Group Three: The International Community's Response

1 - When did UN officials receive warnings about the genocide?
They received the warnings about the genocide three months before it actually happened, but they ignored them. They did not take any sort of action to try and stop it, or made any indication that they actually took it seriously.

2 - Besides the warning given by one of the planners, what were other warning signs of the genocide?
Apparently the warning wasn’t enough, but seeing the people of Rwanda involved in the genocide openly distribute weapons like guns and machetes in the open should have been. Also, the government sponsored hate propaganda throughout Rwanda through the radio, newspapers and schools. “Death lists” were made, and openly circulated with names and addresses of targets for murder that were Tutsis.

 3 - How did state-sponsored propaganda present the Tutsi group?
They propaganda showed the Tutsis and described them as evil and manipulative people who were snakes and cockroaches, and that their major goal was to regain power in Rwanda with the rule that mistreated the Hutus again. Also, Tutsis were supposed to be taller than the Hutus. So on the radio when they would say, “You have to shorten the Tutsis” everyone understood that as that you have to kill them.

 4 - What prevented the international community from called the violence in Rwanda “genocide”? What would have happened if they did?
The international community didn’t consider this genocide because they didn’t consider it genocide. They weren’t wiping out an entire community, and other littler details that forced them not to think they would take action. If they had, I’m most certainly sure that non of it would have continued and it would not have intensified. Not has many lives would have been taken. Because once the Hutus knew that international involvement would not happen, they kicked the violence up a notch.

5 - Once the international community withdrew its troops, what did the militia do?
After the troops were gone, the militia made the massacre worse. They began escalating in violence and brutality, and they even started killed those to resisted, and those who opposed.

6 - Who does President Clinton say must share the responsibility for the genocide?
He said that the international community, as well as nations in Africa, should take the blame, too. They didn’t think it was genocide, so they didn’t help. They sheltered and fed the killers in refugee camps, helping them. They were just as responsible as the next.