The Role Of Genocide In Rwanda

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”). Finally in July, the RPF (Rwandan Patriotic Front), a group of Tutsi trying to stop it, captured the town Kigali, and the government collapsed (“Rwanda: How the Genocide Happened-BBC News”). When it was obvious that

The Rwandan people need to go for the unit than division. The Rwanda government should do all means to unite its people, by bridging the gap between the victim and the perpetrator of genocide. By making them feel that , despite their ethnic group they share oneness for being Rwanda people; thus, need to work together to bring peace and develop their country . What happened in the past or during genocide should be used a tool to bring change and reconcile; not a tool to cause another disastrous conflict. As argued by Bloomfield the “victims are encouraged to trust themselves and each other. In that it entails belief that “humanity is present in every man and woman: an acknowledgement of the humanity of others is the basis of mutual trust and opens the door for the gradual arrival of a sustainable culture of non-violence” (Bloomfield Chapter 2 p. 20). Through this the Rwanda people more especial those who were violated, injured and those who lost their people in genocide can have the “capacity to distinguish degrees of guilt among the perpetrators- to disaggregate individual and community” (p.20).This will enable them to stop thinking that all people from the group that was killing others; are all bad or

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. 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

800,000 people were killed. This includes both the Tutsi and the Hutu. The genocide finally ended when a small Tutsi extremist group called the Rwandan Patriotic Front defeated the Hutu. This genocide occurred because the Hutu was afraid that the Tutsi would become more powerful and take over. They believed that by eliminating the entire Tutsi population, they wouldn’t have to worry about them taking over. The genocide went undetected for a few reasons. Politicians and government officials were aware of the target of the Tutsis. Not only did they fail to get involved, but they also refused to acknowledge that the genocide was even occurring. They tried their best to keep it a secret. People in America refused to even bring up the idea of genocide,

As a result, there were mass killings of Tutsis by the Hutus – leading to a massive wave of refugees fleeing Rwanda, mainly taking refuge in Uganda, Tanzania and Zaire. They were denied entry back into Rwanda by the president Juvenal Habyarimana on the grounds that the country was over populated and there were no opportunities for the refugees economically (Outreach Programme on the Rwanda Genocide and the United Nations). Further problems were created in 1988 when the Tutsis formed a rebel army known as the ‘Rwandese Patriotic Front’ in Uganda. Its aims were to “secure repatriation of Rwandans in exile and to reform the Rwandan government, including political power sharing” (Outreach Programme on the Rwanda Genocide and the United Nations). On 1st October 1990 the Rwandese Patriotic Front, with a force power of 7,000, attacked Rwanda. Due to this attack a policy of propaganda was adopted by the government which, as a result, caused all Tutsis to be labelled as members of the Rwandese Patriotic Front and all Hutus members of opposing parties to be labelled as traitors. This propaganda was spread through the press, media and radio and it created more tension and problems in the country (Outreach Programme on the Rwanda Genocide and the United

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. Paul Rusesabagina, as a humble hotel manager, uses negotiation and dedication to save the life of thousand Rwandans. He sheltered

Imagine being on the run for fourteen days, no food, no water and no stopping. Your running until the point where your legs become numb, and you cannot take the flaming taste of a dry mouth and burning bleeding lips. This was the case for a twenty five year old man who was forced to leave his town immediately or else death was instant. This man was fleeing a genocide in Myanmar, this happened just last year. Good morning 8A and Ms. Cosman. Today, I am here to talk about the significance of the two words never forget. It is crucial that we never forget the Holocaust so that we can learn important lessons to avoid future genocides. Unfortunately, to this day genocides are happening all around the world. It is important that we know why these

In the year of 1994 rape was legally recognized as a method of genocide, the members of the Hutu militia raped approximately a million of Tutsi women in the case of the Rwanda genocide. Women’s represented the survival of an ethnic group. When the women’s were raped it was the same as destroying their race or ethnicity. When the Tutsi was royal under the colonial rule the women’s thought of themselves as too good for the Hutu men because they were considered to be more beautiful than Hutu women so because of it the Hutu ethnicity degraded and also their masculinity was insulted. “Rape shattered the image that Tutsi women were too good for Hutu men”. Rape also satisfies the troops that women’s were only for sexual pleasure. Through rape the

In 1994, hundreds of thousands of people died in the small country of Rwanda, Africa due to ethnic differences. At the time of this massacre, three ethnic groups made up the seven million people of Rwanda: Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa. The killings were carried out by Hutu extremists, who blamed the entire Tutsi minority for the country’s troubles. This genocide, unlike others of the twentieth century, was covered life by journalists, radio broadcasters, and television news reporters, until foreigners were encouraged to evacuate due to the violence (Walker). Although this slaughter was short-lived, almost one million people died before the Hutu perpetrator regime was defeated.

The people from Uganda have turned out to be the poorest in the world, the genocide started early but it was a really difficult time time for the individuals of this country.“Uganda is among the world’s poorest countries, with 44 percent of citizens living below the national poverty line.” They lost a lot of friends and family due to the violence the soldiers were causing. The armies showed no type of care for them, they raped the women, they would hit the men and women, they would make them suffer and starve even more than what they were already. Not only that happened, but they forced young boys into becoming soldiers themselves. “Wide-eyed toddlers held older kids’ hands. Skinny boys and girls on the verge of adolescence peered warily into roadside shadows. Some walked as far as seven miles.” The soldiers made

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,

Children were orphaned, people were left without homes and without families.More than 800,000 people were murdered. This devastating event, the genocide of 1994, left Rwanda traumatized, and in terrible condition. Rwanda, has since done many things to try to rebuild and retire after the genocide (Adekunle 20-22). One of the thing they greatly focused on to help the people of Rwanda was dance therapy. Although dance as therapy might not be for everyone, Rwandans have used dance to help those affected by the genocide through helping them communicate, relieve physical or emotional pain, and can serve as an outlet from their current life.

Rwandan society is comprised of representatives of 3 ethnicities: Hutu (85%), Tutsi (about 14%) and Twa (less than 1%). The 3 groups shared the same language and common membership in the state institutions. When Europeans colonized the country at the end of the 19th century the Tutsi minority exercised control of the government. Berlin Conference of 1884 assigned Rwanda to Germany, and in 1919 it was passed to Belgium. Colonialists intensified bipolar differentiation between Tutsi and Hutu by imposing a system of identity cards in 1935, which put an end to movement between classes and emphasized ethnicity; a land reform, which privatized all the territory owned by Hutus with low compensation to the latter; and securing Tutsi domination

There were many reasons for the genocide in Rwanda. The colonization of Rwanda by Belgium and the initial mistreatment of the Hutus, initiated the conflict between the two cultures. The resentment between the Hutus and Twa was then further reinforced by the Burundi killings of 1972 and the Rwandan Civil War of 1990 at which point anti-Tutsi media propaganda campaigns were launched to strike fear and hatred into the hearts of Hutus towards the Tutsis for killing the Hutus in Burundi and because of the RPF 's attempt to overthrow the Hutu government. Moreover, the French military assistance provided the Hutu government with the necessary equipment to perform the genocide and the UN and other countries failed to come to the assistance of the suffering Tutsis between 7 April 1994 and mid July of that same

The Hutu-Tutsi dichotomy has long been (and still remains) a major source of instability in the Great Lakes Region. More specifically, in Rwanda memories of the 1994 genocide are still visible in contemporary politics. Building on this, this paper explores the role played by ethnicity during the Rwandan genocide. Addressing this question matters if we are to understand how the current Tutsi-led regime of Paul Kagame (in power since the end of the genocide) plays upon the notion of ‘ethnic reconciliation’ to justify his monopoly of power . Therefore, in answering the question, the paper will argue that ethnicity – here intended as a ‘subjective belief in common descent’ allegedly ‘having genetic foundations’ – deserves careful consideration