Last Saturday (January 31,2015), the class was assigned to watch the film

entitled Ghost of Rwanda. The film chronicles the Rwandan genocide of 1994 which
is one of the worst atrocities of the 20th century. This American-made documentary
entails the first-hand accounts of the genocide from those who lived it: the
diplomats on the scene who thought they were building peace only to see their
colleagues murdered; the Tutsi survivors who recount the horror of seeing their
friends and family slaughtered by Hutu friends and co-workers; and the U.N.
peacekeepers in Rwanda who were ordered not to intervene in the massacre
happening all around them. The film reveals in detail how the Rwandan Hutu
extremists not only secretly planned and executed a detailed plan for genocide, but
also calibrated their actions to ensure that the West would not intervene resulting to
slaughter of 800,000 people .
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. This
age old adage has never been more true than what happened on Rwandas
genocide when the principle of right to humanitarian intervention broke down.
Under the UN Charter, the Security Council has primary responsibility for the
maintenance of international peace and security. Signatories agreed to suppress
and punish perpetrators who slaughtered victims simply because they belonged to
an "undesirable" national, ethnic, or religious group with genocidal intent and in a
wide and systematic manner. Yet such amalgamation of powerful leaders from
powerful nations would only shut their eyes and cover their ears when real evil
perpetrates.
It is true that the principle of non-intervention of states declares that no State
or group of States has the right to intervene, directly or indirectly, for any reason
whatever, in the internal or external affairs of any other State. Consequently the
primary responsibility for protection of civilians lies with the sovereign state. But if
that state is unable or unwilling to protect its population, or is itself the cause of the
threat, the responsibility to protect those people shifts to the international
community of states. Im sure they have a lot of informants to the issue along with
the media and Rwandan ambassadors are there to lobby it to them that all the
elements of genocide is present but they refuse to acknowledge such crime exist for
that would call upon them the duty required of their UN membership. When the UN
Security council along with the United States through Bill Clinton chose to ignore
Rwanda they had failed the main institution that they representative of and that is
to protect the people from evil such as genocide.
Never again is the main slogan of the world leaders when the United
Nations General Assembly passed the Genocide Convention which was after the
outbreak of World War II. Never again shall the civilians of the world suffer from
another war or conflict that would involve numerous casualties, prolonged agony
and inhumane pain and suffering. Yet, today it seems that we are in danger of
forgetting the lessons learnt in 1994. In Syria, the world has stood by as children
have been killed, tortured, starved and imprisoned. Also recently, the UN had

declared its official statement on the inquiry of the fighting and ethnic cleansing in
Central African Republic which doesnt come as a shock that they deemed there was
no genocide. Genocide has occurred so often and so uncontested this century that a
chant more apt in describing recent events than, Never Again" is in fact "Again and
Again." Until then when good men learns how to act should evil fail.