Human Rights Dbq Analysis

Human rights—inalienable privileges bestowed upon all people that are seemingly ignored by many. Genocide tests the limits of people’s ability to respect these rights, as groups like the UN (United Nations) must act upon the atrocities. Incidences like Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge, Tiananmen Square, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Nuremburg Trials demonstrated not only the utter disregard for human rights, but also how people react to these acts. Despite these blatant wrong-doings, human rights groups, such as the UN and the Amnesty International, remained unrequited with supporting the countries in need. However, some justice was brought about, for people also intensely reacted in support. Going to show that people either reacted harshly to those who
committed genocide, or hardly reacted at all. Human rights, deterred by both the Khmer Rouge and a minority of the Hutu population (in their respective nations), were not fought for by the UN even though that is their main priority.
To elaborate, despite the UN’s clear outline as to what constitutes a genocide, the UN refused to provide help to the Cambodians who were being “...executed in the hundreds of thousands…” due to the fact that they were considered “intellectuals” (Doc 4). This illustrates how the UN disregarded their proclamation of what defines a genocide, and would not react against the apparent human-right violations, as well as the mass killings caused by Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge. Furthermore, the UN would not intervene with the Rwandan genocide, in which Hutu extremists brutally slaughtered the majority of the Tutsi population; the UN decided to “[not] reinforce the small and lightly armed UN blue helmets already in Rwanda…”(Doc 7). The withdrawal of funds and supportive equipment for the Rwandan UN soldiers goes to show that the UN refused to acknowledge the atrocious genocide that was taking place in Rwanda. It also illustrates that the United Nations acted as more of a peanut gallery by pleading ignorance than a peace group that halts genocidal
acts. However, some people were not completely disparage, nor did they show avarice by cynically hiding from dispute, for the students in Tiananmen Square and the supporters of the Nuremberg trials showed compassion and hope in time of these horrid events. During the events of Tiananmen Square, in which protesters (mostly students) were gunned down due to the students’ opinions on democracy in China, one of the students refused to lose hope for the movement, as they stated that “[they] believed that it would be worth sacrificing [their] lives for the sake of progress and democracy in China” (Doc 5). This refusal to lose hope in spite of the army’s complete disregard for the students’ human right to be opinionated illustrates how people supported each other through times of need; the students comforted those who lost and continued to fight for democracy. Also, the leaders of the Nazi agenda were (rightfully) demonized by the public—the people punished them for the multitude of crimes they had committed, as these men were either “...sentenced to death, [were sentenced to] life imprisonment, [or to] imprisonment” (Doc 9). This illustrates the ability of IMT (International Military Tribunal), as well as other peace-offering organizations, to rightfully condemn presumably horrible people to their just location. While Doc 5 provides an immense amount of anecdotal evidence, it is told from the perspective of a victim of the incident. This student whom tells the story does not provide any backing evidence towards the opposite party (in this case the offender), thus creating a great amount of bias and opinionation in this piece of writing.