Research Paper On Rwanda Genocide

Genocides happen when ethnic divisions become apparent. Many times, these ethnic divisions were due to colonization from people of different race. These cases are especially true in Africa when Europeans colonized their territory, with clear racial divisions between them (Gavin). These genocides go on because of nations acting on ignorance and refusing to help out the nations in turmoil, allowing the genocides to continue, without wasting their own resources. These nations purposefully ignoring the slaughter of people cause the nations to also be guilty of the genocide underway (“The Heart”). The genocide occurred in Rwanda in Central Africa during 1994. The decades of Tutsi oppression of Hutus and the assassination of President Habyarimana in 1994 led to the genocide in Rwanda.

Rwanda was taken over by the Belgians causing the Hutus and Tutsis to not get along which caused genocide. “Facing a revolution instigated by the Hutu, the Belgians let the Hutus, who constituted the majority of Rwanda 's population, be in charge of the new government. This upset the Tutsi. The animosity between the two groups continued for decades.” Both clans were upset and started Genocide in Rwanda. The causes of their mass casualties resolved in a never ending dispute between the two clans.

On April 6, 1994, a plane carrying Habyarimana and Burundi’s president Cyprien Ntaryamira was shot down over Kigali their were no survivors. They did not know who shot the plane down but they are blaming Hutu extremists and the leaders of the RPF. An hour after the plane went down the Rwandan armed forces and the Hutu militia groups had started setting up roadblocks and barricades, and started killing Tutsis and moderate Hutus. the first victims of the genocide were the moderate Hutu Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana and her 10 Belgian bodyguards, with that happening it started more conflict and interim government of extremist Hutu Power leaders from the military high command had stepped in on april 9. The killing in Rwanda had spreaded to the rest of the country, up to 800,000 or more had been slaughtered within 3 months.

For years, Rwanda has been a hotbed of racial tension. The majority of the Rwandan population is made up of Hutu's, with Tutsi's making up the rest of it. Ever since European colonial powers entered the country and favoured the Tutsi ethnic group over the Hutu by putting Tutsi people in all important positions in society, there has been a decisive political divide between the two groups. This favouring of the Tutsi over the Hutu, and the Hutu subjugation as an ethnic lower class resulted in the civil war and revolution of 1959, where the Hutu overthrew the Tutsi dominated government, and resulted in Rwanda gaining their independence in 1962.

The Hutus are now in the position of power; the Hutu officials began to carry out massive genocides on the Tutsis. According to Document 8 it states, “The Hutu officials who took over the government organized the murders [of Tutsis] nationwide…Meanwhile, when the murders started the RPF [Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front] in Uganda invaded Rwanda again.” This quote demonstrates the back and forth genocide each ethnic group is imposing on each other. The genocide in Rwanda was sparked by the death of the Hutu Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, when his place was shot down. Many Hutus blamed the Rwandan Patriotic Front and instantly started campaigns of slaughter. This also provided additional reasons why the Hutu had hatred against the Tutsis. According to Document 9a it states, “Over the course of the genocide nearly one million people were killed.” This shows how extreme the genocide was and how extensive the genocide

The Rwandan Genocide was the 1994 mass slaughter in Rwanda of the ethnic Tutsi and Hutu peoples. The Rwandan Genocide left 70% of total ethnic Tutsi dead and a total of 20% of the entire country 's population dead. Today, more than twenty years later, Rwanda is a growing society with an ever expanding skyline.

The Hutu started to go door to door killing the Tutsi with machetes, cubs or any hand weapons they could get their hands on to because bullets were to expense for the Hutu to affored, about.com says (“Some of the victims were given the option of paying for a bullet so that they'd have a quicker death”). The reason why the Hutu would know who was a Tutsi was because they would look at their identity card that would have what they were, a Hutu, a Tutsi or a Twa. All the Tutsi men & children were killed as soon as they were found, but some of the women would be kept & tortured before being killed & in many causes they would be raped first then killed adding humiliation to the mix of all things. The killing lasted about 100 days or 4 months averaging about 800,000 Tutsi men & women died. The slaughter stop because the RPF came into play, the RPF or known as the Rwandan Patriotic Front is a trained military made up of Tutsi people that was made some years before. The RPF forced matter into their own hands & went into Rwanda to take over, they came out wining but at the same time the flet like if they “had lost because they have had wished to get here sooner than later” says a Tutsi

During the 100 days of the brutal massacre known as the Rwandan Genocide, between 800,000 to a million people were tragically murdered. Tutsis were not the only ones being killed. Hutus were also being killed for various reasons. If people thought they felt regretful for what they were doing to the Tutsi, they would be killed. If the Hutus tried to help the Tutsi in anyway they were killed. Many of the Hutus were killed if they opposed the killing campaign and the forces directing it.

While there is no single outlying cause of the Rwandan Genocide, the ongoing tensions between the Hutu and the Tutsi is what is believed to have eventually lead to the Rwandan genocide. The majority of the killings occurred shortly after President Habyarimana 's plane was shot down

Similar to the events of 1994, rumors were a catalyst in this upheaval. These took the form of false reports, that Tutsi extremists had murdered Hutus. The underlying cause of this breakdown of order was the Hutu’s need for independence, freedom and equality. It also had to do with the fact that things were bad enough for Hutus that they were ready to believe that it was possible for the Tutsis to commit terrible crimes that might go unpunished by the Belgians. The consequence was that 300,000 Tutsis were driven out of the country, thereby making them an even smaller minority. In 1961, the Hutus forced the Belgians to replace Tutsi chiefs with those of Hutu and declared Rwanda a republic. The Rwandan Revolution of 1959 was a warning that the existing inequality and social tensions would eventually escalate into more

The world’s history has been tainted by many instances of violence targeted at specific groups of people due to either their ethnicity or beliefs. This paper will discuss the characteristics of the Rwanda Genocide and the Jewish Holocaust. The Rwanda Genocide targeted the Tutsis because of their ethnicity, while the Holocaust targeted the Jews because of their ethnicity and religion.

Genocide is a powerful word. International law requires intervention if something is deemed genocide. There is no doubt that the Holocaust is the most famous and most studied case of genocide, although there have been numerous throughout history. One of the more recent is the Rwandan genocide, in which 800,000 people were killed (United Human Rights). The two have several similarities and differences in their origins, exterminations and aftermath.

The Belgians also decreed that Tutsis should be the only ones in power and thus removed Hutus from positions of power and excluded them from higher education (Arraras). “By assuring the Tutsis’ monopoly of power the Belgians set the stage for future conflict in Rwanda” (Arraras). The Tutsis were enjoying their status as being superior to the Hutus but all that changed in 1959 with the Hutu revolution and so in 1960 and 1961 the Hutus won the elections. Since then, ethnic tensions had always been brewing between the Hutus and the Tutsis. However the tensions escalated when Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, was shot down above Kigali airport on April 6, 1994. I consider this to be a form of political violence because someone or a group that opposed this President which represented only the political interests as well as the viability of the Hutus had to be killed in order for another group possibly the Tutsis to fill the vacuum of power left by the Hutu president. The Hutus blamed the assassination of their president on the Tutsis and in turn sparked an all out massacre waged on to the Tutsi people.

The Rwandan president, Habyarimana and the president of Burundi, Cyprien Ntaryamira, are killed when the president’s plane is shot down near Kigali Airport, on April 6th, 1994. That night on the 6th of April, 1994, the genocide begins. Hutu people take to the streets with guns and machetes. The Hutus set up roadblocks and stopped anyone that looked Tutsi or suspected of helping Tutsi people to hide. On April 7th, 1994 the Rwandan Armed Forces set up roadblocks and went house to house to kill any Tutsis found. Thousands of people die on the first, while the U.N. just stands by and watches the slaughter go on. On April 8th, 1994 the U.N. cuts its forces from 2,500 to 250 after ten U.N. soldiers were disarmed and tortured and shot or hacked to death by machetes, trying to protect the Prime Minister. As the slaughter continues the U.N. sends 6,800 soldiers to Rwanda to protect the civilians, on May 17th, 1994, they were meant to be the peacekeepers. The slaughter continues until July 15th, 1994, in the 100 days that the genocide lasted 800,000-1,000,000 Tutsis and Hutus

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)