Never Again? The Failure of the International Community and the Media During the Rwanda Genocide
Fowler, Carly
2008
- Submitted in partial fulfillment of the degree of Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Abstract: Following the Holocaust, the international community vowed to never again stand by and witness the perpetration of genocide. This has since proved to be an empty promise, however, as since 1945 the world has stood by and watched several genocides happen without ... read moreintervening. Nowhere is this so clear as in the case of Rwanda. The story of Rwanda is a tragedy on its own 800,000 people were massacred in the space of 100 days but it is made even more so by the fact that this genocide could have been prevented at several junctures. Even after the killing had commenced, even a small international commitment of troops and support could have saved more than half of the eventual victims. With its passivity, the Western world condemned hundreds of thousands of innocent people to death, and the guilt of that inaction will never fade. The Western media played a vital role in facilitating that inaction. The lack of coverage in general made it easy for the West to ignore the situation, and when the media did cover the genocide, they framed the coverage in such a way as to tacitly support Western policies of non-intervention. Finally, once the media did grasp on to the tragedy of Rwanda, they continued to ignore the killing and focused instead on the more attractive story of the flood of refugees that left the country in the wake of the genocide. The international community and the Western media together helped facilitate the extermination of 800,000 people. It was an atrocity that could have been averted.read less
- ID:
- zp38wq776
- Component ID:
- tufts:UA015.012.074.00003
- To Cite:
- TARC Citation Guide EndNote
- Usage:
- Detailed Rights
