Frontline: Genocide In Rwanda

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.

The UN had failed to resolve conflict in Rwanda there is still some little minor conflict going on in Rwanda this day. The UN had put up some camps for the tutsis and helped alittle for people to seek shelter and safety. The hutus knew that the UN could not do anything physical because they are primarily peacekeepers and trying to resolve the problem so the hutus was still killing everyone so nothing was resolved.

The United Nations failed Rwanda, in a time of need they abandoned the Rwandan people giving them no physical protection. Sadly, things go wrong with the slaughter of almost 800,000 Rwanda people, left defenseless in a country where no one outside cared. U.N. troops were present as only “peace-keepers.” The dispute was between the Hutus and Tutsis people could of been controlled if the U.N. changed their position, but the result could bring more consequences. This conflict between the two social groups in Rwanda,was left to be resolved on its own with many lives lost.

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

Rwanda is a country located in the middle of the African continent. The two ethnic groups present in the country lived in peace under their monarch until the arrival of Europeans. The Belgians arrival into Rwandan is what split the two ethnic groups of the Tutsi and Hutus, making them identify themselves with ID cards. This caused tension between the two groups as the Belgians favored the ethnic Tutsi, and made them the head of the government. Decade’s later Hutu extremists would take over the government and have revenge on the Tutsi. The new government would send out broadcasts calling on Hutus to kill their friends and neighbors. The Rwandan genocide would become the worst genocide to ever happen in Africa and one of the worst in the world. Today Rwanda’s recovery is surprisingly fast with the help of multiple nations and organizations. Rwanda’s recovery is nothing short of a miracle and is an amazing story of a war between two peoples.

The analysis of the genocides that took place both in Rwanda and Sudan’s Darfur region exhibit some similarities as well as differences. The character of violence was similar in both cases, but in Rwanda the violence was more intense, participatory, and extraordinary. The violence in these two places took place in an environment that had experienced civil wars. It was a period of political transition which was further aggravated by ethnic nationalism and a conflict of ethnic populations that were living in close proximity. However, in the Rwandan genocide, the state is more centralized, compact, and effective. This is what explains the intensity and variation. The international response to these genocides through observers emphasized on

Escaping is a pleasure to some people and to some it was a necessity, like to Jack Werber, “Escape was not our goal since it was so unrealistic. What we wanted was to survive, to live long enough to tell the world what had happened in Buchenwald.” This quote by Jack Werber is inspiring to some people. Jack Werber did live long enough to tell his story, like a lot of Tutsis in the Rwandan genocide. The Rwandan Genocide impacted not only the Tutsis, but the world.

With over eight hundred thousand to one million deaths, the Rwandan genocide is undoubtedly one of the most sad and shocking examples of the lack of intervention by not only the US and the UN, but by other countries as well. The ongoing tensions between the Hutu, the largest population in Rwanda, and the Tutsi, the smaller and more elite population is what eventually lead to the Rwandan genocide. The killings began quickly after President Habyarimana 's plane was shot down. After hundreds of thousands of deaths, the US did not intervene in Rwanda because being a landlocked country with no natural resources to benefit the US, there was no economical benefit, and the risk of sending in troops simply outweighed the rewards. The aftermath of the genocide has not only impacted those who lived through it, but it has also impacted future generations as well. At the end of the genocide, the ICTR was formed by the UN to find justice. The Rwandan genocide has shocking similarities between the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide as well. Overall, the Rwandan genocide was a terrible event that escalated far beyond what it should have if there had been intervention from other countries and the UN.

“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.

Nevertheless, they failed to prevent this ridiculous genocide because of their lack of attempt and lack of effort to stop it. On the fourteenth-anniversary of the genocide, the UN’s thoughts go out to the victims who have been traumatized, hurt, or dead during Rwanda’s Genocide. Quote UN secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon’s message “It is often those who most need their rights protected, who also need to be informed that the Declaration exists -- and that it exists for them.”- This message was a little too late after hundreds of thousands of people have been brutally massacred in the genocide in Rwanda. Though the UN seemed to have convinced the people in Rwanda that they were doing their best to stop this, nevertheless, the UN is respectively responsible for their inability to keep peace among the ethnic tribes (Hutus and Tutsis). (M2PressWIRE, 2008)

The second stage of genocide is symbolism and this one not only fits the problem of Rwanda genocide it also fits with how Nazi Germany treated the Jews in an inhuman manner for example In the Jewish holocaust book by Adam jones he stated that “the Jews were forced to where a yellow star all the time so the Nazi government can identify whose German loyal to the third Reich and who’s a Jew which Hitler proclaimed to be enemies of the state”(Jones) and compared to Rwanda when president Habyarimana came into power he did the similar thing by having the people under his rule have identification cards where it tells you which background u are from. Dr. Stanton stated that “he recognized the dangers of those cards when he visited Rwanda” (Stanton) what means is that he noticed that the government are discrimination certain ethnic groups and planning something big that will effect a lot of people. One of the statements that I agree with that Dr. Stanton stated was “During the genocide, ID cards became facilitators of killing, because they permitted the killers to quickly determine who was Tutsi”(Stanton) what he meant through those words is that those IDs are the reason that a lot of Tutsi died because when the genocide happened they tried to escape Rwanda in the first three days but the escape roots have become extremely difficult due to road blocks around Rwanda and what they created is a kill zone and if someone is trapped in a kill zone they are going to have a tough time of surviving and getting out

This sparked a massive war, which came to be known as the Rwandan genocide. Extremists created riots and war areas for weeks. In that time over 800,000 men, women and children fell victim to this horrible catastrophe. This genocide event wiped out almost 3/4 of the Tutsi population. This was as close to extinction of a culture anyone has seen before. It took years to return to a normal state of being. All of this resulted from greed, people who wanted to strike fear and hatred into people, only to keep themselves in a powerful position, most likely in government. The United Nations became aware of this massive slaughter eventually, but no-one would step up and acknowledge it as being a genocide, even though this was in exact terms of what it

History has a funny way of repeating itself. After World War II, the United States and the rest of the international community promised to do all they could to prevent future genocides. However this was a promise they were unable to keep. In 1994 when Rwanda went through genocide the United States and U.N were absent, leaving the Tutsis to be brutally murdered by the Hutus. As a consequence 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed and dumped into mass graves. Once again the United States and U.N promised to do more, but this time it was too late.

The 1990 's was a grim time in history all across the globe, its epicentre being Rwanda. In April of 1994 the Rwandan President Habyarimana was shot down from a plane. In consequence, immediate war was struck and the goal of extermination of the Tutsi was commenced. This genocide was the result of conscious choice of the elite, therefore, president Habyarimana to promote hatred and fear to keep itself in power. Rwanda’s political elite blamed the entire Tutsi minority population for the country’s increasing social, economic, and political pressures. Tutsi civilians were also accused of supporting a Tutsi-dominated rebel group, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). Using hateful propaganda, reading out names of people that must be killed and articles on newspapers. Tutsi and people suspected of being Tutsi were killed in their homes and as they tried to flee at roadblocks set up across the country during the genocide. Leaving an unimaginable 800,000 people dead. Mothers and daughters raped, children, boys and men slaughtered with machetes (United Human rights coucil,2015). How did it get this far? What was the worlds reaction to this gruesome mass murder?

According to Michael P. Scharf, over 800,000 Tutsis were slaughtered in just 4 months. To put that in perspective, that is two times more people than everyone in Atlanta, and every single one of their lives were taken in a third of the year. Such a terrible atrocity and no one accepted the blame. A small group of African leaders came together and blamed other countries such as the United States and the members of the United Nation’s for not intervening on the genocide that was occurring. Others, however, stated that it was not their place to get in the middle of a civil war. Looking deeper into this matter, some even say that the Rwandan government shares a portion of the blame for putting the two groups, the Hutus and the Tutsis, against each other. There has been a long, thick tension between the two for many years going back to when Belgium owned a colonial state known as Rwanda-Burundi.