The Rwandan Genocide (1994): A New Perspective on Its Causes and on the Indifference of the International Actors and Institutions Towards the Genocide

ABSTRACT
This Article explores the political, ethical, and legal implications of the Rwandan genocide, on the one hand, and the unsatisfactory role of the US and the UN in averting and/or containing the murderous violence, on the other. In addition, this article examines the advantages and disadvantages of community courts, i.e., the Gacaca Tribunals, which were established for trying/prosecuting those who were allegedly involved in the genocide. The role of the Gacaca Tribunals is analyzed in terms of their shortcomings in meting out justice to the perpetrators of the genocide at the grassroot level. Also, the functioning of the Tribunals is probed in terms of their capacity, or its lack thereof, of the Rwandan courts to deal with the number of cases, which it had to handle in case the government had not set up the Tribunals. This article argues that the genocide could have been averted if the Habyarimana-led Rwandan government was stopped from deliberately fanning ethnic tension between the Hutus and Tutsis ethnic groups for political purposes, and had the UN and the US intervened in a timely manner to stop the carnage.