Rwandan Genocide

Genocides happen when ethnic divisions become apparent. Many times, these ethnic divisions were due to colonization from people of different race. These cases are especially true in Africa when Europeans colonized their territory, with clear racial divisions between them (Gavin). These genocides go on because of nations acting on ignorance and refusing to help out the nations in turmoil, allowing the genocides to continue, without wasting their own resources. These nations purposefully ignoring the slaughter of people cause the nations to also be guilty of the genocide underway (“The Heart”). The genocide occurred in Rwanda in Central Africa during 1994. The decades of Tutsi oppression of Hutus and the assassination of President Habyarimana in 1994 led to the genocide in Rwanda.

On April 6, 1994, a plane carrying Habyarimana and Burundi’s president Cyprien Ntaryamira was shot down over Kigali their were no survivors. They did not know who shot the plane down but they are blaming Hutu extremists and the leaders of the RPF. An hour after the plane went down the Rwandan armed forces and the Hutu militia groups had started setting up roadblocks and barricades, and started killing Tutsis and moderate Hutus. the first victims of the genocide were the moderate Hutu Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana and her 10 Belgian bodyguards, with that happening it started more conflict and interim government of extremist Hutu Power leaders from the military high command had stepped in on april 9. The killing in Rwanda had spreaded to the rest of the country, up to 800,000 or more had been slaughtered within 3 months.

For years, Rwanda has been a hotbed of racial tension. The majority of the Rwandan population is made up of Hutu's, with Tutsi's making up the rest of it. Ever since European colonial powers entered the country and favoured the Tutsi ethnic group over the Hutu by putting Tutsi people in all important positions in society, there has been a decisive political divide between the two groups. This favouring of the Tutsi over the Hutu, and the Hutu subjugation as an ethnic lower class resulted in the civil war and revolution of 1959, where the Hutu overthrew the Tutsi dominated government, and resulted in Rwanda gaining their independence in 1962.

When Belgium took control of Rwanda in 1916 the Hutu’s and the Tutsi’s had a slight differentiation of the ethnic groups, the Hutu’s were farmers and the Tutsi’s were cattle herders. Though they both spoke the same language and had similar traditions. The Tutsi were seen as a higher class of people, only because it took more money to buy cattle, but it was possible to have upward movement in society through changes in jobs or through intermarriage (Jones).

Throughout the 1600s to the mid 1990s, the Tutsi tribe in Rwanda, and the Hutu tribe of Rwanda have always been arch enemies. Although the Hutus have had a prolonged hate for the Tutsi tribe, this hate was not physically expressed, until 1994. From April to July of 1994, over 80,000 Tutsi people were murdered and tortured for their African heritage. The Rwanda genocide is considered to be one of the worst massacres the world has ever seen since the Holocaust. This paper will touch a few things that occurred after the massacre, and will also answer the questions of why this massacre started, what occurred during this genocide. The Rwandan genocide was a massacre based off of discrimination and hatred for a specific tribal group. This

The Rwandan Genocide was one of the most violent genocides in the history of the world and was intricately planned and implemented by the ethnic group called the Hutu in an attempt to eliminate another, the Tutsis. Though the genocide lasted only one hundred days, the number of deaths is estimated to be approximately 800,000. In the wake of the genocide, mass chaos plagued the country of Rwanda, deepening the divide between the groups Hutu and Tutsi. Although it can be said the genocide was caused only by the animosity between the groups in an effort for revenge, several causes led to the genocide—including social, economic, political and historical factors that had been a result of past interactions. The Rwandan Genocide was caused by

Twenty-three years ago, in a small, central African country identified as Rwanda, approximately 1,000,000 individuals belonging to the Tutsi tribe were massacred by a rival tribe, known as the Hutus. The hatred that resulted in the Hutus slaughtering the Tutsis originated from a rivalry that was created centuries before the infamous massacre. Living in an agricultural community, the Hutus were traditionally peasant cultivators, while the Tutsis were cattle lopers. Through their work, the Tutsis gained wealth and, consequently, political power. The divide between the Hutus and the Tutsis was only made more dangerous as Europeans traveled to Rwanda, favoring the Tutsis. As the inferior race, the Hutus were denied government positions, higher education, and were forced into slave labor. In retaliation, the Hutus gained political power through a democratic vote put on by Belgian missionaries from the Tutsis through the 8:1 majority ratio. The Tutsi power was completely reversed into total Hutu power, as “the oppressed became the oppressor.”

The Rwandan Genocide, triggered by the murder of Rwandan President Habyarimana on April 9, 1994, was the fastest, if not most barbarous bloodbath in human history, and was carried out with little to no intervention or aid force from any of the many capable Western governments, such as the United States. Though these administration 's may claim that they were unable to intervene due to lack of warning signs and insufficient information; those statements are false. The United States government refused to intervene in the Rwandan genocide due to its economic disinterest, political indifference, and pure African prejudice, completely ignoring the obvious signs of the genocide.

The Rwanda genocide left a legacy of hundreds of bloody shield in which eight hundred thousand men, women and children lost their lives at the hands of their own country civilians. These killings are what the world remembers, but 1994 was the darkest and bitter civil war. This civil war made no distinction

The international response to the crisis was more of an international denial. The United Nations withdrew their troops from Rwanda, leaving innocent civilians defenseless against the Hutu soldiers. (Genocide in the 20th Century: Rwanda 1994). After ten United Nations soldiers were killed, the United Nations made the decision to pull their troops from the country. By the end of April 1994, only 200 United Nations soldiers remained in Rwanda (Genocide in the 20th Century: Rwanda 1994). The remaining soldiers were given no orders to intervene, and often watched as innocent Tutsis were killed. (Genocide in the 20th Century: Rwanda 1994)

800,000, and most of those people were from of the Tutsi tribe. It began by the

On April 6th, 1994, President Habyarimana was flying back to Rwanda when his plane was shot down and he was killed. Hutu extremists accused the RPF of this action, using it as an excuse to launch the genocide. Within hours of the plane crash, Hutu extremists quickly began exterminating the Tutsis and moderate Hutus. In the meantime, the Interahamwe set up road blocks to identify Tutsis, assembled killing squads armed with machetes, and instructed them to hunt down and kill all Tutsi and moderate Hutus. To spread the word, the Interahamwe set up radio stations broadcasting messages to kill all Tutsi “cockroaches”, a term the Hutus used in reference to the Tutsis. According to René Lemarchand, a French-American political scientist, "An estimated 20,000 people were killed in Kigali and its environs in the three weeks following the crash" (Lemarchand 2). The speed and extent of the massacre were unprecedented and the killings in Rwanda rapidly expanded from the capital, Kigali, to the rest of the country. Lemarchand continues, “For weeks and months, hundreds and thousands of Tutsi civilians (and Hutu civilians who looked like Tutsi), men, women and children, were shot, speared, clubbed or hacked to pieces in their homes, church compounds and courtyards” (Lemarchand 7). The Interahamwe and brainwashed Rwandan civilians, hunted down and brutally hacked to death their Tutsi neighbors

About 800,000 people were killed in 100 days in 1994(100 days of death). This slaughter started when the president(hutu) was shot down in a plane.(100 days of death)”It has never been conclusively determined who the culprits were."(Hutus & Tutsis) when this happened the Huts blamed the Tutsi and the Tutsi were getting punished and killed for this reason. The word “genocide” is when a specific amount of people are being targeted to kill. This word best describes what happened to all those people in Rwanda. What happened in Rwanda is something that everyone should know about because nothing like all the crimes done in Rwanda should ever happen again.

In 1994 a senseless massacre of hatred arose from beneath the cracks of a country in ruins. Two main groups involved were the Hutu and the Tutsi both of which were ethnic tribes of Rwanda. The genocide was caused by political tension This genocide was building up its stages in the 1960s when most of Rwanda’s Tutsi population fled the country because of the Hutu gaining power. But what really erupted the violence was when a plane carrying Habyarimana and Burundi’s president Cyprien Ntaryamira was shot down over Kigali there were no survivors. The people who shot the plane down were never found but didn’t realize they had just created one on humanity's biggest senseless bloodshed [The Rwandan Genocide].

The Rwandan Genocide began on April 6, 1994 and lasted for about 100 days (History). The two groups involved, the Hutus and Tutsis, were in a massive conflict after their president was killed. The Hutus brutally killed about 800,000 Tutsis and supporters. This tragic genocide was not stopped by other countries during its peak, leaving the world wondering why. As we commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Rwandan Genocide, it is important to be informed about the tragedy.