A Final Sacrifice: Captain Mbaye Diagne

During Genocide a lot of events happened. For example the death population increased. “Over the course of 100 days from April 6 to July 16 1994, an estimated 800,000 to 1 million Tutsis and some moderate Hutus were slaughtered in the Rwandan genocide. A recent report has estimated the number to be close to 2 million.”(Statistics | Survivors Fund." Statistics | Survivors Fund. N.P., n.d. Web. 15 May 2015.) Due to The events of genocide caused the population to decrease which put people in Rwanda in constant fear. One person by the name of Laetitia shared her story. Laetitia stated “In 1991, my family and I were harassed and seriously assaulted by neighbours, forcing us to move from Ruhengeri to Gisenyi where we were when the genocide began. I spent two weeks living in a forest, with nothing to eat but mud, until hunger flushed me out and I begged shelter from some

By establishing humans as inherently capable of evil, and perpetrators of evil as no less human, Hatzfield encourages a nuanced understanding of the causes of genocide. In doing so, Hatzfield warns readers of the ease with which genocide can take place and cautions against allowing prejudice to take hold in communities. In Rwanda, Hutus lived with Tutsis as friends and neighbors mere days prior to slaughtering them. However, the groundwork for the massacres “was the result of plans and preparations formulated essentially by collective decision” long before the genocide began (52). Radio propaganda drove tensions far in advance, and the assassination of the Hutu president was not the reason for the genocide but the signal for it to finally begin. Hatzfield establishes this point by humanizing the Hutus. One of the interviewees explains that when “you receive a new order, you hesitate but you obey, or else you’re taking a risk. When you have been prepared the right way by the radios and the official advice, you obey more easily, even if the order is to kill your neighbors” (71). While this could easily be dismissed as an excuse born of fear and guilt, understanding the truth of this statement is crucial to the prevention of further mass violence; indeed, if the preparation through propaganda and conditioning can be identified,

The blood of thousands of murdered Tutsi people ran through the streets of Rwanda on April 7, 1994. Until mid-July of 1994, Hutu supremacists eradicated thousands of Tutsi. Nearly fifty years prior, Nazis claimed the lives of millions of Jews. Within the years that followed, the Nazi forces slaughtered millions of Jewish citizens across Europe. Both massacred by people they once considered friends and coworkers, Tutsi and Jews faced great injustice, but those are not the only similarities between the two genocides. It is evident that during both the Holocaust and the Rwandan Genocide, the rest of society turned a blind eye to the horrors that both Tutsi and Jews were facing, only kept their best interest in mind, and that both groups faced

In the words of Aristotle, “I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies, for the hardest victory is over self”, meaning that the true battle is the one waged inside ones’ soul (Aristotle). Amidst the inhuman slaughter of the Rwandan Holocaust Immaculée Ilibagiza found herself facing such a struggle as Aristotle spoke of. In the year 1994 Hutu extremists finally took action against the Tutsis after a plane carrying the Hutu president Habyarimana was shot down. In less than a year more than 800,000 Rwandans were killed and, for Hutus and Tutsis alike, life would never be the same. In her book, Left to Tell, Immaculée Ilibagiza discovers how to keep her faith in a time when doing so seems impossible as well as how to forgive the killers who took everything from her.

The Rwandan genocide was a nationwide phenomenon that ended in tragedy, hatred, and in some cases, forgiveness. This genocide, which occurred in 1994, ended with more than 800,000 lives lost. This genocide started on April 6, 1994 and lasted for one hundred days. During the course of these one hundred days, 800,000 Tutsis were slaughtered by Hutu militia members using machetes. For years, the Tutsi and Hutu tribes of Rwanda have lived in unspoken hostility. These Hutu militiamen killed as many as 10,000 Tutsis in a day. The makeup of these deaths included: men, women, children, and babies. What is the cause this hatred and genocide that would drive men

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 Rwandan Genocide also is still an existing issue which killed one million people, mostly Tutis and some Hutu’s, continues to be one of the most tragic and memorable events in the contemporary society of Africa. Specifically for those who were involved. Lucie Niyigena, a 70 year old woman who managed to survive the genocide, is still forced to face her fear everyday living beside someone who could have potentially killed a member of her family. This is just one of the still existing hardships for those forced to live it. This problem has not been changed since historical times partly because modern society has chosen not to make the change.

In 1994, genocide unfolded in Rwanda claiming the lives of more than 700,000 Tutsi massacred at the hands of Hutu extremist, while the entire world stood by and watched. Some would argue this event was a result of civil unrest between the Tutsi and Hutu stemming from ancient

The Rwandan Genocide also is still an existing issue which killed one million people, mostly Tutis and some Hutu’s, continues to be one of the most tragic and memorable events in the contemporary society of Africa. Specifically for those who were involved. Lucie Niyigena, a 70 year old woman who managed to survive the genocide, is still forced to face her fear everyday living beside someone who could have potentially killed a member of her family. This is just one of the still existing hardships for those forced to live it. This problem has not been changed since historical times partly because modern society has chosen not to make the change.

On the day of April 6th 1994, the mass murders sparked a ferocious wave of bloody reprisals as thousands of ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered over the next three months, killing almost 10,000 people everyday. Hutu extremists were told to load up on weapons like knives, guns, axes, whatever they could find so they could kill tutsis. They could do whatever they wanted to the Tutsis. The Hutu government said “Spare no one, especially the babies.” The Hutus goal was to kill every Tutsi in Rwanda. As told by Border guards, people have been floating down the river in hundreds everyday for weeks. Many bodies had their hands tied behind their backs. They were either shot, hacked, clubbed, burned, or drowned.

The Holocaust is something that we must never forget. Its occurrence relied only “upon the indifference of bystanders in every land” (Zukier). Even today we stand by while innocent lives are taken. The recent conflicts in Rwanda or Bosnia, or past conflicts in Cambodia, are merely three examples. Wherever genocide occurs one thing is sure to happen– individual lives become lost in massive numbers and the tolls are so large

Rwanda genocide victims tried to take refuge in places that they thought were places that they could go for safety. Places like schools, hospitals and churches. Hutu followed them, where they were then just as brutally murdered as any other Tutsi member. Nobody was safe. Hutu who didn’t believe in the genocide were also brutally murdered, the idea was to have a race of just Hutu (Rosenberg, 2014). One of the most gruesome events that happened

The mind of a survivor of genocide can be various, violent, confused, or blank, it can scar the mind indefinitely or not. Not only are the conductors of the kill-spree are scary, but even the victims can be just as terrifying. Two examples of genocide are the Holocaust and the Rwanda Genocide, both of which gives off long ranges of psychological effects on the mind of those who survive. Survivors struggle through the tragic events with the hope they would soon find and be with their loved ones. So how does a survivor survive the experience of genocide? Although survival is key during the event of a mass genocide, the experience victims go through can wreak havoc upon the mindset, go into depression or even sometimes to help them strive to a better future.

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

Beginning April of 2004, the Rwandan Hutu started mass murders of Tutsi. This genocide is believed to have spawned from the civil war that was taking place at that time. This civil war was based on issues over power and resentment between the Tutsi and the Hutu. (Rwanda, 2008) Eventually the war escalated to the point where the Hutu began genocide of the Tutsi and anybody who opposed the ideas of the Hutu. The killing of the Tutsis became so common—in a very short amount of time—that it was practically acceptable amongst the Rwandans. (Hintjens, 1999) This was a very brutal and gruesome genocide. In just five weeks, approximately half a million Tutsi and innocent civilians had been murdered. (Hintjens, 1999) This is an astounding number of people, especially because the Hutu murdered the Tutsi at knife point—usually with a machete. (Snow, 2008)