Rwandan Genocide Mistakes

Thousands were killed during the tragic war in which the Rwandan Genocide took place, yet not many people know about it, nor is it taught in our history classes. The Rwandan Genocide was a tragic war where many innocent people died. In examining the tragedy of the Rwandan Genocide, one must look at the background of the two tribes in conflict, also what the cause for the major conflict between the Tutsi and Hutu was in the first place, and finally, the war in itself. We may think that history doesn’t repeat itself but judging from the amount of Genocide’s that have happened in our time, it is clear that we have not learned from our mistakes. The Hutu, also known as the Bahutu, is one of the two tribes involved in the Rwandan Genocide. They

They got along for only a short period of time. That was until the government began to discriminate the Hutu and Tutsi. A racial classification system was made to identify the Hutu and the Tutsi. The Germans and Belgians were very racists at the time. This made them think that the Tutsi were better than the Hutu because to them, the Tutsi seemed to look more white than the Hutu did. Both the Germans and Belgians thought that the Tutsi’s were naturally better leaders than the Hutu (Hymowitz, Parker). The Tutsi didn’t object to this statement. They instantly developed the attitude that they were better than the Hutu. From then on, the Tutsi enjoyed better education, job opportunities, and a better lifestyle (BBC,

This is when the Rwandan president, Habyarimana, was killed after his plane was shot down. Hutu extremists were thought to be behind the attack. That same night, several groups of individuals were sent out to kill the Tutsi. The organized groups made their way through the towns and killed all the Tutsi and anyone involved with them. They were killed with whatever weapon the Hutu had in hand at the time or were blown up in churches where they had gone to hide. The organized groups of Hutu encouraged citizens to take part in the mass killing. At times, they would even make citizens kill the Tutsi that were their neighbors or any Tutsi that lived near them. To make them do this, the Hutu groups would bribe the citizens. They would offer them food, money, or shelter. They were also told that they could have the ground of the Tutsi that they had just killed (BBC,