General Karenzi Karake Is Part Of The International Community

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.

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.

April 7, 1994 marked the beginning of one hundred days of massacre that left over 800,000 thousand dead and Rwanda divided by a scare that to this day they are trying to heal. The source of this internal struggle can be traced back to the segregation and favoritism established by Belgium when they received Rwanda after the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1918. At the time the Rwandan population was 14% Tutsi, 1%Twa, and 85% Hutus; the Belgian’s showed preferential treatment to the Tutsi, who were seen as socially elite, by giving them access to higher educations and better employment. This treatment causes the uprising of the Hutus in 1959 overthrowing the Tutsi government forcing many to flee the country, sparking even greater resentment between the two ethic groups. Without the interference and preferential treatment by the Belgian’s this atrocity could have likely been avoided.

George Santayana once said “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” The Rwanda Genocide is a contemporary representation of the events that occurred during the Armenian Genocide. It is an unforgiving circumstance that even after massacres from the latter and the Holocaust that Genocides still emerge in a world who far too often shuts their door to the idea of intervention. Countries can have an abundance of supplies, unmatchable man-power, and exceptional military equipment, however, with interests in absentia, countries will be reluctant to deploy forces despite exclamations of help. The culmination of the Rwanda Genocide is absolutely an unforgiving portion of history that will be remembered by the victims, the witnesses, and the decision-makers.

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

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 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

“In 1994, close to 1 million people were killed in a planned and systematic genocide. The group of people being murdered in this genocide were the Tutsis” (U.S. House). To begin, genocide has different ways of being interpreted. Due to the inflammatory feeling between the Hutu and the Tutsi, conflicting views were created which led to clashing beliefs. There are eight stages of genocide that pertain to the conflict in Rwanda. Finally, genocide should never be just ignored/pretend that it never happened. The genocide against Rwanda’s Tutsis was instigated by the Hutu and their need for political power.

Africa has been an interesting location of conflicts. From the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea to the revolutionary conflict in Libya and Egypt, one of the greatest conflicts is the Rwandan Genocide. The Rwandan Genocide included two tribes in Rwanda: Tutsis and Hutus. Upon revenge, the Hutus massacred many Tutsis and other Hutus that supported the Tutsis. This gruesome war lasted for a 100 days. Up to this date, there have been many devastating effects on Rwanda and the global community. In addition, many people have not had many acknowledgements for the genocide but from this genocide many lessons have been learned around the world.

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.

Genocide is “the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, ethnic, political, or cultural group”. In Rwanda for example, the Hutu-led government embraced a new program that called for the country’s Hutu people to murder anyone that was a Tutsi (Gourevitch, 6). This new policy of one ethnic group (Hutu) that was called upon to murder another ethnic group (Tutsi) occurred during April through June of 1994 and resulted in the genocide of approximately 800,000 innocent people that even included women and children of all ages. In this paper I will first analyze the origins/historical context regarding the discontent amongst the Hutu and Tutsi people as well as the historical context as to why major players in the international

The 1994 genocide in Rwanda took place on the 7th of April, a day after the aircraft carrying the Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira, president of neighboring Burrundi was shot down. The 7th of April 1994 saw a succession of massacres across Rwanda. In 100 days, this state-led extermination campaign targeted at the Tutsi minority and “moderate Hutus” was orchestrated by specific, influential architects -Hutu hardliners of the Habyarimana’s inner circle. This power clique was accountable for the systematic annihilation of Rwanda’s Tutsi minority, an approximate of over half a million civilian lives.

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

The RPF may have found that their invasion of Rwanda in 1990 to be the prime opportunity because in 1989, “the international coffee price plunged by over 50 per cent,” leaving the Rwandan economy in a vulnerable position and any national army would be weaker if the economy was suffering (Pottier 21). It was, however, found that “towards the end of 1990, just after the RPF invasion, extremist elements of the Hutu government began planning mass murder of Tutsi,” and the international community was aware of these dangers (Clark 24). Johan Pottier was blunt when he states that “preparations for genocide, invariably dressed up as self-defense against the Rwandese Patriotic Front, an organization ethnicised as ‘the Tutsi invader’, had started some two years before the actual slaughter” (30-31). There had been known killings of human rights activists and journalists, as well as orders from prominent officials for the Hutu majority to prepare for the killings and even organizing death squads to thoroughly eradicate the Tutsi (Pottier 22, 30). All of these conditions, once mixed together with encouragement from the RPF and the Rwandan government, spelt disaster for civilians and hundreds of thousands of people would lose their lives over something that could have been prevented had the international