The Rwandan genocide was a genocidal mass slaughter of Tutsi in Rwanda by members of the Hutu majority government. An estimated 500,000 to 1,000,000 Rwandans were killed during the 100-day period from 7 April to mid-July 1994, constituting as many as 70% of the Tutsi population. The genocide and widespread slaughter of Rwandans ended when the Tutsi-backed and heavily armed Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) led by Paul Kagame took control of the country. President Bill Clinton and his cabinet were aware before the height of the massacre that a “final solution to eliminate all Tutsis” was planned, however fear of a repeat of the events in Somalia shaped US policy at the time, with many commentators identifying the graphic consequences of the Battle of Mogadishu as the key reason behind the US’s failure to intervene in the conflict. The Battle of Mogadishu was a humiliating defeat of American forces by Somali militiamen loyal to the self-proclaimed president-to-be Mohamed Farrah Aidid. The operation was intended to last no longer than one hour. The battle resulted in 19 deaths, 73 wounded and one helicopter pilot, Michael Durant captured. Durant was released after 11 days of captivity, after which President Bill Clinton withdrew all US forces from Somalia. American sources estimate between 1,500 and 3,000 Somali casualties, including civilians. Mohamed Farah Aidid was wounded in a subsequent battle with his countrymen and died of complications following surgery in 1996.
On August 30, 2017, the Burmese army carried out systematic killings and rape of several hundred Rohingya Muslims in Tula Toli village in Rakhine State, Burma. In a report released today, Human Rights Watch said, “The Burmese army’s atrocities at Tula Toli were not just brutal, they were systematic. Soldiers carried out killings and rapes of hundreds of Rohingya with a cruel efficiency that could only come with advance planning.” Many villagers told Human Rights Watch that the ethnic Rakhine local chairman had told them to gather at the beach, where he said they would be safe. Security forces then surrounded the area, shooting at the gathered crowd and those attempting to flee. They separated men and women, holding the women and children under guard in shallow water while systematically shooting the men or hacking them to death with knives. Shawfika, 24, who saw her husband and father-in-law killed, said the killings on the beach went on for hours. “They just kept catching men, making them kneel down and killing them. Then they put their bodies on a pile. First they shot them, and if they were still alive they were killed with machetes.… It took them one-and-a-half hours to carry all the bodies.” Survivors described young children being pulled away from their mothers and killed – thrown into fires or the river, or beaten or knifed to death on the ground. Hassina Begum, 20, tried to hide her 1-year-old daughter, Sohaifa, under her headscarf, but a soldier noticed. “He took my daughter from me and threw her alive into the fire,” she said. “What could I do?… He had a knife in his hand and a rifle over his shoulder.”
In September 2016, Aung San Suu Kyi as State Counsellor of Myanmar visited United States and which set a mile stone for the relationship between United States and Myanmar. President Obama lifted the Executive Order-based framework of the Myanmar sanctions while restoring Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) trade benefits to Myanmar. President Trump in his trip to Asia in November, did not say a word about the military campaign against the Rohingya Muslim ethnic minority in Burma, which the United Nations’ top human rights official has called “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing.” While genocide is a crime under international law, UN officials have said what’s happening in Burma is ethnic cleansing, and is not a crime publishable under international law.
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