editing of review. To: Professordebar

Genocide in Rwanda: Leadership, ethics and organizational ‘failure’ in a post-colonial context.

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The tragic events experienced within Rwanda in the course of 1994 may easily be viewed as occurrences which are considerably beyond an organizational analysis approach. In addition, they can be treated as not appropriate to be subjected to the apparent mundane organizational processes, as well as, structures analysis. In spite of the aforementioned diverse views, it is outright that the genocide was not only well organized but it also relied on structured government, militia in addition to police forces (Klinghoffer 1998). Moreover, it can be established that the genocide managed to proceed within such a drastic pace mainly due to organizational failure. The aspect of the failure of organization can be specifically blamed on the United Nations, an institution which is considered as part of the largest ones within the world. Therefore, the Rwandan genocide ingredients are mainly about organizational analysis along with dealing with principal issues, for instance, ethics, globalization, as well as, organizational structure along with culture (Adelman 2003).

Since the occurrence of the said genocide, renowned international leaders such as General Romeo Dallaire have come out clearly blaming themselves for their poor leadership skills. General Dallaire actually confessed that due to his poor leadership skills, he did not manage to succeed in convincing the United Nations, along with its DPKO (Department of Peacekeeping Operations) about the callousness of the situation. However, it is outright from his lamentations that he thinks that more blame should be put on the United Nations about the manner in which they tackled the Rwandan case (Raufflet & Mills 2009). General Dallaire goes on further to articulate that even though he was well trained on the political along with humanitarian basic skills required in that particular job, the established UN’s rules along with regulations were so stringent that they did not allow him to utilize his military skills. Besides, the troops whom he was supposed to command were completely commanded by their nations of origin. In that regard, the general hands were tied as the troops could openly refuse to take his commands if there capitals of origin felt that they were uncalled for. The general made the recommendation that that UN’s organizational structure requires to undergo renaissance. It is such a renaissance that will make UN not restricted to its secretariat, bureaucrats along with administration and instead encompassing the member states. Nevertheless, it will also be necessary for the member states to not only rethink their roles but also make a recommitment to the renewal of purpose. Without putting in place the aforementioned measures, General Dallaire believes that the humanity age will come to an end while the UN will continue to sink into irrelevance (Raufflet & Mills 2009).

Other organizations which have been formed after the post colonial period such as the African Union (then termed as Organization of Africa Union) also failed miserably. It was absurd that with all its machinery it could bring to an end the Rwandan genocide. This was mainly due to the fact that some of its leaders had taken sides with the conflicting parties. It is also during the Rwandan genocide that world superpowers such as the United States demonstrated poor leadership ethics. It is unfortunate that the U.S government offered military training to one of the Tutsi leaders, Paul Kagame. Such an action is enough evidence that the U.S administration had been aligned to the Tutsi interests which was quite unethical.

It is apparent that during the emergence of the genocide, there was lack of the practice of leadership ethics by the crop of Rwandan leaders who were in power. It is outright that most genocides are brought about by poor leadership ethics due to the dependence on ethnically based support for the purposes of getting into power (Long et al 4.4). The drawing of ethnical lines within any nation leads to ethnic conflict which once left unchecked results to genocide. In that regard, it is of great essence to formulate consistent theory which accounts for all the features, causes in addition to prevalence of the ethnic conflict warfare category as its debates continues to expand. It does not come as a surprise that, many descriptions of ethnic conflict as a term, with some opposing each other, have been brought up. Consequently, many tend to question the idea whether ethnic warfare is existent or ought to be simply utilized as a concept through which an analysis of conflict is carried out. The reasons are quite clear why some scholars such as Gilley argue so unwaveringly in the opposition of the ethnic conflict concept by alleging that it is simply a political or social misunderstanding between either two or more groups that are identified by certain marker of their ethnic identity. Just making recognition of the involvement of any the ethnic groups is a baseless procedure of defining “ethnic conflict”. This is due to the fact that it does not address the ethnicity impact on the causes along with dimensions of the conflict. Moreover, the capability to identify the conflict actors by a certain ethnicity standard does not imply that the conflicting parties have partnered in that same marker. In the case of Rwanda, ethnicity established itself the course of the colonial period (Adelman 2003).

Nonetheless, in the course of the post colonial period, ethnicity was still prevalent in Rwanda. National leader instead of unifying the citizens as residents of the same nation, they continued to exercise divisive politics which were basically based on the tribal lines. The impact of ethnicity was first felt in 1973, when Rwanda witnessed a major political overthrow. The significance of the said event was that it illustrated that ethnicity boundaries were present within the country (Uvin 1997). To make matters worse, the RPF (Rwanda Patriotic Front) comprise mainly of Tutsi who had previously lived in exile upon escaping from the revolution which to place within the years of 1959 to 1963. Even though Rwanda was relatively a violent country after the 1959 Hutu revolution, the 1990 attack made by the RPF was the one which actually marked the commencement of the civil war which ultimately resulted to the genocide. The conflicting parties were actually the Hutu dominated government along with Tutsi dominated rebels which is an indication of the manner in which poor leadership ethics based on tribal grounds can bring about grave effects (Flyvbjerg 2001).

The Rwandan Genocide can also be attributed to poor organization structures of the country’s government system. Various scholars have come to the consensus that in spite of the 1959 revolution, the Tutsi were still the ones who enjoyed most of the country’s wealth, as well as, a higher status within the society at the expense of the Hutu (Rittner, Roth & Whitworth 2004). This means that the Hutu were mostly neglected by the ruling authorities thereby ended up languishing in poverty. Poverty made the Hutu believe that the only way to gain dominance within the government was by waging war with their Tutsi counterparts (Raufflet & Mills 2009).

The Rwandan genocide does not only put into question the leadership of political leaders during this post colonial period, but also the Christian leadership in Africa. The holocaust actually underlines the artificiality of the Christianity found within Africa (Howard-Hassmann 2005). This should not be viewed as condemnation but as a matter which concerns the fair evaluation of conscience. It is relatively evident that the church leadership has failed to advocate for conscience within the African societies. Nonetheless, the questioning of the church leadership does not imply that Christianity has the potential of automatically overcoming the human beings’ sinful nature (Kuperman 2001). However, an observation can be made that several churches have failed to develop even a minimal awareness of encouraging social justice. This situation has been brought about by the verity that most church leaders do relatively little in the promotion of integral human development that involves awareness in human rights, social justice, political responsibility, as well as, common good (Uvin 1997). The nature of religious knowledge spread in Africa apparently emphasizes and remains limited with the doctrinal disputes, as well as, religious competition framework (Spalding 2009).

References

Adelman, H. 2003. Review Article: Bystanders to Genocide in Rwanda. The International History Review, 25(2), 357-374. Accessed from

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07075332.2003.9641000#.UuBfD_tRXGg.

Long, B. S., Grant, J., Mills, A. J., Rudderham-Gaudet, E., & Warren, A. 4.4. Genocide in Rwanda: leadership, ethics and organizational ‘failure’in a post-colonial context. Accessed from http://www.greenleaf-publishing.com/productlist.kmod?page=71&producttypes=&categoryid=&composite=&author=&isbn=&title=&keyword.

Raufflet, E. B., & Mills, A. J. 2009. The dark side: Critical cases on the downside of business. Sheffield, UK: Greenleaf. Accessed from http://books.google.co.ke/books?id=vjOCPgAACAAJ&dq=Genocide+in+Rwanda:+Leadership,+ethics+and+organizational+%E2%80%98failure%E2%80%99+in+a+post-colonial+context.&hl=en&sa=X&ei=qVvgUqeKHYa-0QWovoGIBg&redir_esc=y.

Uvin, P. 1997. Prejudice, crisis, and genocide in Rwanda. African Studies Review, 40(2), 91-115.

Accessed from http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/525158?uid=3738336&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21103316539257.

Howard-Hassmann, R. E. (2005). Genocide and state-induced famine: Global ethics and western responsibility for mass atrocities in Africa. Perspectives on Global Development and Technology, 4(3-4), 487-516. Accessed from http://link.springer.com/

Flyvbjerg, B. 2001. Making social science matter: Why social inquiry fails and how it can count again. Cambridge [u.a.: Cambridge Univ. Press. Accessed from http://books.google.co.ke/books?id=yVBXPf50EV0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=Genocide+in+Rwanda:+Leadership,+ethics+and+organizational+%E2%80%98failure%E2%80%99+in+a+post-colonial+context.&hl=en&sa=X&ei=qVvgUqeKHYa-0QWovoGIBg&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false .

Klinghoffer, A. J. (1998). The international dimension of genocide in Rwanda. Macmillan. Accessed from http://www.getcited.org/pub/100326956.

Kuperman, A. J. (2001). The limits of humanitarian intervention: Genocide in Rwanda. Brookings Institution Press. Acessed from http://books.google.co.ke/books?hl=en&lr=&id=YPEAwx9fG1QC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=Genocide+in+Rwanda:+&ots=soWAv0deBN&sig=qtLtbyb5WEwDwMpA32BI5VoDLIg&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Genocide%20in%20Rwanda%3A&f=false.

Spalding, F. (2009). Genocide in Rwanda. New York, NY: Rosen Pub. Accessed from http://books.google.co.ke/books?id=rsgsy5ba28UC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Genocide+in+Rwanda:&hl=en&sa=X&ei=72DgUvTuN8mi0QWdz4CYCg&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Genocide%20in%20Rwanda%3A&f=false.

Rittner, C., Roth, J. K., & Whitworth, W. (2004). Genocide in Rwanda: Complicity of the churches?. Newark, Notts., U.K: Aegis. Accessed from http://books.google.co.ke/books?id=RD9yAAAAMAAJ&q=Genocide+in+Rwanda:&dq=Genocide+in+Rwanda:&hl=en&sa=X&ei=72DgUvTuN8mi0QWdz4CYCg&redir_esc=y.