HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION AND THE CRISIS IN THE GREAT LAKES REGION OF AFRICA

INTRODUCTION

Since two decades now, the Great Lakes region of Africa faces a situation of infectious crisis, a political and social crisis which has changed the face of the whole region by its war and crimes.

From a chronological point of view, everything started by the coming to power of Yoweri Museveni in Uganda in 1986 and continued with the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 as result of the civil war which started in 1990 by Rwandan exiles from Uganda. The horror of Rwanda was exported to DR Congo since 1996 and resulted in millions of killings and massive violations of human rights after 13 years of fighting and unrest. This regional crisis has been characterized by massive violations of human rights such as the genocide in Rwanda and the tragedy lived by the populations in the Congo.

The questions which arise are the following:

1. What were the possibilities at the disposal of the international community in order to prevent those tragedies?

2. Why nothing was done in the region?

Answers to these questions lead us to consider the international legal architecture and look for juridical tools which could have allowed the international community to intervene. They will allow us to consider also if the conditions were combined to allow such an intervention which could have changed the course of history and protect the world from bad and abominable events which took place in the region during the last two decades and affected millions and millions of people and destroyed entire generations.

Section I. THE INTERNATIONAL LEGAL ARCHITECTURE.

Amongst international principles and notions, we have considered some of them which could have been invoked by the International Community in order to intervene and stop the tragedy of the Great Lakes Region. A. Humanitarian Intervention.
One of them is the notion of “humanitarian intervention”. Humanitarian intervention