Christianity and Genocide in Rwanda

The socio/cultural cause of the genocide in Rwanda came from the German and Belgian colonization, bringing along with them an idea of social science. Both colonial powers reinforced the Tutsi’s political power, which further oppressed the Hutus. This reinforcement caused the Hutus to envy the Tutsi’s aristocracy because they were privileged to all things, while the Hutus were privileged to nothing (Kapuscinski). This oppression led to many Hutu revolutions that the Hutus were successful in over the unprepared Tutsis. These victories of the Tutsis incidentally reversed the Rwandan apartheid system. The reversion of the system then gave

This investigation studies two of the causes of the 1994 genocide of Rwanda. The two causes are examined in order to see to what extent each contributed to the genocide. The social and ethnic conflicts between two Rwandan groups called the Hutus and the Tutsis caused violent disputes and riots. The assassination of President Juvenal Habyarimana is often thought of as the event that sparked the mass murders. Did the assassination of President Juvenal Habyarimana influence the Rwandan genocide of 1994 more than the ongoing social and ethnic conflicts?

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.

“Seldom in history has a once-dominant group suffered so terrible a reversal of fortune as the Tutsi of Rwanda”- Robin Hallet. The event that Robin Hallet is referring to is the Rwandan Genocide, the “genocidal mass slaughter” of the Tutsi (the minority group in Rwanda) and a few Hutu (the dominant group in Rwanda) by “members of the Hutu majority,” which resulted in at least 1 million Rwandan deaths. The Rwandan Genocide was indirectly caused by European colonists; severely damaged relations between the two ethnic groups, almost irreparably; and had a destructive effect on the survivors of the genocide.

Throughout the 1600s to the mid 1990s, the Tutsi tribe in Rwanda, and the Hutu tribe of Rwanda have always been arch enemies. Although the Hutus have had a prolonged hate for the Tutsi tribe, this hate was not physically expressed, until 1994. From April to July of 1994, over 80,000 Tutsi people were murdered and tortured for their African heritage. The Rwanda genocide is considered to be one of the worst massacres the world has ever seen since the Holocaust. This paper will touch a few things that occurred after the massacre, and will also answer the questions of why this massacre started, what occurred during this genocide. The Rwandan genocide was a massacre based off of discrimination and hatred for a specific tribal group. This

This source’s goal is inform its audience about the motives behind any genocide – Power, Psychological resentment, Purification and Pecuniary gain. Rwandan Genocide against Tutsis in 1994 depicts all these motives behind the massacre. But the most profound factor which fueled the transmission of genocidal ideology was the longstanding and deeply ingrained ethnic differences and polarization between the Hutus and Tutsis backed by the motive of Pecuniary gain.by the policy makers and top guns, who commit this crime and hide behind the facelessness of regimes or governments.

On the 7th of April 1994, Rwanda experienced the first signs of genocide when the Hutu's used radio signals to send out. hate messages such as “cockroaches”, and “rats”, towards Tutsis.1 Hutus started to send radio signals throughout Rwanda because a day earlier, Rwandan President Juvenal Habyairmana’s private plane was shot down. Since Habyairmana was a Hutu and the perpetrators of his death were unknown, this allowed the Hutus to blame this horrific crime on the Tutsis. After 100 days of Habyairmana’s death, almost one million Tutsis were killed.2 The mass killings in Rwanda were known as the Rwandan genocide. The blame for the Rwandan genocide should not only be placed upon the Hutus, but the Belgian colonists should be blamed for the genocide; due to their acts of colonizing Rwanda in 1918 to improve imperialism, which caused the death of more than one million Tutsis.3

Twenty-three years ago, in a small, central African country identified as Rwanda, approximately 1,000,000 individuals belonging to the Tutsi tribe were massacred by a rival tribe, known as the Hutus. The hatred that resulted in the Hutus slaughtering the Tutsis originated from a rivalry that was created centuries before the infamous massacre. Living in an agricultural community, the Hutus were traditionally peasant cultivators, while the Tutsis were cattle lopers. Through their work, the Tutsis gained wealth and, consequently, political power. The divide between the Hutus and the Tutsis was only made more dangerous as Europeans traveled to Rwanda, favoring the Tutsis. As the inferior race, the Hutus were denied government positions, higher education, and were forced into slave labor. In retaliation, the Hutus gained political power through a democratic vote put on by Belgian missionaries from the Tutsis through the 8:1 majority ratio. The Tutsi power was completely reversed into total Hutu power, as “the oppressed became the oppressor.”

Historians do not lie when they say, “History always repeats itself”. Sadly for Rwanda, history did repeat itself with the Rwanda Genocide. Instead of one leader controlling the actions of a powerful military force, Rwanda was a complete chaotic mess, with mass killings of their own people. As Hintjens says it was “one of the highest casualty rates of any population in history from non-natural causes.” Explaining the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda and The Order of Genocide both discuss and write about the pre genocide, social friction, prime factors of the genocide, and the reasoning of killings from both sides.

In 1994, Rwanda’s population was made up of three ethnic groups, the Hutus, the Tutsi, and the Twas. Hutu extremists blamed the Tutsi for their country’s social, economic, and political problems. Because of this, The Hutu extremists decided to kill the Tutsi and the Hutus who were opposed to the extremists. “In the early 1990s, hutu extremists within Rwanda’s political elite blamed the entire Tutsi minority population for the country’s increasing social, economic, and political pressures.” This shows that human rights are being violated because one ethnic group decided to blame a minority population for their country’s growing problems. The extremists decided they wanted control back and because of this they felt it was justified to kill as

The Rwandan Genocide, triggered by the murder of Rwandan President Habyarimana on April 9, 1994, was the fastest, if not most barbarous bloodbath in human history, and was carried out with little to no intervention or aid force from any of the many capable Western governments, such as the United States. Though these administration 's may claim that they were unable to intervene due to lack of warning signs and insufficient information; those statements are false. The United States government refused to intervene in the Rwandan genocide due to its economic disinterest, political indifference, and pure African prejudice, completely ignoring the obvious signs of the genocide.

Bang!Boom! The Hutus entered Tutsis homes and started to kill using machetes, guns and their hands. They killed the young, old, disabled, it didn’t matter. On the night of April 7th,1994 the elimination of the Tutsi race began.The Hutu and Tutsis did not live in perfect harmony before the invasion of Europeans. Major problems did not occur until after colonialism was over. When the Europeans settled down, they divided Hutus and Tutsis by their physical traits. Tutsis were favored by the Europeans causing hatred from Hutus. With their division amongst different races, European colonialism put Rwanda on the road to genocide.The mass murder of millions of Tutsis and moderate Hutus in the Rwandan Genocide was driven by the imperialistic motives of the Belgian government.

In the spring of 1994, more than eight thousand Rwandans were murdered, slaughtered, and bodies piled up upon the streets in less hundred days. But yet, the only reason this genocide had actually stopped, was at the cost of the Rwandan Patriotic Army, a militant group primarily composed of Rwandan refugees whom reclaimed Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. Yet, before the Rwandan genocide occurred, for many years, tensions between the Hutu and Tutsi had growth to extreme measures and lead to far more than just disputes- it lead to the Rwandan Genocide. The Rwandan Genocide was a mass slaughter of Tutsi and moderate Hutu in Rwanda by members of the Hutu majority in which the Hutu were the ones attempting to overrule the colony in

Between April and June 1994 warfare between the Hutus and Tutsis people struck in the East African country of Rwanda. To call it a tragedy would be an understatement when faced with the estimated death count of one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus over the span one hundred days. The genocide resulted from the desire to control and obtain power within Rwanda and stemmed from a history of cultural and social class conflict amongst the rival groups. This bloodshed proved to be one the most horrific events in history.

In Rwanda, the Tutsi are roughly one-fourth of the population. Historically, the Tutsi were the upper-class minority in Rwanda, while the Hutu were generally the lower working class. Furthermore, according to Mahmood Mamdani (2002, 75), “to be a Tutsi was thus to be in power… or simply to be identified with power”. Historical periods of oppression to the Hutu caused increasing ethnic discord. After a long oppressive Tutsi reign, Hutu leaders took power and began to mistreat Tutsis in a revengeful manner. The persecution of Tutsis started long-before the Rwandan genocide. In 1959, 20,000 Tutsis were killed, and from 1959-63, “repeated attacks force more than 200,000 Tutsis into exile”