The Moral Obligation to Intervene in Rwanda

Abstract

On April 6, 1994, violence erupted in the Rwandan capital of Kigali and quickly spread throughout much of the country. During the 100 days that followed, an estimated 800,000 children, women, and men were slaughtered by their fellow citizens. The victims were sought out and killed because they were Tutsi or Tutsi sympathizers. As Clea Koff has noted, and perhaps most startling given the magnitude and unprecedented speed with which the killing was carried out, the death toll was not the result of the efficiency of violence made possible by modern weaponry; rather, the implements of the Rwandan genocide were clubs and machetes wielded by citizens and neighbors.[1]