Why Did People Participate In Genocide

Straus classifies questions that until now still remain unanswered. He also summarizes and test hypothesis. Straus mostly focuses on evaluating four main controversial literatures. He begins with theories other authors have created to rationalize genocide in Rwanda. Secondly, he examines theories that other writers have shaped to elucidate the extermination of Tutsis, either in a contrastive, or research framework. Thirdly, Straus also evaluates theories that explicate an ethnic clash; and lastly, theories that explain the people’s degree of participation in the violent events.

This investigation studies two of the causes of the 1994 genocide of Rwanda. The two causes are examined in order to see to what extent each contributed to the genocide. The social and ethnic conflicts between two Rwandan groups called the Hutus and the Tutsis caused violent disputes and riots. The assassination of President Juvenal Habyarimana is often thought of as the event that sparked the mass murders. Did the assassination of President Juvenal Habyarimana influence the Rwandan genocide of 1994 more than the ongoing social and ethnic conflicts?

Throughout the 20th century, numerous acts of genocides have attempted to bring the complete elimination and devastation of large groups of people originating from various particular ethnicities. With these genocides occurring in many regions of the world, the perpetrators often organizing such crimes, have historically been larger and more powerful than the victims themselves. Often being the government and its military forces. However, the lack of international response associated with these genocides, further contributed to the devastating outcomes. On April 6,1994, the fastest killing spree of the century took place in Rwanda against the Tutsi minority population. With many warning signs having already been proclaimed prior to the start of the Rwandan genocide, I believe that with international interference, this bloodshed could have ultimately been prevented.

The horrors of genocide are terrible and can’t seem realistic to a person, but it still goes on. Preventative measures must be put in place to stop perpetrators in their

Galtung, (1990) taxonomic view of violence and pragmatic solutions address cultural violence as “any aspect of a culture that can be used to legitimize violence in its direct, or

Historians do not lie when they say, “History always repeats itself”. Sadly for Rwanda, history did repeat itself with the Rwanda Genocide. Instead of one leader controlling the actions of a powerful military force, Rwanda was a complete chaotic mess, with mass killings of their own people. As Hintjens says it was “one of the highest casualty rates of any population in history from non-natural causes.” Explaining the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda and The Order of Genocide both discuss and write about the pre genocide, social friction, prime factors of the genocide, and the reasoning of killings from both sides.

In 1994, Rwanda’s population was made up of three ethnic groups, the Hutus, the Tutsi, and the Twas. Hutu extremists blamed the Tutsi for their country’s social, economic, and political problems. Because of this, The Hutu extremists decided to kill the Tutsi and the Hutus who were opposed to the extremists. “In the early 1990s, hutu extremists within Rwanda’s political elite blamed the entire Tutsi minority population for the country’s increasing social, economic, and political pressures.” This shows that human rights are being violated because one ethnic group decided to blame a minority population for their country’s growing problems. The extremists decided they wanted control back and because of this they felt it was justified to kill as

Between April and June 1994 warfare between the Hutus and Tutsis people struck in the East African country of Rwanda. To call it a tragedy would be an understatement when faced with the estimated death count of one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus over the span one hundred days. The genocide resulted from the desire to control and obtain power within Rwanda and stemmed from a history of cultural and social class conflict amongst the rival groups. This bloodshed proved to be one the most horrific events in history.

Another major reason for genocide is revenge. Groups have long memories. Stories are sometimes passed down for generations about real or imagined embarrassments and defeats. The hate is real between groups, and the loathing can be carried down from generation to generation. These group memories may lie behind genocidal actions when the wounded group gains enough power and ambition. Another motivation for revenge is when a group feels it’s pride is hurt through actions by the other group. When one group feels that its honor is at stake, it may commit mass murder to the other group. These genocidal actions because of revenge would generally be considered unreasonable, and would be quite hard to understand from a utilitarian perspective. The attacking

Genocide is “the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, ethnic, political, or cultural group”. In Rwanda for example, the Hutu-led government embraced a new program that called for the country’s Hutu people to murder anyone that was a Tutsi (Gourevitch, 6). This new policy of one ethnic group (Hutu) that was called upon to murder another ethnic group (Tutsi) occurred during April through June of 1994 and resulted in the genocide of approximately 800,000 innocent people that even included women and children of all ages. In this paper I will first analyze the origins/historical context regarding the discontent amongst the Hutu and Tutsi people as well as the historical context as to why major players in the international

Conformity and compliance are two social influences that allows us to understand the reason why “ordinary” people murder helpless victims during genocide. Conformity is the act of behaving in a way that matches a group of people’s behavior. The reason why people ignore their own beliefs and follow the ideas of a group is to gain social approval. People who commit genocide aren’t unsocial and cut off from society, but social and want to fit into society (Anderson). Individuals want to be liked and accepted by others so they can gain acceptance into a group. People believe that if they don’t follow what a certain group of people are doing, they will get rejected

These government orders reveal the ways that, even with the accessible knowledge about the Rwandan massacres being readily available, that the United States government was able to manipulate the situation as being contrary to their interests. Gourevitch outlines the ways that the West (and international government) failed to understand the ways that colonialism influenced the genocide as that would reflect negatively upon those nations as a further component of the way the violence was characterized.

In analyzing the Rwanda Genocide as an ethnic conflict it's far vital that ethnicity is tested because it influenced and became encouraged via economic, political and social factors. The venture for outlining the violence in Rwanda as an ethnic warfare is that while, on the one hand, the atrocities were a clean reduce case of genocide, devoted with “the criminal intent to destroy or to cripple permanently a human group” (Lemkin, 1947), The lines along which the victims have been grouped were not just ethnic but also

With this conceded class distinction came the fight for reigning ability, and amidst this power vacuum, Rwandans fell victim to conflicting groups and crime, the eventual building blocks that lead to the massacre of 800,000 civilians. The origins of this ethnic loathing and in turn ethnic genocide can be secured to European colonialism, where those who arrived to colonize and yield the wealth of western knowledge, instead carried racist beliefs. Through this haunting event in history, when foreign governments unfittingly place their ideologies in unknown territory, revealed is how uninvited nations can destabilize a state by stimulating ethnic warfare, causing it to collapse and crumble through conflict.

Is there a difference between genocide and war? The idea and concepts of conflict are often misunderstood. To many, any form of conflict is war. War can be defined as a direct violent encounter between two or more opposing parties with a view to gaining access to an object of their mutual interests. It is usually accompanied by the use of weapons such as guns, bows and arrows, machetes, sticks, biological weapons, and weapons of mass destruction. (Insert bibliography #1). Genocide has been described as a specific term, referring to violent crimes committed against particular groups, with the intent to destroy the existence of such groups (insert bibliography #1). Having said that, one common factor often exhibited by genocide perpetrators is to destroy a group perceived to be a threat to the ruling power. The purpose of this paper is to take a look at both the historic and political causes for the Rwanda Genocide, and to distinguish whether ethnicity was the cause or was it the aspect of the conflict.