Sociology

Genocide has been associated with such countries as Rwanda in 1994 where the mass killings of thousands of Tutsis and Hutus were performed by Rwandan Government bodies and paramilitary rebels following the assassination of President Habyarimana and also during World War II where Jews were slaughtered by the Nazis. Genocide has displayed lack of human rights. Brysks lecture on Defining Human Rights describes the rights of a person as Life, Liberty and Integrity (4). This paper aims to give the causes and characteristics of genocide, the advantages and limitations of an intervention, options for an international intervention and the course of action to be taken.

In Lemkins own words, the key component to the calculus of genocide was the criminal intent to cripple or destroy a human group permanently. The acts seem to be aimed at groups and individuals who are selected for destruction for belonging to these supposed groups (quoted in Andreopoulos 1). According to Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide established in 1948, genocide means any of the following acts in whole or in part to a national, ethnical, racial or a religious group

Killing the members of that group.
Inflicting serious bodily or mental harm to the members.
Intentionally inflict on the conditions of life of the group calculated to cause physical destruction of the group.

Enforcing measures that will prevent birth within the group.
Use of force to transfer children of the group to another group (Andreopoulos 230).
In the Darfur region of Sudan, the present ethnic violence sparked as a result of several factors. Totten and Markusen historically link this to ethnic tensions in the area between farmers and herdsmen and Africans and Arabs. They had been latent and volatile but increased in severity due to long standing competition for pasture, agricultural land and water, and ordinary issues that easily turned verbal disputes into violence. They also note that in the 1990s, Darfur was short in water but awash in guns (6). By October 2002, the Janjaweed began their ethnic cleansing by sweeping down on a village just before dawn killing men often by mutilating them, raping women and abducting children. In addition, they burnt the villages, seized livestock and methodically destroyed infrastructure as a scheme for driving out the African population and clearing the land for Arab colonization.

Advantages of International Intervention
Various attempts have been carried out to address the issue of genocide in the form of intervention such as engaging in debates, writing of books and a number of proposals have been put forth describing how and why it happens and how it should be stopped by academic and well known journalists. There are several advantages that have been created by this

Totten and others posit that the late scholar Kuper made comments that challenged the United Nations and they remain relevant today, meaning that many people today are motivated to be the voice of those affected by genocide. Kuper asserted that the United Nations response to genocide was negative in comparison to its performance regarding charges of political mass murder (Totten, et al. 9).

Collective protest of genocidal actions has a high possibility of bearing a positive outcome as compared to protests done by an individual. Totten et.al point out that today, a number of non-governmental organizations are working towards protection of international human rights. They further assert that the key way for these organizations to influence many people is to form groups and supplement each others strengths and act as a single body (9).

Educating on genocide can be a positive step towards preventing the vice in future. For instance, if students are made aware of the causes and ramifications of this issue, they will act morally and not end up taking part in massive killings. The aim is to create awareness of holocaust and genocide as events in human culture so as to dissuade people from engaging themselves in acts of violence.

The Limitations to International Intervention
The intervention process on the issue of genocide has also been known to have several limitations
The organizations that have chosen to take part in the fight against the vice have stumbled into a few problems whereby they constantly struggle to stay in existence but do not have the resources to aid their campaign against the ugly monster that is genocide. According to Totten, et al, these organizations struggle to maintain their existence in large part due to the limited resources at their disposal and as a result, both the focus of their efforts and influences become limited (9).

Another reason for the limited struggle to intervene on the issue of genocide is the fact that most people are shifting their attention in a different direction and therefore this heads towards making the fight to stop it fruitless. Totten et al. explain that As it now stands, most people and organizations dealing with the issue of genocide are putting more time into working on the scholarly examination of genocide (including the issues of prevention and intervention) than the actual prevention of or intervention in genocide (9).

The role of the U.S. on this issue and what should be done
The U.S., being the lone superpower in the post-cold war era has the influence to intervene and address the genocide issue by taking it to a new level. Since it has influenced many other issues in the world, it could be an important tool in protecting international human rights. Therefore, in regards to this situation the following issues should be put into consideration

Mobilization of public awareness and vigilance so as to prevent any recurrence of genocide in the future.

As a measure of further safeguarding, the public should be made aware at an international level so as to enforce the responsibility of everyone in the world based on the information that it is illegal to obey a superior law that violates the rights of a human being.

Challenging the political leaders to take action against the ones who take part in genocide and take measures to stop their influence on people who are likely to take part in genocide.

Enforce economic sanctions in the countries taking part in genocide as a measure that will force the perpetrators to stop the act.

Provision of humanitarian aid to the countries that have been highly affected by the issue of genocide in order to help them recover from the trauma.

In conclusion, even though someone living in the same country is of a different race and skin color or accent, they have their own rights. In Brysks lecture on The rights of a man and the citizen, she refers to the French Revolution idea of human rights in which she extends the bleak idea of citizenship to Liberty which is equated to civil rights, Equality which is equated to social rights and Fraternity which is equated to Solidarity.   Every life has to be preserved and properly protected as we are all one under God.