Gender Roles In Rwanda

When Belgium brought in colonialism they also brought in the Catholic Church. This irritated the Tutsi and they started to get agitated against Belgium authority. The Tutsi felt that Rwanda was just fine and there didn’t need to be anything changed. The negative response towards the new colonial economy and the Catholic Church that the Belgians brought in will end up coming back at the Tutsi. The Belgians saw this negative attitude and because of this attitude from the Tutsi the Belgians switched there support toward the Hutu. Since the Tutsi did not treat the Hutu with much respect in the past years the Hutu could take advantage of this support from the Belgians and payback the Tutsi’s for how they treated them in past years.

When the Belgian left they gave Rwanda independence.As a result of them leaving there where two different ethnic groups left in Rwanda the Hutu’s and the Tutsi’s.These two tribes went to war over control of Rwanda.In

The Rwanda revolution of 1959 was significant because it marked the shift in power between two ethic groups within Rwanda. The country was originally led by the Tutsis and was later given to the Hutus by their colonizers Belgium. The change in power between the Tutsis and the Hutus caused tensions within the country as both groups battled for power. These tensions led to uprisings and as a result led to the death of many Tutsis. The revolution of 1959 not only emphasized the exsiting tensions between the two ethnic groups but it as well showed the impact of Belgium’s influcences even after Rwanda gained independce in 1962.

Tutsis were tall and well educated. Not only did they have better social status, but there also appeared to be more entitled, whereas, the Hutus were those who worked for Tutsis. During the pre- World War I, Rwanda was colonized by Germany, but later when Germany had lost the war, Rwanda came under Belgium’s administration. Under the ruling of Belgium, Tutsis were more favored to be educated, which had made Hutus felt under appreciated, as if they were really treated like servants. (Rwanda Genocide) However, the population of Hutus has always outnumbered the Tutsis, where it accounts 80 percent of the Hutus, 19 percent of Tutsis, and only 1 percent of Twa and Pygmy, the original inhabitants of Rwanda. (Rwanda genocide: 100 days of slaughter, 2014) Towards the end of Belgium’s ruling, the Hutus were given more authority from the Belgians. Since the majority is the Hutus, the group had seeked influence to subdue the minorities, specifically the Tutsis. Even before independence in 1959, the Hutus had ultimately sparked revolution, causing around 300,000 of Tutsis to escape to the neighboring country, Uganda, where they settled down for nearly 30 years. In 1961, the Hutus had victoriously overthrown Tutsi’s power, advocated the country a republic, and within that same year, Rwanda gained its independence. After the Tutsis had fled the country, in 1973, Major General Juvenal Habyarimana,

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.

April to July 1994 is stamped by the “darkest and most brutal tragedy of our time.” During this 100-day mass genocide, the world watched as 800,000 Tutsi men, women, and children were slaughtered at the forefront of history. It is hard to believe that yet another mass genocide was justified by ethnic differences. The conflict between the Hutu and Tutsi tribes of Rwanda was deep seeded in the period long before Rwandan independence. The tension between these two groups can be traced back to the 14th century when the Tutsi arrived in Rwanda and dominated the area as an elite class, oppressing the Hutu population. Although their relations “remained relatively civil,” tensions were heightened with colonialism and Belgian rule of Rwanda following World War I.

Within Rwanda, media facilitated the Hutu's massacre of the Tutsi population by providing a means of communication, and through the spreading of hate media. Jean-Pierre Chretien co-authored a book in which he investigates the evolution of the Radio-Television Libre des Mille Collines, more commonly known as the RTLM, throughout the entirety of the Genocide. One example of this were expressions such as: " 'Inyenzi' accomplices of the Inyenzis' and 'Inkotanyi' (RPF) which reoccured repeatedly, as the speaker repeatedly exhorts his listeners to fight them because, 'the person whose neck you do not cut is the one who will cut yours' " (Chretien). Being subject to this sort of propaganda daily turned many citizens into murderers, enticing and coercing them into killing numerous Tutsi all for their own safety's sake. Another issue related to the local media during the Genocide was the constant degradation of Tutsi women. The RTLM went even so far as to enact a Hutu Ten Commandments in regards to the Tutsi population. Four of the ten commandments centered around the scandalousness of Tutsi women, whereas other commandments centered on having a Hutu exclusivity in institutions such as military, and educational ones (Gisenyi).

maintain this Hutu power. There were thousands of Rwandan Tutsis living in exile, in one state or another, on the border

In addition to the similarities and social differences between the Hutu and Tutsis, Belgium’s intervention in Africa led up to a series of innocent murders occurring between the Hutu and Tutsis. The Hutu and Tutsis were known to have “tribal hatred” towards each other, and Belgium later “assumed that ethnicity could be clearly distinguished by physical characteristics” (Britannica.com). This model that was used by Belgium, was later implemented into Rwanda “whereby the categories of Hutu and Tutsi were no longer fluid” (Britannica.com). This new system now led to believe that “Tutsis had migrated with their cattle from northern Africa at some earlier time and had come to dominate the more lowly Hutus”

Destexhe, Alain. Rwanda and Genocide in the Twentieth Century. New York, New York: New York University Press: 1995

After World War I, Rwanda was controlled by Belgium.Due to the fact that the Tutsis were the minority of the population, the Belgians believed they were superior to the Hutus. The Hutus were oppressed and had very little rights, and this mentality that Tutsi were superior led to the tensions between the two ethnic groups. These tensions caused violence before the genocide even began. When

On the early summer of 1994 the exodus of the Genocide in Rwanda began. Almost 800,000 people were killed in the period of 100 days. All due to bitter accusations from the biggest ethnic group- the Hutus. Somewhere inside Rwanda’s political elite, the group of Hutus aggressively criticised less than half of the Tutsi population, for the incredibly increasing social, economic, and political pressures, within the country, and were also wrongly accused of encouraging a ‘Tutsi-dominated rebel group’. Due to this, and also by the help of propaganda and perpetual political manipulating, the president, Habyarimana, (a Hutu), decided to split up the two ethnic groups, towards the end of 1992.

Ever since, Rwanda has been a small country in central Africa located at the center of DRC, Kenya, Tanzania and Burundi. According to its early history, it’s been in German east African colonized countries but was later on taken over by Belgium. They have been colonized until they received their independence on 1962.There were different ethnic groups in Rwanda but most of them are mainly sub-tribes of either Hutu or Tutsi populations. Approximately 85% of the population in Rwanda were Hutus and almost the rest were Tutsis. As things were regularly happening in the country, the Belgium started to lean on and favor more for the Tutsi minority over the majority who were Hutus. Therefore, as I would argue, the arrival and the act of Belgium supporting Tutsis over Hutus was the start of the abhorrence between the two ethnic groups and the reason behind the genocide that occurred in the country in 1994.

The United Nations efforts in peace-keeping operations in Rwanda had many setbacks and was considered to be a failure for many reasons. One of the reasons being the International community’s failure to make a distinction between a civil war and genocide in Rwanda. (Khan, 196) This meant that the little effort presented by the UN department of peacekeeping operations was often too late. In previous years the world has witnessed countless civil wars which have taken place in Somalia, Liberia, Haiti, Georgia and Angola. However, genocide was not present in these wars and was uncommon. (Khan, 196) According to Alain Destexhe, Rwanda was only the third experience of genocide in this century. Thus, with the ongoing tensions and unrest, dating back to 1990, between the Hutu-led government and the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) it was evident that Rwanda was on course for a civil war but what was failed to realise was that a genocide was also taking place. (Khan, 197)

In 1959 Hutus started uprisings and riots, want power over Rwanda and killed 20,000 Tutsi in 1963-73. A man named Paul Kagame, who is now the leader of Rwanda,