Human Rights

1
Human Rights Global Affairs (PSC 354.001)

• January 28, 2009 (W)

2
Today

• Index cards (missing students?)
• The quiz results
• Your assignments (presentations and response
  papers)
• Todays readings Straus, chapters 1/2 and
  Hatzfeld
• Summary of Chapter 1 (Straus, 1-16)
• Questions from Monday, 1/26
• Is the situation in Darfur genocide?
• The atrocities in the former Yugoslavia similar
  to Rwanda?
• Milgram experiment

3
The Order of Genocide

• Central question, 2 How and why did genocide
  happen?
• Specifically
• Why did Hutu hardliners choose genocide?
• Why did ordinary Hutus participate?
• Why did the genocide strategy succeed?
• Why did the international community fail to
  intervene?

4
Modernization and atrocities

• Rwanda is a case of modern genocide.
• The current consensus has effectively dispelled
  the idea that his was born out of ancient tribal
  hatred.
• However, important questions remain unanswered.
• Why did the elites choose genocide?
• Why were elites able to mobilize ordinary Hutus?

5
The book

• Focal points, 3
• Genocides local dynamics
• Evaluating explanations for the genocide
• Develop a theory of genocide in Rwanda

6
The Argument Three factors, 7

• The war.
• War provided a rationale for mass killing
  (security), created insecurity and, legitimized
  violence.
• State institutions.
• Provided capacity to reach the local level.
• Provided authority to conduct the genocide.
• Geography.
• Ethnicity, 8/9
• Collective ethnic categorization allowed Hutus to
  equate Tutsi with enemy.

7
Implications, 10

• Ordinary people commit extraordinary crimes.
• Fear of becoming victims in a (civil) war and
  fear of authority.
• No evidence for the role of utopian ideologies.
• Genocide does not require a totalitarian regime.
• No evidence for a long planned genocide instead
  cumulative radicalization.

8
Lessons learned, 13

• Short-term A humanitarian intervention would
  have saved lives, but only if implemented
  quickly.
• Stabilization.
• Strengthening Hutu moderates.
• Violence spread extraordinarily fast and required
  immediate action to end.
• Long-term Prevention
• No need to repress ethnic identities. Instead,
  focus on eliminating the causes of coercive
  mobilization/political violence.