A failed state is one whose central government is inefficient and can Hardly control much of its territory (Gervy B, 2000). It cannot perform much of its basic development functions. It cannot reproduce its own existences conditions. Somali is one of the counties that have failed. Initially Somali gained its independence in 1960 but currently it exists in a de jure capacity. The Somali government collapsed in 1978. A combination of Northern and Southern land-based forces ousted president Barre. The clan system in Somali contributed so much in the civil war.
The country’s resources were under high competition from the Somali elite. Each of these elite represented their clan in the government rather than the whole nation. (Gervy B, 2000). Any income generated by the government was competed for, similarly to how they would compete for pasture and water. The faction leaders representing the clan locally also applied the same idea of controlling the states resources and wealth. People working in government offices were supported and encouraged to embezzle funds and help his clan members to get rich
The 1994 genocide in Rwanda can be blamed to the tribal hatred between the Hutus and Tutsi. The first violence occurred at a time when Rwanda was getting its independence in 1959 and the colonial policies that favored the Tutsis were breaking down. In April 1994, Rwanda experienced another mass violence when the president of Rwanda and Burundi were assassinated with a missile. The extremist of Hutu militia power-the Interahamwe massacred Tutsis and a few Hutus. This shattered down a young and new nation.
After three months of violence, the Rwandan Patriotic Front led by Tutsis seized power and many Hutus fled to Burundi and Zaire. Some members of Iterahamwe also fled to these areas where they launched raids in camps of the Tutsis at east of Zaire and the Tutsi resisted. By 1997 this revolt had grew stronger into a rebellion that saw Mobutu sese seko’s rule end. This paved way for a new president and a change of name of the country to Democratic Republic of Congo from Zaire. The civil war in Angola can be attributed to inequality in terms of region and more so the ethnic group.
The peace accords in Angola failed due lack of focus on the underlying causes of conflicts. It only emphasized on power sharing rather than the social-economic issues. This led to formation of Liberation movements, like MPLA and UNITA with ethnic characteristics. The people of Mbundu community supported MPLA while the Ovimbundu community sort support from UNITA. The civil war in Sudan is characterized by religious conflicts between Muslims and Christians, north and south or Africans and Arabs.
Ethnicity also played part in this war since the war is mostly between the northern, Arab dominated group against the southern, non-Arab population. The kingdoms along river Nile fight against the inland people. The Muslims caused blood shed against Christians and Animist in southern part of the country. In Darful region the war is between the Muslim inhabitants and the Muslim militia. In East Timor, the roman Catholics who are merely 20% of the population were killed and starved when they were annexed by Indonesia who are mainly Muslim.
They were exiled by Indonesian army. Indonesian invasion in East Timor started from 1975 and ended in 1999 after international peace force. (Marcus l (2005) The Dark-side of Humanitarian Intervention. Humanitarian intervention refers to a justified use of force with an aim of protecting the inhabitants of another state. It is an interference of a state by another state in the name of maintaining order (Thomas G. (2004). It usually consists of armed response to certain deeds like ethnic cleansing, genocide and, crimes against humanity.
As it is quit clear that the international actors cannot sit back and watch violations of human rights, it is not clear how International Law gives the authority to use force on another nation to end the massive killing of the civilians. Most of these humanitarian intervention groups fail to meet the objectives of assisting the civilians and are driven by individual motives. During the 1994 genocide, French had come to Rwanda to assist them but internationally it was assumed that it had the intentions of controlling the African great region lakes.
The French obtained resolutions authorizing its Operation Turquoises from the UN Security Council when genocide was ending and after many deaths and suffering. (Thomas G. (2004) The intended humanitarian intervention in Western Rwanda was only a political act with objectives of controlling territory for the defeated genocide regime other case in Iraqi Kurdistan that was created by several forces with an aim of ending the Gulf war, was a humanitarian intervention but there was a hidden political agenda led by US to end the regime of Saddam Hussein.
In Somalia, America overlooked the military actions and instead came up with ideas of humanitarian intervention phase and national building phase together with the UN of which the latter did not go well. Killing of General Mohammed Aidid whose his militiamen had shot down the Black Hawk helicopters in 1993 was what Americans had in mind in the name of creating these interventions. The International Security Council was only blaming and pointing fingers on rather than getting interested in analyzing the causes of wrong interventions.
The embattled UN commander in Kigali General Romeo Dallaire did his very best to save at least a few numbers of Tutsis from the death of the Hutus. If only he could have more troops than he was supplied and at least good advice from the UN offices, he could even have stopped the genocide. (Thomas G. (2004) &. (Thomas G. (2004) there is the need to act genuinely and fast to stop these merciless killings. There is the need to have genuine basis for determining state independence from international community in intervening in intra-state conflicts.
We need to come up with delegations that will check on preventive dimensions like appropriateness of military intervention. Military action is not the only way out otherwise it nations will experience massive destruction and killings. The regional organizations need to mediate on basis of true claims without favor. International Security Council should never be interfered with on making decisions of security. By so doing this will clear the air on morality, legality and dilemmas of humanitarian interventions in failed states. Genocide is NOT yet over: Only a change of Location and Intensity
The war between the huts and Tutsis did not end but rather it was a change of location and intensity. This can be justified by the number of bloody sheds or so to speak genocides in other parts of the world. Darfur in Northern Sudan is one such a place. This paper will look out for similarity between Rwanda and Darfur. In both cases there was similar character of violence, however, in case of Rwanda violence was more vigorous than it is in Darfur. Violence in both places occurred at a time of political transition and was marked with ethnic nationalism.
The crisis in Darfur began in 2003 and has often been referred to as “slow-motion” Rwanda The paper will discuss first the intensity of the violence especially the rate of killing per given time. Analyzing from an existing data, the attack by civilians in Darfur has being going on from 2003 to present. However the death rate has declined despite the controversy the actual number of deaths. In Darfur, it is estimated that between 63,000 and 140,000 civilians have died according to 2005 report by US State Department. Another estimate was conducted by Coalition for International Justice (CIJ) and its estimates were 400,000.
This high divergence could be attributed to assumptions of the constancy of occurrence of violence over a given time and its distribution across the region. To contrast this with Rwandan genocide, the violence took place in April 1994 to July the same year a span of 100 days. It took place virtually the whole country and it is said that 80% of the killings had taken place during the first two weeks. It is estimated that the number of deaths ranges from 500,000 to a million. It is thus clear that the violence in Darfur is not as intense as it was in Rwanda.
The mode of violence in Rwanda and Darfur also varies (Mc Cain T, (2004) . In Darful the violence took the shape of forced displacement, killing of men, massive rape, village destruction, and destroying means of survival lack of food, clean water, and medical care. It is estimated that the number of the displaced Sudanese are up to 2. 4 million and they are either refugees in Chad or internally displaced. Thus the Forced displacement goes hand in hand with malnutrition and diseases. This has being the major cause and source of death in Darfur (Scott S, (2006).
Ethnicity has also been seen in Darfur region where violence is targeted to the black African communities like, Massaleite, Fur and Zaghawa. The people behind this violence are the government soldiers and militiamen(Javanjiwid). ’The violence is coordinated and the militia leaders admit openly that they act as per the government orders. Compared to Genocide in Rwanda, the government manipulated the violence and targeted a particular ethic community (Gerard P, 2005). The mode of violence in Rwanda was direct killing of the Tutsi group and those who refused to participate in the war from the Hutus side. Thus intra-ethnic genocide.
There were also significant cases of sexual violence. It is estimated that the number of perpetrated cases of rape in Rwanda was between 250,000 to roughly 500,000 based on the genocide pregnancy reports. Those who participated in the war in Rwanda. Were, police, militia and soldiers. They massacred people who were sheltering in churches, schools and other places the civilian were mobilized in the violence but this is not happening in Darfur. In summary, the genocide in Rwanda and in Darfur are both cases violence perpetrated by the government, involved killing of innocent civilians and sexual violence.
Therefore both cases can be said to be of same genre the difference is only the intensity where in Rwanda the violence was more exterminatory, faster and involved participation of more civilians unlike in Darfur. The origins of violence in Rwanda and Darfur are complicated. The violence in Darfur has local, national and regional implications (Gerard P, 2005). It is related to ethnic conflicts and resources. There are two groupings; the Africans and Arabs and the semi-nomadic pastoralist and farmers. Tension between the Arabs and the black Africans has increased due to a number of factors.
Drought and famine has increased competition for the scares resources like water and pasture. The national politics has also contributed to increased tension. Since independence the northern Arabs have been dominant in Sudanese government. This has made the civil war between the Northern Arabs and the southern population to persist. When the civil war started the government in Khartoum gave support to the Arabs, they were supplied with weapons and were promoted in official government positions. (Gerard P, (2005) Ethnicity could be attributed to the immediate cause of violence in Rwanda.
The two groups are the Hutus and Tutsis. These two groups share comm. Things like; same language, same religion and live in the same regions. They also intermarried before the genocide. Conclusion A failed state is one whose central government is inefficient and can hardly control much of its territory. Somali is one of the county that has failed the clan system in Somali contributed so much in the civil war. The 1994 genocide in Rwanda can be blamed to the tribal hatred between the Hutus and Tutsi. The civil war in Angola can be attributed to inequality in terms of region and more so the ethnic group.
The civil war in Sudan is characterized by religious conflicts between Muslims and Christians, north and south or Africans and Arabs. This religious hatred has caused war in countries like East Timor and Haiti Ethnicity also played part in this war. Humanitarian intervention refer to a justified use of force with an aim of protecting the inhabitants of another state The war between the huts and Tutsis did not end but rather it was a change of location and intensity as experienced in Darfur and other places like, Haiti, Angola among other countries.