Causes and Effects of the Rwandan Genocide
Introduction
Wikipedia defines Genocide as the “systematic destruction of all or a significant part of a racial, ethnic, religious or national group”.
During one of humanity 's darkest periods, a tragedy that spanned one hundred short days, triggered in April 1994 and summarily ended in July of the same year witnessed the senseless eradication of approximately eight hundred thousand of the minority Tutsi tribe’s men, women and children, all citizens of Rwanda.
Class distinction is cited as one of the main reasons for this genocide, the Hutu majority mistrusted the Tutsi minority who were seen as elite members of society. This distinction became more pronounced shortly after World War One when the Belgians assumed control of Rwanda. They were instrumental in growing the tensions between the Hutu and Tutsi tribes by rewarding Tutsis with Western education and denying Hutus any economical and political powers to the Hutus. The 1963 national election saw the Hutu’s emerge victorious in those elections. As soon as the Hutus came to power, they began discriminating against the Tutsis, resulting in many Tutsis fleeing to Uganda.
In 1990, the civil war in Rwanda brought an end to a ceasefire that was signed by the Hutu president. Records indicate that the most important and probably one of the final causes that saw in the start of the genocide was the assassination of President Habyarimana, whose plane was shot down. The Hutus
C. Introduction The Rwandan genocide lasted three months and in those three months it is said that 1 million Tutsis were killed. The Holocaust lasted 4 years and 6 million Jews were killed. Bearing this in mind it would be expected that The Rwandan genocide should be extremely well known because of the loss of lives, impact and brutality of the event and the similarities it holds with The Holocaust. The fact is that the Rwandan Genocide is not very well known and is not thought to be in the same category as The Holocaust, where in fact it is.
Over the course of 3 months in 1994, around 1 million citizens, mostly Tutsis and moderate Hutus opposed to genocide, were brutally murdered by the more dominant Rwandan Tribe, The Hutus. There were two tribes in Rwanda: Hutus and
In Rwanda, the Hutus believed that they were superior to the Tutsis and began to kill hundreds of thousands of them. In Germany and Poland, the Germans felt that Jews were inferior to them and wanted to kill each and every one of them. In both situations, a specific group of people were being targeted, mainly because others believed that they were better than that group of people. Both genocides caused a substantial amount of people to lose their lives at the hands of others.
Rwandan Genocide: Annotated Bibliography By James Verini Photographs by Gilles Peress, Magnum Photos PUBLISHED Thu Apr 03 16:04:00 EDT 2014. " Rwanda Genocide:
There was a huge power struggle going on between the Hutu’s and the Tutsi’s. Source B shows how after the long running rule of the Tutsi’s, 1959 came around with the death of the last Tutsi king of this Monarch, resulting in riots and revolts from the Hutu people, killing hundreds of Tutsi people all in order to gain change and gain power. In the 1960’s Rwanda gained its independence and was soon ruled by a Hutu government in 1961. This, with reason, left the Tutsi people feeling very betrayed and angry at the fact that their beloved power had been ripped from them. Therefore, immensely increasing the tension between these groups resulting in further dissatisfaction coming from both groups and a feeling of mutual hate
(document 7) Belgians created the ideas of the Tutsis being the superior race and the Hutus are the inferior race, moreover, the Belgian had ethnic identity cards made to distinguish between the Hutus and the Tutsis. Someone shot the president of Rwanda, Habyarimana ‘s airplane down, this gave an open door to the Hutus to gain control of Rwanda and over the Tutsis. Since there was no president all hell broke loose, Hutu officials corrupted government ran radios and newspapers, they suggested the killing of Tutsis. (Document 8) A group called, Rwandan Patriotic Front founded by Tutsis attacked government forces and defeated radical Hutu in Kigali. More than 3 million migrated to Europe, Canada, the United States, or neighboring countries.
Over the course of 100 days more than 800,000 Tutsis were slaughtered by the Hutu majority, and in Sudan/Darfur over 300,000 indigenous people have been murdered by the Arabs. Both Sudan and Rwanda were colonized by foreign countries, Britain and Belgium. Many Europeans countries scrambled for a part of Africa to colonized. This sudden nationalism to colonized this new continent lead to the Conference of Berlin where these countries cut Africa into pieces to colonized. In these newly formed African colonies, Europeans had favored a particular ethnic group exacerbating much of the tension already in these colonies, more specifically Sudan and Rwanda.
International failure to stop the Rwandan genocide is a matter of shame for the western world and the rest of the world need to learn lessons from this slaughter. It is pertinent to mention that genocide is the result of a systematic development, culminating in the crime of crimes which implies that it is possible to prevent genocide by finding its causes. Prevention is better than cure always. It is best to detect the roots of genocide early on or before it even begins. The world should adopt the political re-socialization to replace nationalistic attitudes and value systems with more international and humanitarian based ethos (Krugar 103).
Before the Europeans entered, the chieftaincy system was such that both Hutus and Tutsis ruled the land. The Belgians, however, simplified the chieftaincy system, reducing its numbers and concentrating power in the hands of the Tutsi. Further, the Belgians oversaw a land reform process in which grazing areas traditionally under the control of the Hutus were seized and given to the Tutsis. In the 1930s, the Belgians introduced large-scale projects in health, education, and agriculture, but mainly for the use and implementation by the Tutsi. As a result, Tutsi supremacy remained, even though these measures did industrialize Rwanda.
Terry George aims no less than to demonstrate the Rwandese reality through the extremely violent and cruel scenes in the movie, he manages to convince the audience that really, over 800,000 people were in fact killed in no more than 100 days and more than 2 million refugees had to seek shelter elsewhere in the world (1). To begin with, it is important to understand the root causes of the conflict between Tutsis and Hutus to in turn understand the genocide demonstrated in the movie. Rwanda was
“An in-depth analysis on effects of Imperialism on Rwanda” Nowadays, European countries such as England, France, Germany, Belgium, and many other countries possess a colossal clout throughout the world. It is an impeccable fact that such countries, indeed, have served as a rudiment pivot and step for the world to be advanced to the point where we are since the Industrial Revolution. Such countries, because of it, without a doubt, have a crucial status globally and become the superpower and commercial hub on our planet. On the back side of their gleaming growth, however, there is an invisible part left behind their luminous development: the Imperialism. The term “Imperialism” refers to a policy of extending a country’s authority and political clout by using its military forces and diplomacy.
The Rwandan genocide was a mass murder of thousands of Tutsi people by the Hutu people, they were viciously killed and scared out of their country, partly due to the rumor that a Tutsi man ordered the death of the Rwandan President. To begin, from April to July 1994, members of the Hutu ethnic group in the East-Central African nation murdered 800,000 men, women, and children from the Tutsi ethnic group. During this period Hutu civilians were forced by military soldier and police officers to kill their neighbors, friends, and family (“10 facts About the Rwandan Genocide-Borgen”). Radio stations encouraged ordinary civilians to take part in the killings (“10 facts About the Rwandan Genocide-Borgen”).
The Rwandan Genocide occured on April, 1994. It began when the Rwandan president, Juvénal Habyarimana was murdered when his plane was shot down. This assassination is what started the brutal genocide in the Hutu population. Many Hutus thought that the Tutsis were responsible for the president death. It began with slaughtering moderate government officials and to those who did not show respect to people involved with the government.
When the Rwanda genocide began in 1994, its population stood at more that 7 people. Roughly 85% of the population was Hutu, 14% Tutsi, and 1% Twa (un.org). The decades following Rwanda’s independence from Belgium in 1962 saw growing ethnic tensions and periodic violent attacks and reprisals between Rwanda’s Hutu majority and its Tutsi minority. On April 6, 1994, the deaths of the Presidents of Burundi and Rwanda in a plane crash caused by a rocket attack, ignited several weeks of intense and systematic massacres.
The genocide was an after affect of the scramble for Africa by European countries who help no regard for the people who already lived their. In the scramble for Africa many European countries raced to make claims on land in Africa that was already lived on by natives, they mistreated the natives and killed and enslaved many of them. This was prevalent in Rwanda when the belgians imperialized the land. The belgians sent the Hutus who were the majority of the population into slavery and lead to mass deaths of their people. But they lead the land through another ethnic group the tutsis who made up about 15% of the population compared to the 85% population of Hutus.