30 Years on from the Rwandan Genocide: has the West Learnt from its Contempt and Cowardice?

Thirty years ago, on the 7^th April 1994, extremist Hutu forces began an unimaginably ferocious assault on their Tutsi neighbours in Rwanda. Over the course of approximately 100 days, more than half-a-million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered. At an event in Kigali to commemorate the anniversary of what the world now knows as the Rwandan genocide, President Paul Kagame stated that “It was the international community which failed all of us. Whether from contempt or cowardice.”

At the graveside of victims of the Rwandan genocide. Source: World Vision

Kagame led the Tutsi RPF rebel group that eventually ousted the Hutus. He has ruled Rwanda ever since, his rule becoming increasingly undemocratic, his pursuit of rivals and interference in neighbouring affairs incessant, though he has lifted millions out of poverty. Bill Clinton, who acknowledged his government’s failure to act in defence of the Tutsis as the biggest mistake of his presidency, was present in Kigali. French President Emmanuel Macron sent a video message, reiterating his conviction that his country failed in its duty to save the Tutsis. Humble words. But has the international community, particularly the West, learnt from the Rwandan Genocide?

Africa in 2024 is riddled with crises. That may not be too different to most years, but the crises in question are far from trivial, involve multiple actors and threaten to create the conditions where a genocide once again occurs on the continent. Just a short list of the most severe challenges makes for sorry reading:

There is widespread hunger in Tigray, Ethiopia. Source: The Independent

• Ethiopia – despite no longer commanding international headlines, the war in Ethiopia has not finished and millions of people are starving.
• Sudan – civil war rumbles on, millions more starve and weapons flow in to opposing sides from an array of international actors.
• West Africa – a democratic erosion continues apace, with governments overthrown in Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali and Guinea in the past three years.
• Nigeria – Boko Haram remains undefeated, with mass kidnappings and indiscriminate violence plaguing the north of the country.
• Somalia – despite years of foreign aid and UN peacekeeping forces, the government struggles to survive amidst threats from Al-Shabab, with Puntland threatening to follow the breakaway region of Somaliland and declare de facto independence after Mogadishu removed a power-sharing agreement.
• Democratic Republic of the Congo – ceaseless violence persists in the east of this resource-rich leviathan, with interference from outside powers including Rwanda and Uganda.

There are ethnic and religious dimensions to all these crises, with African states still reeling from the colonial legacy of enforcing arbitrary borders that shattered the homogeneity of small, close-knit communities.

Families flee Darfur for Chad amidst renewed ethnic violence during Sudan’s latest civil war. Source: Human Rights Watch

The rapidity with which the Rwandan genocide was perpetuated has allowed it to linger in the historical memory, just as the scale of the Cambodian and Armenian genocides has embedded those tragedies in global consciousnesses, not to mention the Holocaust. But there have arguably been other acts of genocide in recent years in Africa, including in the Darfur region of Sudan and against the Tigrayans of Ethiopia in the ongoing civil war.

Whilst the international community frequently expresses concern at these devastating events, little concrete action is taken to alleviate the horror. Indeed, actors in Africa’s near-abroad exacerbate the situation. Whether it is the Emirati government backing Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in his brutal oppression of the opposition, or the Turks arming the Sudanese government and Eritrea, there are numerous examples of regional powers preying on African misery to bolster their own influence.

Weapons from the likes of Turkey, the UAE, Egypt and Saudi Arabia are fuelling the violence in Sudan. Source: Le Monde

Admittedly, the US and European powers have plenty to occupy their attentions. But to neglect Africa once again would be criminal, just as standing by during the Rwandan genocide was. Africa is the future. It is a young continent, with abundant natural resources and human capital. With the nefarious influence of Russia and China increasingly evident, there is a geo-political incentive for the West to bolster its African presence, not to mention the moral imperative of doing so.

Reining in regional allies would be a good starting point. Staffing embassies with competent, experienced personnel, outlining clear positions on each of the African crises and drawing redlines to deter escalation by involved parties and states would also help. Perhaps most significant is ensuring that Africa knows it has the West’s attention. Keeping the stories in the headlines, positioning the global news camera on each and every crisis, may deter the worst atrocities, may just make a warlord or corrupt government official think twice. It might stop another Rwanda. It might offer long downtrodden and vulnerable groups some respite. It might prevent another maudlin anniversary full of platitudes of what might have been done.

At the Kigali Genocide Memorial. Source: Visit Rwanda

Finally Ready to Face the Past? Liberia Parliament Passes Motion for War Crimes Court

In December 1989, the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) crossed into the country from neighbouring Ivory Coast under the leadership of Charles Taylor. Their aim was to overthrow the corrupt, kleptocratic, US-backed government of Samuel Doe, who had seized power in a bloody coup in 1980. Within a year, the NPFL had overrun most of the country and Doe was captured and executed in September 1990 by the Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia (INPFL). Led by Prince Johnson, the INPFL was a splinter group of the NPFL that wished to seize power itself.

Charles Taylor as rebel leader. Source: Liberia Info

The NPFL and INPFL set about fighting one another, in addition to Doe’s remnant forces, in the First Liberian Civil War. Outside powers were soon embroiled, with Libya, Sierra Leone and Guinea all involved. The war also had ethnic dimensions, with the Krahn people that had been favoured by the Doe regime clashing with the Gio and Mano who had been subordinated. Atrocities were carried out on both sides.

The INPFL folded in 1992 as Prince Johnson fled to Nigeria, and in 1993 the United Nations Observer Mission in Liberia (UNOMIL) was established as a peacekeeping force. Fighting continued, however, until a peace agreement was finally signed in August 1996. In the general election of 1997, Charles Taylor was elected President of Liberia.

With some 200,000 people killed during the fighting, many of them civilians, it was hoped that a UN-backed Liberia would spend the next decade rebuilding and healing. Alas, in April 1999 the northern part of the country was invaded by the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), an anti-Taylor force backed by Guinea. LURD gradually occupied the northern third of the country and Taylor’s woes were compounded when the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL) invaded the country from the south. Besieged in the capital Monrovia, Taylor fled for Nigeria in August 2003, bringing an end to another four years of conflict, the establishment of a new UN peace mission and the installation of a transitional government that led in 2006 to democratic elections.

Child soldiers during the Liberian Civil War. Source: Sutori

Another 50,000 people were killed in the Second Liberian Civil War, which was characterised by unusual savagery, with the prolific use of child soldiers, mass rape, and grisly tales of cannibalism. Charles Taylor wound up in front of the International Criminal Court in The Hague and was sentenced to 50 years in prison, for his role in the civil wars of both Liberia and neighbouring Sierra Leone. In May 2005, meanwhile, the Liberian Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was set-up to investigate the crimes of the two civil wars, in addition to the preceding atrocities of the Doe regime.

The TRC ultimately produced a report with a slew of recommendations regarding who should be investigated further, who barred from office, who granted amnesty. It was also determined that a war crimes court should be established in Liberia to prosecute the worst offenders. Many of the recommendations on individuals were ignored, including the decision not to bar Ellen Johnson Sirleaf from office, the woman who as head of the transitional government had instructed the formation of the TRC. Prince Johnson, too, back from Nigeria and accused of multiple atrocities was allowed to become a senator.

Senator Prince Johnson is widely believed to have blood on his hands. Source: News Public Trust

No war crimes court was established. But that might be about to change. Earlier this week, Liberia’s lower house of parliament passed a motion to establish such a court. The decision will now be debated and voted upon in the Liberian senate. Whilst civil society groups and many citizens have welcomed the move, others are more reticent, claiming that such a court will open old wounds or undermine the amnesties necessary to ensure Liberia could recover without recriminations.

Many citizens have long caled for a domestic war crimes court. Source: Justice for Journalists

Those in opposition to the war crimes court presumably have something to be worried about. Liberia’s democratic transition has been impressive given its troubled recent history. This is the logical next step and an opportunity to hold to account some of those in power who thought they had escaped the crimes of their past. If the senate sees the motion into law, it offers a new generation of Liberians a chance to bury the past for good and look towards a brighter future in a West African region that has shown an alarming recent trend of democratic backsliding.