Essay on Comparing Rwanda - Holocaust

Genocide is an extremely broad subject with various different definitions. Genocide could be one or more leaders trying to get rid of a large group of people by killings or attacks, or it can be against a smaller group of people in a less violent manner. Genocide has been a very extreme problem in society and various reports of genocidal events have been recorded in history, but how does one go about finding the precise and accurate definition of a “genocide”? Genocidal acts are placed into different categories and are defined in different degrees. The Commission on Human Rights has set up seven treaties that describe acts of genocide. Regardless of committees’ attempts to limit or abolish acts of genocide, genocide was a very important

The holocaust started when Adolf Hitler became Germany’s dictator, and they started the organization called the Nazis. They started by terrorizing the Jewish community in Germany, then eventually put them all into concentration camps. In one of the bigger camps, they experimented and took newborn babies away from the nursing mothers and they were seeing how long they would survive without feeding.

I will compare the Holocaust and the genocide in Rwanda. I would also identify the aggressors, the target groups, the reasons why aggressors engaged in genocide. I will also explain what occurred, the attempts made to stop the genocide and by whom and analyze the outcomes. Last of all, contrast them. I will explain why it's so different.

Propaganda was an elaborate and essential tool used extensively by Hitler and the Nazi's as well as the Hutu's during their terrorizing reign of Germany and throughout Europe and the Hutu's horrific acts of genocide that happened because of a culmination of deep ethnic tensions brewing over a century and intense political corruption. Not only was it used to promote and endorse the party and its leader's extreme racist values but also to mask the horrifying truths of what was to become known as the Holocaust and the Rwanda Genocides.

About 800,000 people were killed in 100 days in 1994(100 days of death). This slaughter started when the president(hutu) was shot down in a plane.(100 days of death)”It has never been conclusively determined who the culprits were."(Hutus & Tutsis) when this happened the Huts blamed the Tutsi and the Tutsi were getting punished and killed for this reason. The word “genocide” is when a specific amount of people are being targeted to kill. This word best describes what happened to all those people in Rwanda. What happened in Rwanda is something that everyone should know about because nothing like all the crimes done in Rwanda should ever happen again.

War is not a necessary evil humans must endure. Although, war is not necessary, humans go to war to try to gain power, fortune, and to spread their particular group’s religions and beliefs. By definition civilization is an advanced state of intellectual, cultural, and material development in human society, marked by progress in the arts and sciences, the extensive use of record-keeping, including writing, and the appearance of complex political and social institutions. The chaos of war is reflected in the semantic history of the word war. War can be traced back to the Indo-European root *wers-, “to confuse, mix up.” In the Germanic family of the Indo-European languages, this root gave rise to several words having to do with

The killings were carried out with meticulous organization and their militias had the help of the government who gave them specific locations and people to go and kill (BBC News). Not only did government officials help the Hutus in the killing but the radio played a major role in it as well. The United End to Genocide article states that “The radio was utilized to not only list the location of specific Tutsis to be targeted, but to also justify the genocide. Radio hosts discussed discrimination the Hutus suffered under the power of the Tutsis … Radio stories were used to anger the Hutus and channel that anger into action” (United End to Genocide). The Hutus were going around exterminating every Tutsi when they encountered a Tutsi rebel group who fought back which only made the fighting more toxic on both sides. According to an article by BBC News “The killings were carried out so swiftly and effectively because the then governing party, MRND, had a youth wing called the Interahamwe, which was turned into a militia to carry out the slaughter. Weapons and hit-lists were handed out to local groups, who knew exactly where to find their targets” (BBC News). The newspaper and radio affected everybody, including priests and nuns who were also convicted of killing people just to save

The Hutus and Tutsis were not traditionally different, and ethnicity in Rwanda only became important during Belgium colonization when the more European-looking Tutsis were chosen as the aristocracy to rule over the Hutus. After Rwanda's independence in 1961 the Hutu majority, comprising roughly 85% of the population, ruled the country. Between 1961 and the outbreak of genocide in 1994 many Tutsis fled the regime due to its discriminatory practices and anti-Tutsi policies. Even after gaining control of the country, however, Hutus had been scared of a Tutsi coup or an invasion from the Tutsi refugees in neighboring Uganda. The regime of president Habyarimana played on these fears in order to distract Rwandans from failing policies and

In the end of the Boy in the Striped Pajamas, it says “ Of course this happened a long time ago and nothing like this could ever happen again.” (Boyne, 2005, page 216). This statement is irony at its best. Genocide is the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group. This killing of entire groups of people has happened all through history, if you think about how long humans have been on the earth, the holocaust which happened from 1933-1945, is not that long ago, and there have been many genocides between then and present day, including Cambodia 1975, Al-Anfal 1980, Rwanda 1990, and Bosnia 1991. For instance, the Darfur genocide 2003-20011 wasn’t even 10 years ago. There are also many similarities

At the start of the 1994 Rwandan genocide 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed, during this conflict. Many of the surviving Rwandans who were lucky to escape the conflict poured over the border into the neighboring eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Shortly after the tragic genocide a new Tutsi government was formed and established in Rwanda, more than two million Hutus sought to seek refuge in eastern Congo. According to sources and The UN High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that only 7% of the refugees who fled to eastern Congo were actual perpetrators of the genocide. These people are often referred to as Interhamwe or FDLR the Federation for the Liberation of Rwanda.

Genocide is always one of the most horrible topics in the whole history of man. This topic jumped out to me , because my native country was destroyed because of a Genocide 100 years ago and became a small and weak country. In 1915 Turkey made a Genocide against Armenia and one and half million Armenians were killed and many more were exiled to the desert of Syria.” Genocide is a crime on a different scale to all other crimes against humanity and implies an intention to completely exterminate the chosen group” (Alain Destexhe). Many countries were destroyed by genocide.Examples of Genocides in recent history are Holocaust(WW 2), Bosnia(1995), Rwanda(1994) ,South Sudan(2003) ,Cambodia(1975).

The Hutus slaughtered many Tutsis in retribution; the Tutsis were brutally murdered in a number of ways. The killings spread quickly, from towns to churches and even to schools. The Tutsis were massacred in their homes, in fields, along roads, and even as they tried to hid in bushes. The Hutus murdered the Tutsis with axes and stones, clubs and machetes, and firearms and explosives. It was like an open battlefield; the Hutus killed many Tutsis, and age didn’t matter at this period. Ten year olds killed ten year olds, and Hutu mothers killed Tutsi mothers; some mothers even had babies on their backs as they were killing the other. With all these tragic events happening, teenage girls were raped. There were quite a few killings in churches also. Hutu throngs would gather into the church and beat terrified women and children to death (DeSouza). The corpses were left on the roads; in the countryside, dead bodies were covered with banana leaves. Over the radio in Rwanda the killers were encouraged as long as they didn’t leave the bodies on the road (Rwanda 1994). The Hutus in this genocide killed the approximate of

For quite some time, German hatred towards the Jews had been brewing. With the humiliation and shame of their defeat in World War I, their anger increased and they needed someone to blame for all of their problems. With Hitler’s rise to power, they had an outlet for their hatred. And so began the Holocaust.

In this paper I will be discussing what happened during the Rwanda Genocide. This event took place during 1994 but only lasted around 100 days during these 100 days about 800,000 thousand Tutsis were slaughtered by the Hutu, this event actually started around 1933 but tension built on leading to the second genocide of Rwanda. The Hutu and Tutsi people of Rwanda Africa you could are of close descent but are very didn’t, they would exchange cattle or, the females of their tribe would be married off to the other tribe at first these two got along fine until the Europeans showed up.

It is my belief that genocide and crimes against humanity are two very distinct concepts. At the end of World War II they became part of international law. They were two totally new concepts and are relatively recent in terms of legislation. To put it simply the main difference between crimes against humanity and genocide are: Genocide basically focuses on not the killing of individuals but the annihilation of masses, for example the destruction of a race or religious group made up of individuals who share the same ethnicity or religion. Crimes against Humanity on the other hand Is the systematic mass murder of a large amount of individuals which constitutes a crime against humanity. I will be making comparisons between the Rwandan genocide