[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 90 (Tuesday, June 26, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6916-S6917]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            SOUTH DAKOTA NATIONAL PEACE ESSAY CONTEST WINNER

  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, I am honored today to present to my 
colleagues in the Senate an essay by Austin Lammers of Hermosa, SD. 
Austin is a student at St. Thomas More High School and he is the 
National Peace Essay Contest winner for South Dakota.
  I ask unanimous consent that the essay be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the essay was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                           Failure in Africa

       Imagine how horrible living in a third world country would 
     be during a giant civil war, and the people that are supposed 
     to help allow death, famine and increased war. Death and war 
     is precisely what has happened in this past decade in the 
     warring countries of Somalia and Rwanda. Outsiders, such as 
     the United Nations, can occasionally help in violent civil 
     outbreaks but they are not consistent and rarely make the 
     situation much better. Third parties should not interfere in 
     civil conflicts unless they are well prepared, respond 
     quickly, and benefit the country they are interfering.
       Drought and famine has been the reason for civil war in 
     Somalia since 1969, but the most recent civil war erupted 
     between rebel and governmental forces in 1991 (Fox 90). The 
     rebel forces seized Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, and 
     forced President Siad Barre to flee the country (Potter 12). 
     The takeover which destroyed the economy also began a famine 
     for about 4.5 million people who were faced with starvation, 
     malnutrition, and related diseases (Johnston 5). The UN 
     wanted to intervene; but according to the Charter, the UN can 
     only act to stop war between nations, not civil war within a 
     single country (Potter 26). Therefore, in December 1992 UN 
     Secretary General, Butros-Ghali, passed Resolution 794 that 
     permitted the UN to secure Somalia (Potter 27).
       Following Resolution 794 the UN began the United Nations 
     Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM) which monitored the new cease-
     fire between the rebels and the government forces while 
     delivering humanitarian aid (Johnston 28). The cease-fire did 
     not last long, and soon the sides were fighting again, but 
     this time with UN peacekeepers caught in the middle (Benton 
     129). As the fighting grew worse, the UN soon abandoned 
     UNOSOM (Johnston 29). A U.S. led force; the Unified Task 
     Force (UNITAF) to make a safe environment for delivery of 
     humanitarian aid replaced UNOSOM (Benton 133). In May 1993, 
     UNOSOM II replaced UNITAF; but only starvation was relieved, 
     there was still governmental unrest (Benton 136).
       The U.S. decided to leave Somalia when on October 3, 1993, 
     a Somalia rebel group shot down a U.S. helicopter, killing 
     eighteen American soldiers (Fox 19). the U.S. was evacuated 
     by 1994, and by 1995 all UN forces had left (Fox 22).
       After the abandonment by UN in 1995, the new police force 
     created by the UN committed numerous human rights abuses 
     (Potter 17). Also bad weather, pests, and the UN ban on the 
     export of livestock to the U.S. and Saudi Arabia have 
     worsened the economy in Somalia (Johnston 56). The drop in 
     economy has caused lowered employment and increased 
     starvation (Johnston 60).
       The UN should not have intervened in Somalia, but rather 
     let Somalia deal with their own internal problems. While the 
     UN was in Somalia, they made the war bigger and thus causing 
     more starvation. After the UN was

[[Page S6917]]

     removed, the police force abused citizens, and their economy 
     went crashing further down (Potter 30).
       The United Nations should have learned from their mistakes 
     in Somalia, but instead ignored what had happened and tried 
     to help the civil war in Rwanda during 1994. Rwanda's 
     population is approximately 88% Hutu and 11% Tutsi. The two 
     groups have had bad relations since that 15th century when 
     the Hutus were forced to serve the Tutsi lords in return for 
     Tutsi cattle (Brown 50). Since the 15th century, a number of 
     civil disputes have begun between the Hutus and the Tutsis 
     (Brown 51). The latest civil war has resulted in mass 
     genocide (Prunier 38).
       The latest civil war in Rwanda started on April 6, 1994, 
     when the plane carrying Rwandan President Habyarimana and the 
     President of Burundi was shot down near Kigali (Freeman 22). 
     That same day the genocide began, first killing the Prime 
     Minister and her ten bodyguards, then all Tutsi's and 
     political moderates (Freeman 27). This genocide, which has 
     been compared to the Holocaust, lasted from April 6 until the 
     beginning of July (Prunier 57). The Interahamwe militia 
     consisting of radical Hutus, started the genocide killing up 
     to one million Tutsis and political moderates, bragging that 
     in twenty minutes they could kill 1,000 Tutsis (Bronwyn 4). 
     However, militia was not the only faction to lead the 
     genocide. A local Rwandan radio broadcast told ordinary 
     citizens to ``Take your spear, guns, clubs, swords, stones, 
     everything--hack them, those enemies, those cockroaches, 
     those enemies of democracy'' (Bronwyn 13).
       The United Nations was in Rwanda before and during the mass 
     genocide, but did not stop the killings or even send more 
     troops (Benton 67). In 1993, the United Nations Assistance 
     Mission to Rwanda, UNAMIR, oversaw the transition from an 
     overrun government to a multiparty democracy (Benton 74). As 
     the genocide broke out in 1994, the UN began to panic; and on 
     April 21, just days after the genocide started, the UN 
     withdrew all but 270 of the 2,500 soldiers (Freeman 44). When 
     the UN saw the gradual increase of the genocide they agreed 
     to send 5,000 troops, but those troops were never deployed 
     due to UN disagreements (Freeman 45). UNAMIR finally withdrew 
     in March 1996, accomplishing almost nothing (Prunier 145). 
     Jean Paul Biramvu, a survivor of the massacre, commented on 
     the UN help saying, ``We wonder what UNAMIR was doing in 
     Rwanda. They could not even lift a finger to intervene and 
     prevent the deaths of tens of thousands of people who were 
     being killed under their very noses . . . the UN protects no 
     one'' (Freeman 46).
       Again, just as in Somalia, the United Nations failed to 
     bring peace in a civil war. Not only did the UN do almost 
     nothing to stop the genocide, they also knew that there was a 
     plan to start the genocide before it even happened (Bronwyn 
     12). On December 16, 1999, a press conference about the 
     genocide brought to light new information that the United 
     Nations had accurate knowledge of a plan to start a genocide, 
     three months before the killings occurred (Bronwyn 13). The 
     UN had ample time to stop a large-scale slaughter of almost a 
     million innocent people, and did not even send more troops 
     that could have prevented the deaths of thousands of Tutsis 
     (Bronwyn 13). Two reasons for the reluctance to do anything 
     in Rwanda was that Rwanda was not of national interest to any 
     major powers, and since the problems in Somalia, the UN did 
     not want to risk being hurt again (Bronwyn 18). The United 
     Nations work in Rwanda is a pathetic example of how peace 
     missions should work.
       The United Nations and other international communities can 
     intervene and help prevent violent civil conflicts in many 
     ways. The first way to improve intervention is that the 
     International Community needs to keep a consistent stand on 
     how to protect victims in civil disputes. The most important 
     step to take when war is apparent is to protect people's 
     lives.
       Second, the International Community should establish a 
     center that informs them of any early signs of war using 
     human right monitors to decide if conditions might worsen. 
     The genocide in Rwanda would have been prevented if the UN 
     notices early signs of war, and listens to reports of a 
     genocide.
       Third, make better the criminal court for genocide, war 
     crimes, and other human right infractions so the criminals 
     are punished right away with a sentence that fits the crime. 
     Many times people who commit war crimes are not punished, or 
     do not get a harsh enough sentence.
       Fourth, violent methods by the International community may 
     only be used after non-violent methods have failed, and the 
     government is unwilling to help. The UN in Somalia tried to 
     use military force immediately instead of trying to use non-
     military force when war broke out and they were in the middle 
     (Benton 107).
       Fifth, International Communities need to have stand-by 
     troops ready when a war is apparent, and impress on the 
     warring country that if more problems arise, more troops will 
     be sent in to stop the war. The UN did have troops ready in 
     case of war, but when the war did break out in Somalia, they 
     did not send more troops to secure the situation (Fox 28).
       Sixth, every country, no matter how much power or relevence 
     in the world, needs to be helped equally. The United Nations 
     during the Rwandan genocide did not worry about helping the 
     victims because Rwanda did not have much international power 
     in the world such as valuable exports or strong economies. 
     The UN cannot be worried how they will benefit but rather how 
     the country warring will benefit (Bronwyn 18).
       Third parties such as the United Nations are not consistent 
     in their fight to keep peace in civil conflicts, especially 
     conflicts that have been going on for hundreds of years. In 
     some instance, such as Somalia and Rwanda, the UN hurt the 
     people more than they helped by causing death and famine. The 
     International community needs to come together and create new 
     policies that help the countries that they are trying to keep 
     peace instead of hurting them and sending them deeper into 
     war.


                              Works Cited

       Adcock, Bronwyn. The UN & Rwanda: Abandoned to Genocide? 
     Background Briefing, 21 February 1999. 20 December 2000. 
     http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/bbing/stories/s19237.htm
       Benton, Barbara. Soldiers For Peace: Fifty Years of United 
     Nations Peacekeeping. New York, NY: Facts on File, 1996.
       Brown, Laurie, et al. Failure in Rwanda. Chicago, IL; John 
     Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1995.
       Fox, Mary V. Enchantment of the World: Somalia. New York, 
     NY: Children's Press, 1996.
       Freeman, Charles. New Perspectives. Crisis in Rwanda. 
     Austin, TX: Raintree Steck-Vaughn, 1999.
       Johnston, Peter. Blue Helmets: A Review of United Nations 
     Peacekeeping. New York, NY: McGraw Hill, 1998.
       Potter, Evan. UN Intervention in Somalia. Toronto, Canada: 
     Prentice Hall, 1996.
       Prunier, Gerard. The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide. 
     New York, NY: Columbia University, 1999.

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