The following work represents the importance of leadership in the Rwanda Genocide of 1994

and the many factors that lead to the tragedy. This literature demonstrates the history and

tribal relationship of Hutus and Tutsis leading to the Genocide in 1994 and most importantly

why international intervention could not prevent the mass murder of 800,000 people.

Prior to the genocide, Rwanda was under extended period of colonial dominance by the

Belgium. During that time a powerful group of Roman Catholic missionaries was obsessed with

the notions of race. Under colonial ruling, "race" became the control determinant of power; as

a consequence, "race" became a symbol of oppression (Straus 2013). Deeply rooted in Rwanda,

Hutus were unhappy with the differential treatment under the colonial ruling that Tutsis were

privileged over Hutus. After Rwanda was granted independence, Hutus were in control of

Rwanda. Hutus revoked all privileges that Tutsis entitled and latter pogroms were launched

against the Tutsis. Tutsis formed a guerilla army called the Rwanda Patriotic Front. RPF started

invading Rwanda creating a wide spread of violence. A peace agreement came by and the RPF

and the Rwandan government sign the peace agreement and it was agreed that UN(United

Nation) will monitor the peace agreement and prevent further bloodshed that will put the

peace agreement at risk.

The focus of this analysis would be General Romeo Dallaire who was the Force Commander for

United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR). Dallaire was hammered with a great

deal of resistance along the way. In the beginning he was sent to conduct assessment of the

situation in order to make recommendations for the mission. Dallaire knew that he had a tight

timeline to follow. Following his assessment, he was required to recommend the amount of

troops that should be deployed. From his findings He had his expectations and he knew to

himself that recommending a chapter seven which is sending a full force to invade Rwanda and

enforce peace would not be accepted by UN. Ultimately he recommended 2,500 troops for the

mission knowing ideally 5,500 troops were required. Dallaire expectations were one of the

failures in preventing the genocide. Merriam-Webster dictionary define expectation as a belief

that something will happen or is likely to happen. Expectations are things that are volatile and

things kept changing. This is one of his mistakes as a leader that he would haunt him later. He

did not have any contingency plan and as a leader he lacks foresight. Dallaire was acting too

fast, executing too fast. Although time was an important concern but the amount of troops

played a vital role in this genocide.

The presence of this peacekeeping force is crucial in Rwanda, Dallaire decided to hold a flag-

raising ceremony. The flag-raising ceremony serves as a symbolic ceremony to remind Rwanda

the urgency of the peace process. We can identify Dallaire’s adaptive leadership quality as he

could have used other methods to show UN’s presence. But flag-raising ceremony is executed

with utmost respect and commonly practiced throughout the world. People can sense the

seriousness of flag-raising and it signals identity especially on environment where

communication is challenging.

Issuance of power is something we should looked into in this review. Although Dallaire is the

force commander for the peacekeeping operation, he has very little power to make decisions.

Weber defined power as the chance of a person of number of persons to realize their own will

in a communal action, even against the resistance of others (Weber 1948). It is not possible for

power to be exercised without knowledge it is impossible for knowledge not to engender

power (Foucault 1980). The incident where Dallaire discovered the weapon caches, he

recommended to the head of mission, Booh-Booh to search and seize the weapons. Booh-Booh

denied his request. After Dallaire received a tipped off that the weapons will be used for the

mass murder of Tutsis. Knowing the urgency of the situation, Dallaire jump through the chain of

command, seeking headquarters directly for permission to mount a search and seize operation

of the weapons. He went over Booh-Booh head because Booh-Booh he knew that Booh-Booh

did not want to go against Rwanda Government. Disappointedly Dallaire’s request was once

again denied by headquarters. As a result of this, Dallaire was unable to make decisive actions

to stop the mass murder. The main objective of this peacekeeping operation was to monitor

the implementation of peace in Rwanda. The weapon cache and the tip off were sufficient to

justify the upcoming killings but UN chooses to be bureaucratic to remain within limits of

chapter six mandate. Just because conflict was not observable did not mean that it did not

exist. (Saunders 1979). UN did not see the bigger picture of what is coming instead they choose

to follow rules and regulations which are inflexible.

Jacques-Roger Booh-Booh the head of mission for this peacekeeping mission plays an important

role as a leader in this genocide. His job is to take over the political aspect of the mission and

act as the overall head. Under great political tension Booh-Booh and his staff adopted

diplomatic office hours and long lunch breaks. This demonstrates how much effort he put in this

mission it is also clear that his concern for this mission are not as great as Dallaire. In an event,

Dallaire uncovered weapons caches. He recommended Booh-Booh to launch and search and

size operation. But Booh-Booh denied his request, citing this would harm the peace process.

The weapons caches are obvious for a negative reason. Instead of consulting higher

headquarters for advice he made the decision to deny Dallaire for the search and seize

operation. Booh-Booh blatantly denies the request and did not consider the consequences that

may occur.

To further examine the failure of this peacekeeping mission and why UN was unable to prevent

the genocide we look into the leadership aspect of UN as an organization. Under UN Charter

Article 5 Chapter 23, maintenance of international peace and security (United Nation 1963),

UN’s Charter states that UN are responsible to maintain international peace and security. At a

point of time when Dallaire recognized the fact that he required assistance for more troops to

deal with 300,000 refugees flooding into Rwanda. Dallaire asked for reinforcement to deal with

the situation, his request was denied. Clearly UN did not support him and they were

bureaucratic. They turned down his request due to the fact that Dallaire had not included the

possible needs of reinforcement in his original report. Their bureaucratic nature made them

believed that their decision was reasonable. Dallaire could not persuade UN and he had no

contingency plan. This procedural inflexibility demonstrates traits of negative leadership in UN.

Although Dallaire is the force commander he could not act within his authority. UN has shown

serious bureaucratic problem, initially it was the submission of Dallaire‘s recommendation for

the peacekeeping mission. Despite the urgent nature of the situation, it was put through a

process of slow layers of higher authority approval before it can reach a resolution.

Subsequently it was the denial of request from Dallaire for logics support and expedition of

phase two troops. All these clearly show the bureaucratic nature of UN. Cliffsnotes stated that

mountains of paper and rules only slow an organization's capacity to achieve stated goals”

(Cliffsnotes 2013).

During a point in time, 10 Belgium paratroopers were killed by the Hutus. They were killed with

an agenda. The Hutus knew that the Belgium will withdraw at the first sign of trouble, they

tactically choose the target. Leading the death of the 10 Belgium troopers, instead of providing

assistance to Rwanda, they withdraw all but 270 peace keeping force at a critical time.

Ultimately the genocide occurred. Over the course of 100 days, 800,000 people lost their life in

this genocide. Dallaire was unable to stop the genocide. Dallaire blamed himself and UN for this

failure. He criticized UN for their bureaucratic practice which was one of the major factors why

this peacekeeping mission was a failure.

There are two views for this failure that we must look into with a different angle. Firstly it is an

omnipotent view of management that UN is directly responsible for the failure of the mission.

They had the power to control but their bureaucracy nature caused a significant impact to this

genocide. It is a symbolic view of management that Dallaire is not directly responsible for the

failure. UN created the environment for Dallaire to work with for this mission. Dallaire has the

ability to carry out this mission. In fact whatever could have been done to prevent the genocide

had been done. Dallaire knew about the weapons, he knew about the intention of the killings

but he was never given the resources in both manpower and logistics to carry out the mission.

He was even repeatedly denied in request to take action and request for resources.

In summary we reviewed the course of events that slowly lead to the genocide and the

leadership aspect of the leaders in this literature review.

Word Count: 1509

Reference List

Straus 2013, ‘The Order of Genocide: Race, Power, and War in Rwanda’ P 21

United Nation 1963, Charters of the United Nation, viewed 18 February 2014, and

<http://www.un.org/en/documents/charter/chapter5.shtml>.

Merriam-Webster, Definition Expectation, viewed 20 February 2014, <http://www.merriam-

webster.com/dictionary/expectation>

Weber 1948, ‘From Max Weber: Essays in Social Theory’

Foucault 1980, ‘Power/Knowledge: Selected interviews and Other Writings’

Saunders 1979, ‘Urban Politics: A Sociological Interpretation,

Cliffsnotes, Pros and Cons of Bureaucracy, viewed 18 February 2014,

<http://www.cliffsnotes.com/sciences/sociology/social-groups-and-organizations/pros-and-

cons-of-bureaucracy>