Essay about It Wasn’t War it Was Genocide in Rwanda

The socio/cultural cause of the genocide in Rwanda came from the German and Belgian colonization, bringing along with them an idea of social science. Both colonial powers reinforced the Tutsi’s political power, which further oppressed the Hutus. This reinforcement caused the Hutus to envy the Tutsi’s aristocracy because they were privileged to all things, while the Hutus were privileged to nothing (Kapuscinski). This oppression led to many Hutu revolutions that the Hutus were successful in over the unprepared Tutsis. These victories of the Tutsis incidentally reversed the Rwandan apartheid system. The reversion of the system then gave

Sources disagree on the definition of genocide. According to American Heritage 4th edition “Genocide is the systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group.” The definition of genocide proves how genocide happened in Rwanda because Hutus and Tutsis were deliberately killed based on their ethnicity. Genocide not only happened in

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 Hutu’s believe the Tutsi’s were trying to regain power. There was a long history of rivalry and violence between these two tribes and the killing of the president was the catalyst ignited the voracious flames of revenge. The Hutu’s began their manhunt to find and kill the Tutsi’s in revenge for the years of perceived oppression when the Tutsi’s ruled Rwanda.

Rwanda is a country located in Central Eastern Africa, with an extensive history of colonization, after Belgium attained control in 1924. Belgium’s rule however also marked the beginning of a lengthy ethnic rivalry between the Hutu and the Tutsi people. Belgium favored the Tutsi the minority at 14 percent of the population over the Hutu, the majority at 85 percent, simply because the Tutsis were more resembling of the Europeans. “Colonial policy helped to intensify bipolar differentiation between Tutsi and Hutu, by inscribing “ethnic” identification on identity cards, by relegating the vast majority of Hutu to particularly onerous forms of forced cultivation and corvee, and by actively favoring Tutsi in access to administrative posts, education, and jobs in the modern sector,” (Newbury, 12). Belgium’s control fueled the Hutu’s resentment towards the Tutsis because the Tutsis received superior treatment for decades. Thus, when Rwanda finally acquired independence in 1962, the Hutus fought for control over the government, highlighting the first warning sign of the genocide to come. Many Tutsis were killed afterwards, while many others fled to neighboring countries to escape the violence.

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

“The true cause of the Rwandan Genocide was the negative influence of the European colonists on the relationship of the Hutus and Tutsis.” European colonists greatly aggravated relations between the Tutsi and the Hutu and indirectly caused the Rwandan Genocide. When the Tutsi people first came to Rwanda, they “impressed their power” upon the Hutu. And by the 15th century, the Tutsi had absolute rule over the Hutu, despite making up less than 15 percent of the population. They continued to successfully rule for centuries. Although the relationship between the Tutsi and the Hutu was strained, they were relatively “civil” towards each other until the late 19th century. This is about the time that the European colonial powers came in and worsened problems between the Hutu and the Tutsi. German colonists, who first arrived in

Under the power of Tutsi King Rwabugiri, ethnic differences were established when the King implemented a system in which, in return for labour, access to land was given. However, this system only applied to Hutu farmers and exempted Tutsi farmers (Eriksson, 1996). During the German colonization and later the Belgian trusteeship, the Tutsi were also favoured and viewed as superior (Eriksson, 1996). The Belgians increased the emphasis on the distinction of ethnic identity by issuing cards bearing the nationality designations of Rwandans (Klinghoffer, 1998). The colonisation by both Germany and Belgium contributed to an ethnic jealousy in Rwanda through treatment of the Tutsi (O’Halloran, 1995). The general decolonisation in Africa led to the Hutu revolution in which Rwanda underwent the transition from a Tutsi dominated monarchy to a Hutu led independent republic, which resulted in tens of thousands of Tutsi fleeing into exile (Eriksson, 1996).

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.

Before Rwanda became an independent African run country, it was under Belgian control. In the 1930s Belgium imposed indirect rule and put Tutsis in control of government. The Belgians did not invent the two ethnic groups, Hutu and Tutsi, but colonial intervention enforced a new meaning for the two ethnicities and thus engrained a hierarchy among the Rwandans . The Tutsis could be determined by their taller slighter build, lighter skin and thinner noses; in conclusion, they were the whitest Africans . By 1994 the two groups were visibly indistinguishable because of mixed parentage. This is portrayed in the movie Hotel Rwanda when a journalist asks two women what ethnicity they are; he discovers that one is Hutu and the other Tutsi. The journalist replies that the women could be twins. In the 1950s the newly established United Nations began to pressure Belgium to vacate Rwanda. Belgium introduced reforms to increase Hutu representation in politics, so from the 1950s until 1962, when Rwanda achieved independence a Hutu movement was born. The Hutu movement was gaining momentum and national recognition; the violence conducted during this period forced thousands of Tutsis to leave the country. In 1961 Belgium sponsored the federal election and a Hutu man, Gregoire Kayibanda was elected to power. This Hutu revolution excluded Tutsis from government and military. Kayibanda’s successor,

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.

According to the book Peacemaking in Rwanda, Hutus and Tutsis had prior hate towards one another due to “wealth, military prowess, family, and control over a precious commodity, or occupation of a prestigious social position.” (Jones, pg. 18) This meant at any time my children that Tutsis could become Hutus and Hutus could become Tutsis. Due to this my children, I come before to tell you never to hate your very own people. Clan lineage in Rwanda was were, power and status placed a role in the leading of the people as that determined who was a high authority amongst the different yet similar clans. While clan lineage played a role in who would lead the different clans, Rwanda before World War I was colonized by Germans. Sadly my kids, after World War I colonization moved on to the Belgium and this is was the day, when I saw my life flash before my eyes. The once peaceful Rwanda had changed within a day. When the Belgium came into power they “imposed on the contrary an intellectual and administrative simplification that equated “Tutsi’s” with “ruling class”.”(Jones, pg. 19) Throughout the Belgium ruling, Tutsis were the chosen ones to do all of the administrative work for the League of Nations Mandate. Due to this Belgium’s required for Tutsis to carry around cards that specifically showed and

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 conflict in Rwanda is probably the most well known and documented case of genocide since the holocaust. Through years of discrimination based on ethnic and class based differences, the population of Rwanda has been constantly entrenched in periods of fighting, refuge and genocide. In the following essay we will explore the background of the conflict. Specifically the historical implications, the parties involved the reasons for the fighting and the result of conflict. Next we will try to investigate some of the theories related to the conflict and discuss views of prominent authors who have attempted to define the reasoning behind this most incomprehensible conflict.

The primary cause of conflict in Rwanda was the political aspect of the two groups. “Ethnically motivated violence continued in the years following independence. In 1973, a military group installed Major General Juvenal Habyarimana, a moderate Hutu, in power. [...] This power sharing agreement angered Hutu extremists, who would soon take swift and horrible action to prevent it.” This shows that in Rwanda the two groups (Hutus and Tutsis) have been figting for power for a very long time. They want to have the land, resources and wealth. To get this they had to fight each other and push each other out of their country so that they get all of the land, resources and wealth from the group that fled. This violence continued from 1973 to the genocide in 1994. “The early organisers included military officials, politicians and businessmen, but soon many others joined in the mayhem. Organised gangs of government soldiers and militias hacked their way through the