[the following is a term paper written for my Intro to Ethics class this semester]
When history books look back at the past century of armed conflict, they will note that the 20th century was the most deadly century in terms of wars and mass deaths. But standing stark amongst the dozens of wars and genocides and ethnic cleansings will be the international failure to act on the part of the Tutsi people of Rwanda in 1994. As the Hutu army swept across the country in premeditated genocide, over 800,000 died and over 1.5 million were displaced to refugee camps. The world stood by watching the events unfold but did nothing until the majority of the violence had already subsided.
