Clytemestra Miaflor Juan International Political Economy

AB Foreign Service- 302 Mr. Jumel G. Estrañero

Insights about Rwandan Genocide and Its Implication to our Nation’s Security

First Rwanda is a small landlocked country in east-central part of Africa and the home of
two major ethnic groups which is the majority Hutus and the Tutsi. Between 1916 and 1962,
Rwanda was a colony of Belgium. The Belgians considered the Tutsis superior to the Hutus, and
gave the Tutsis more power in society and because of that after the Belgians left, tensions
between the Hutus and Tutsis began to arise. Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle) is the
protagonist in the movie, Paul belongs to Hutu race and a hotel manager that ends up saving
many lives during the genocine. He manages the Hôtel des Mille Collines and lives a happy life
with his Tutsi wife (Sophie Okonedo) and their three children but suddenly when Hutu military
forces initiate a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Tutsi minority, Paul is compelled to
allow refugees to take shelter in his hotel and he has no choice, he then realized that the militia
wont save minority Tutsis thats why he decided to open the hotel for the good of approximately
12,000 of Tutsis minorities. Fortunately after a couple of days they were successfully saved and
pulled out by U.N . However Through watching the story I can really say that the war in
Rwanda was undeniably one of the massive horrendous genocide that happened in the history of
humanity. The boiling argument between the two groups started from April to July 1994,
members of the Hutu ethnic majority in the east-central African nation of Rwanda had murdered
estimatedly 800,000 people and most of it were the Tutsi minority. Since Hotel Rwanda was
based on true story which actually happened before in Africa, we’re able to watch or visualize
how unfortunate the people was during the genocide, of course those people within the domain
were not the only one affected in that severe situation but also even the community’s
infrastructure, businesses or establishments and especially the economy of their region. Honestly
its very heart-rending to watch the movie, mostly those scenes wherein a lots of people had been
massacred, the part when they couldnt find their family members and when they arrived to the
point that they need to decide a tough decision for them to be saved. This Rwandan genocine
caused a severe traumatic experience to those people who are present during the war. It surely
had affected people because of the painful and unforgettable experience of being in a hard and
nerve racking situation wherein they were hearing exchanging shooting of guns, seeing their
helpless fellowmen and family members being slaughtered. Unfortunately, Rwandan war had
mentally,emotionally and physically traumatized those people who had witnessed the tragedy.

Security is indeed important and significant in our state’s political economy. Having a
proper security and legal order are considered essential conditions for sustainable development
and self-reliance for our countries stability, The government believes that through working on a
effective security is an intelligent investment. We know for a fact that conflicts will affect the
development of our country’s economy and through occuring of threats such as terrorism,
piracy, trafficking in drugs, weapons and women, and illegal immigration will lead us to become
weak and unstable. Thats why we must pay attention in making our security more effective and
enough to fight these symptoms. We must realize that economic development is impossible to
achieve if no security in our government is present. In the case of Asia Pacific, they had an
assesment last year and this Asia-Pacific Regional Security Assessment 2017 focuses on four
centrally important groups of regional security themes relevant to the policy-focused discussions
about the evolving roles of the United States and China in Asia-Pacific security, responses by the
US and regional states to regional security tensions particularly in the South China Sea, emerging
security questions relating to nuclear weapons, missiles and military cyber capabilitiesand the
prospects for regional security cooperation. For me, it is vitally important to promote the
establishment of treaties and agreements of peace and security in the Asia-Pacific region because
it facilitate the creation of a mechanism that would definitely settle disputes among nations by
peaceful means. The establishment, with the involvement of the major countries, of regional
organizations entrusted with the task of resolving conflicts and disputes through political means
must become a key instrument for insurin peace and security and building up mutual trust.

I personally believed that peace must occured first before a country starts to develop
because peacebuilding will lead us in enabling of development, security, social and economic
justice, and reconciliation. And these three are the urgent reasons why investing in peacebuilding
and conflict prevention should be a high and central priority of a country. I believe our current
president has really doing a great job in terms of maintaining peace. Majority of us know that he
is seriously focused on the “War on drugs” and that is because he strongly believe that the use of
prohibited drugs were the one to blame of the occuring of criminality in our country and the
abolishment of illegal drugs will result to peaceful society. I’ve noticed through watching some
news that our country’s criminal rate decreased compared to before Duterte’s administration and
also because of him the chance for peace is possible. His open line and tolerance for NPA and
muslims may give chance for a peaceful resolution to the war with the NPAs and Muslims.
Duterte is well respected by the army, NPA, also with the muslims.

I personally recommended that in order for us to avoid such traumatic and tragic incident
like what happened in Rwanda war, we Filipinos must tolerate each others differences so that
peace, unity and harmony will follow and also learn respecting and valuing each others race. All
of us must possess nationalism and be a disciplined citizen towards our beloved country. We
must always aim for the betterment of our society and this could possibly be achievable through
strenghtening our nation’s securiy that will protect us from invaders and terrorists attack but the
most important thing is to start within ourselves. I believe that the success and development of
our country will always starts with its own people, us the citizen of our country.