This year marks 20 years since the Rwandan genocide -- the world's greatest humanitarian tragedy of the late 20th century. The international community had pledged 'never again' in the aftermath of the genocide in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda in the 1990s. Yet, we are witnessing today a different type of humanitarian disaster unfolding in Syria and Iraq.
It was commonplace to hear it said, after the Bosnian genocide kicked off in 1992 and the Rwandan genocide erupted in 1994 and the Darfur genocide began in 2003, that the 'international community' had learned nothing since the Holocaust.
Nearly 60 years ago, the international community made a commitment to put an end to the crime of genocide by ratifying the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
In Rwanda that genocide happened because the international community and the Security Council refused to give, again, another 5000 troops which would have cost, I don't know, maybe fifty, a hundred, million dollars.
I think the only value of 'Hotel Rwanda' is the fact that it keeps the Rwandan genocide alive, but as far as content, it's Hollywood.
A genocide in Africa has not received the same attention that genocide in Europe or genocide in Turkey or genocide in other part of the world. There is still this kind of basic discrimination against the African people and the African problems.
The 20th century taught us how far unbridled evil can and will go when the world fails to confront it. It is time that we heed the lessons of the 20th century and stand up to these murderers. It is time that we end genocide in the 21st century.
Syria has become the great tragedy of this century - a disgraceful humanitarian calamity with suffering and displacement unparalleled in recent history.
Rwanda can be a paradise again, but it will take the love of the entire world to heal my homeland. And that's as it should be, for what happened in Rwanda happened to us all - humanity was wounded by the genocide.
If the Obama regime gave a hoot about 'humanitarian crisis,' the Obama regime would not have orchestrated humanitarian crisis in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Yemen.
[Hillary Clinton] was saying, "We never going to do anything in Iraq, we're not going to do anything in Syria." Enemies, do whatever you want. Continue the largest humanitarian crisis, 7 million people displaced refugees. Do all this. We're not going to do anything. That is the type of stuff that is been happening for the past 7 1/2 years under President [Barack] Obama.
The story of U.S. policy during the genocide in Rwanda is not a story of willful complicity with evil. U.S. officials did not sit around and conspire to allow genocide to happen.
Syria is a civil war. Syria began as a popular uprising, just like the other experiences in the Arab Spring, with a repressive government that responded by basically killing the protesters. It's not a genocide, it's a war, and there's a difference. Genocide is a preplanned attack on people because of who they are. This is a interstate conflict.
In the case of non-signatory states like Syria and Iraq, the U.N. Security Council is mandated with enforcement of the International Criminal Court's jurisdictions in matters of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
We're living in an age of genocide. ...And we do believe that there is not only the genocide of war, and the genocide that took place with the extermination of the Jews, but the whole program....of birth control and abortion is another form of genocide.... [T]hey claim the poor are bringing forth tremendous numbers of children and so the solution is to kill them off.
The principal cause of suffering during humanitarian crises is insufficient respect of applicable rules of international humanitarian law.
Given the scale of trauma caused by the genocide, Rwanda has indicated that however thin the hope of a community can be, a hero always emerges. Although no one can dare claim that it is now a perfect state, and that no more work is needed, Rwanda has risen from the ashes as a model or truth and reconciliation.