, which is supported by fifty countries across the globe, attests to this definition and backs up the idea that all people are equal and have the right to pursue happiness no matter who they are, where they are from, their skin color, age, or sex, etc. If these countries believe these things to be true, why was there not a mass intervention when the Hutu militia in Rwanda took it upon themselves to kill hundreds of thousands of people based solely on their ethnicity? It seems that if these countries are not going to benefit in some way, then they have no desire to help or intervene when there is a crisis in another country. The United Nations, which is said to be an international institution that values human rights, should make sure that tragedies, such as the Rwandan genocide, do not occur. Countries cannot act selfish when it comes to war, genocide, and the lives of innocent people. Aiding everyone, treating people with fairness and equality, and fighting for what is right should be far more important than a country’s personal gain.. The one and only deciding factor that manifests what will happen with human rights violations and a countries choice to intervene is the United Nations and the international community. This paper will analyze why it took so long for other countries to intervene in the Rwandan genocide and how the United Nations and the international community directly correlate with human rights violations and interventions in international tragedies. During the Rwandan genocide, thousands of people were killed in the name of ethnic violence. Men, women