United nations all bark and no bite

Running head: UNITED NATIONS FAILUREUnited Nations Failure: All Bark and No BiteNameInstitutionInstructor`s NameCourse United Nations All Bark and No Bite The United Nations has the mandate to save generations from the afflictions of war and to endorse hope in human rights, and the establishment of conditions in which respect and justice arising from treaties of international law is maintained. The UN is responsible for ensuring that nations adhere and maintain international norms and standards spelt out in the 550 treaties that cover issues like human rights, refugees, environment and disarmament (Evans & Sahnoun, 2002). Despite the mandate of the UN, the society has failed to follow its principles of non-intervention, sovereignty and the principle of not using of force. There are many instances that the UN has failed in protecting people from genocides, mistreatment and the realization of their basic human rights. This paper seeks to prove that the UN has not met its mandate as it purports. This failure is best described through the massacred of refugees of the 1996 and 1997 war in Congo. This war presents the perfect example of the gap between the definition of international and the application of these laws as sovereign states are supposed to assist helpless people (Emizet, 2000). The UN having been aware of the civil war in Rwanda-Burundi and the turmoil in neighboring countries would have immediately prevented the massacre of the hundreds of thousands of people. This massacre would have been prevented given the fact that there was a history of genocide in the region and an earlier 1994 ethnic cleansing in Rwanda. The genocide of 1996-1997 has its roots in 1990 when the Rwandan Patriotic Front, which was a Tutsi political and military movement which operated in Uganda was defeated by the Rwandan army backed by Mobutu`s troops (Khan, 2000). This marked the beginning of a decade long war in this region. Moreover given the deep rooted ethnicity of the region, it is expected that the UN would have foreseen the lack of security for Rwandan refugees in the region.This wide gap between paper and action would have been prevented if the UN followed article 2 of the genocide convection, which states "genocide is committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group" (Emizet, 2000). Therefore, by definition it is evident that there is a clear definition of what the UN defines as the necessary conditions for genocide. This situation was definitely brewing at the boarders of Rwanda and Congo, following the 1994 ethnic cleansings in Rwanda. Clearly, the 1996-1997 Congo massacres were an after math of the Rwanda-Burundi genocide (Planck, 2000). As Rwandan troops killed Tutsis as the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) aggressively attacked the government (Emizet, 2000). The height of the crisis occurred on between April and June of 1994, as between 200,000 and one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were massacred. Within the two months the RPF had taken over Kigali and the entire country forcing between 1.72 and 2.1 million Hutu refuges to free to Congo, Burundi, Uganda and Tanzania (Khan, 2000). Among those that freed, it was estimated that 30,000 to 40,000 of them were Impuzamugambi and Interahamwe militia and 20,000 to 25,000 Rwandese soldiers who had caused the genocide in Rwanda (Emizet, 2000). Therefore, if further wars and deaths were to be stopped there was a need to protect freeing refugees from further conflict and ethnic cleansing amongst themselves.Of importance is the fact that the refugees were not safe given the interconnection of political strains and ethnic relations between the North and South provinces of Kivu of Congo (Emizet, 2000). The two provinces were the origins of the Hutus and were the subjects of decades of political and ethnic strive for land between the north and south. Moreover, the region was founded on strong traditional and ethnic lines that were heightened by Mobutu`s divide and rule game along ethnic lines, which he used against the two provinces (Emizet, 2000). Therefore, given this history, Hutu refugees freeing to the south of Congo were not any safe than back home. This situation the UN failed to act upon or refused to see on time and led to the eventual massacre of Hutu refugees in Congo in 1996-1997 (Khan, 2000). In this case the UN failed to respond to the crisis in this region according to UN article 39, the Security Council must determine if there is "threat to the peace," "breach of the peace" or "act of aggression" then by article 41, "to impose diplomatic and economic sanctions" and article 42 "to impose military sanctions" (Arend, 2003; Evans & Sahnoun, 2002).Unfortunately, the indifference by the UN was not only seen with Rwanda, but was also later evident by its ignorance of the Kosovo war. There was strong evidence of the presence of violence and atrocities between the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and the Serbs months before the war broke out. This arose from the fight for independence by the KLA for Yugoslavia while the Serbs made an attempt to put up an armed resistance (Arend, 2003). However, in1998`s autumn and 1999`s spring, there were several attacks by the KLA and resistances by Serbs. The failure of the UN to respond to this crisis is strongly backed by statements made by the then Secretary General, Kofi Annan following the Srebrenica report on this war, who stated "in an institutional context usually given to self-serving justification, hypocrisy and therefore a habit of cynicism which pervades and undermines the whole idea of maintaining peace" (Khan, 2000). This statement showed the paring away of UN member states from the immediate reaction to the impending tragedy with excuses. The member states had ignored the rooming danger given the fact that president Milosevic had refused to sign an agreement to which the returning Kosovo Albanians would live in peace among the Serbs (Arend, 2003). The aim of the K...