ipl-logo

Interethnic Conflict In Rwanda

539 Words3 Pages

The Rwandans have had a long-standing tradition of interethnic conflicts, that reached its peak in 1994 with the Rwandan genocide. To understand the reasons for this genocide, as well as the lasting effects it has had on the interethnic relations of the Rwandans, the background on how these relations began must first be analyzed. It was reported in 1991, three years before the genocide, that there were approximately 7.7 million people living in Rwanda (Longman, 2009). There are three major ethnic groups within this population, and the 1991 census reports of the 7.7 million people, 90% were Hutu, 9% were Tutsi, and 1% were Twa (Longman, 2009). This is important to note, as the largest conflict was between the Hutu and the Tutsi. Most scholars …show more content…

For many years following, the Hutu were able to keep their power through violence and coercion (Longman, 2009). Their most widely used tactic to maintain power was deflection of dissatisfaction onto the Tutsi (Longman, 1995). It was extremely easy for the Hutu to accomplish this, as there were no Tutsi people in important communal positions (Longman, 1995). Additionally, no Hutu had forgotten the past exploitation of their people at the hands of the Tutsi (Longman, 1995). This normalization of violence and hatred to maintain control set a precedent for the genocide of the Tutsi in 1994. The Rwandan genocide was the moment in which the interethnic conflict between the Hutu and the Tutsi came to a boiling point. The Hutu, scared of losing their power and angry about the assassination of the first Hutu president in Burundi, committed genocide against the Tutsi people in Rwanda (Longman, 2009). Following this, the Hutus responsible for carrying out this extreme act of violence fled to Congo, where they continued to attack the Tutsi (Longman, 2009). Presently, 23 years after the genocide, the Rwandan government works not to acknowledge the differences between the Hutu and Tutsi (Mamdani, 2001). There has been a push for a singular community defined by the language of Kinyarwanda (Mamdani, 2001). Despite this, there are still tensions that come into play due to the history behind the relationship between Hutu and

Show More
Related

  • Was The Rwanda Genocide Dbq

    1323 Words  | 6 Pages

    In Source B we see that the Hutu extremists backed up their massacre and killing by saying that what they were doing was an order given to them. They said that they were told to kill all the Tutsis and this made it easier for them to do it, they were not the ones who had to decide what they had to do. They believed that because they were being ordered to kill that there would no consequences that they would have to face. This is similar to Hitler’s ideal in saying that it is natural to be cruel. In Source D, Hitler says that he is only going to be cruel because nature is also cruel; it is therefore a natural aspect of life.

    Read More

  • Machete Season Chapter Summary

    1400 Words  | 6 Pages

    In 1994, Rwanda was gripped with murderous fervor as Hutus across the country took up machetes against their Tutsi neighbors in what became 100 days of genocide that left 800,000 dead. Does the history of Rwanda provide any evidence of the implementation of the ten steps of genocide? How did Belgian imperialism influence the relationship between Hutus and Tutsis? What ultimately made the average Hutu decide to murder their Tutsi neighbors? In this paper I will investigate how the ten steps of genocide was used in Rwanda, the effects of imperialism on Rwandan culture and gain insight into why Hutus decided to kill Tutsis through the analysis of the book Machete Season by Jean Hatzfeld.

    Read More

  • Commentary On Night By Elie Wiesel

    1140 Words  | 5 Pages

    When the international community responded indifferently toward the Rwandan genocide, “labeling it an ‘internal conflict’,” as the U.S. Holocaust Museum states, perpetrators could commit those genocidal crimes with little constraint; this directly led to the genocide later in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. “Adding fuel to [the Congo’s] unstable mix, some one million refugees, mostly the Hutu fearing the… Tutsis, fled into [the Congo]… at the end of the Rwandan genocide” and before the first war of the Congo. Additionally, leaders of that genocide followed, and “Organizing themselves in the fertile grounds of the massive refugee camps in Eastern Congo,... [they] began preying on the local Congolese population and making incursions back into Rwanda” (The U.S. Holocaust Museum 1).

    Read More

  • Dbq Essay On Rwanda Genocide

    1523 Words  | 7 Pages

    The two groups mentioned above, Hutu and Tutsi, had a strong dislike for one another as it has been described in source

    Read More

  • The RTLM Radio's Influence On The Hutus

    226 Words  | 1 Pages

    In class we learned that there were strained tensions between the Hutus and the Tutsis because of the unfair treatment that the Hutus suffered. The Tutsis were favored by the whites because of their physical similarities and were granted jobs, as well as a better quality of life. This led to an increase in Hutu nationalism against the Tutsis. I believe that the movie depicts this very well, especially with the RTLM radio. The radio directly influences the Hutus since the man on the radio brings up the suffering that they had endured and provides an easy solution to their problems.

    Read More

  • Paul Rusesabagina An Ordinary Man Quotes

    403 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the book “An Ordinary man: An Autobiography” by Paul Rusesabagina, the author faces many bad problems and experiences distasteful moments throughout the whole novel. The author uses quotes the explain the significance of the 1994 Genocide in his own eyes. Near the middle of the story, as Paul explains the harsh treatment and taunting of RTLM against them, he tells us about a teacher who brainwashed her students into hating the “Hutus.” “It always bothers me when I hear Rwanda’s Genocide being described as the product of ‘ancient tribal hatred.’ I think this is a easy way for westerners to dismiss the whole thing as a regrettable but pointless bloodbath that happens to primitive brown people (Rusesabagina Chp.4 Pg.53).”

    Read More

  • 8 Stages Of Rwanda Genocide

    877 Words  | 4 Pages

    Preparation the Hutu’s separated the Tutsi’s and armed them. Extermination the Hutu’s were armed and driven by hate speech to kill the Tutsi’s. Denial, the Hutu’s claimed they did not commit any crimes. The Hutu’s followed all the steps of genocide in committing the crimes; the Hutu’s had targeted the Tutsi’s and therefore there was a genocide taking place in

    Read More

  • The Darfurian Genocide

    384 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Rhetoric Of Genocide

    398 Words  | 2 Pages

    History repeats itself, especially when it comes to the topic of genocide. The word “genocide” was created by a lawyer named Raphael Lemkin who combined the Greek word geno-, meaning race or tribe and the word -cide, Latin for killing. There have been a number of genocides that have occurred including, the murder of Jewish and Gypsy populations in 1944, the Rwanda genocide in 1944, and the genocide in Darfur in 2003. Genocide occurs because of propaganda, cultural expectations, and military strategies.

    Read More

  • Effects Of Imperialism In Rwanda

    1889 Words  | 8 Pages

    “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.

    Read More

  • Informative Essay On Rwanda Genocide

    656 Words  | 3 Pages

    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”).

    Read More

  • Negative Effects Of Globalization: The Rwanda Genocide

    848 Words  | 4 Pages

    This made large divides between the two cultures and later many civil conflicts between the groups. In 1994 when the president 's plane was shot down the government and Hutu militants blamed the Tutsis, radio broadcasts across the country encourages Hutus to take revenge and kill the Tutsis, in the end an estimated 800000 to 1 million people died. The globalization of Belgians colony and the scramble for africa through that part of the world into a blood conflict of cultures and terrorist/militant groups that still rages on

    Read More

  • Ethnic Conflicts In Rwanda

    1464 Words  | 6 Pages

    In fact, Rwanda has a long history of politicization of land: those who held political power often intervened and appropriated land for their own purposes” Thus struggle for power by both ethnic groups is what we ultimately see on the outside as to why this conflict occurred, however it is in fact because those who owned the land had the power that we know that this issue was more of a territorial one. This conflict turned into such violent one as the Hutus believed that the only way to gain ownership of the land and of the power was to exterminate the Tutsi. Land belonging to Tutsi was distributed to Hutu after they were killed or exiled. It is because of the twos deep rooted hatred and resentment of one and other that the violence escalated to such a horrific

    Read More

  • An Ordinary Man Analysis

    1339 Words  | 6 Pages

    One cannot fight fire with fire. While massacre reigns in Rwanda and people take betrayal to the extreme, Paul Rusesabagina in his book, An Ordinary Man, proofs how violence is unnecessary while standing against the power of the word. As Rusesabagina states, words are “powerful tools of life”(Rusesabagina, 19). The war between the two different ethnic groups, Hutus and Tutsis, and the death of thousands left a mark Rwanda’s memory; the author says: “It is the darkest bead on our national necklace” (222). Even though a large part of Rwanda’s population is massacred, many are saved by one of Rwanda’s timeless heroes.

    Read More

  • Catholic Church In Things Fall Apart

    150 Words  | 1 Pages

    Although the Catholic Church placed a divide between the Hutus and Tutsis there was also an inner divide within the Church between those who supported the genocide and those who did not. In retrospect, all churches should not condone the behaviour that comes attached with a genocide – the church should be a safe place and unfortunately those who fled to the church thinking it was a safe place found it to be the exact opposite (Guardian). In Things Fall Apart, Achebe shares the message that Rwanda was not one – it was divided and that was exactly what the Catholic church was doing; dividing the country. The term “not one family” describes what happened in this case, not only did the Church aid in dividing the nation it also went against all

    Read More

More about Interethnic Conflict In Rwanda

Open Document