Military Roles In Rwanda Genocide

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

Sitting outside a grocery shop in the Nyabugogo slum in Kigali, Rwanda, Francis Nduwimana described a longing for a change in leadership in the presidential election on August fourth. “Rwanda is tired of Kagame, but cannot express its views openly. If citizens criticize Kagame, the government agencies will accuse them of dividing the country, and will either be imprisoned or killed,” stated Nduwimana (qtd. in Onyulo). Paul Kagame has been the president of Rwanda since 2000 and could possibly be president till 2034. Under Kagame’s rule, the Rwandan military has gained a massive amount of power over citizens. Rwanda’s military is violating the Human Right’s by taking away Rwandan citizens voices and their ability to restrict the government.

Hearing about genocide was nothing new to many people, but because of the new upbringing of the internet and availability of news broadcasts, the entire world was able to see it for the first time. It was always well known that the Rwandan population is very one-sided. The majority of the people living there are Sunni Muslims or "Hutus" whereas the minority consists of Shia Muslims, or "Tutsi". According to Sarah Hymowitz and Amelia Parker, Tutsi are said to be of higher class because they are more white, and the Hutus are common people of middle class. Although the distrust and hatred between the two groups of people was always slightly present, nobody had any clue about what would be the outcome. Following the establishment of the Hutu led government in 1961, the oppression of the Tutsi followed not far behind. Although many Tutsi fled in fear of imprisonment into neighboring Uganda, those of the Tutsi who were still in Rwanda (probably due to family or marriage ties) were seen as lesser beings by the new Hutu Government. At the time, and for two decades it seemed like the situation was under control. When the Rwandan Patiotic front (RPF) was formed in 1985, tensions escalated. The RPF was a group of Tutsi exiles who demanded that they be granted the right to return to their homeland and end the long period of discrimination against the Tutsi. The RPF rebels invaded Rwanda in October 1990, re-igniting Tutsi hatred throughout Rwanda. It was this act of Tutsi aggression,

After RPF victory, they established a partnered government with Pasteur Bizimungu(Hutu) and Paul Kagame(Tutsi). Bizimungu as president and Kagame as vice president.

Rwanda has a long history that has contributed to their experiences of great violence and suffering and therefore the need for a peacekeeping. In pre-colonial times there was a division between the superior people being the Tutsi’ and the peasant people being the Hutu’s. King Ruganzu Ndori, being a Tutsi outlined Hutu’s area and showed no hesitation in treating any Hutu’s who opposed the order with unmitigated harshness.

This was due to the overthrow of the Tutsis by the Hutus in 1959. This overthrow led to the creation of the RPF (Rwandan Patriotic Front). The RPF was a group condition of Tutsi exiles. The leaders of Rwanda in 1944 were Augustin Bizimungu, Augustin Bizimana, Georges Rutaganda, Bernard Munyagishari all better known as commanders in 1994 Rwanda. Pre-Genocide Rwanda did have a Hutu president, Juvenal Habyarimana.

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

During 1959, the Hutus removed the Tutsi monarchy and thousands of Tutsis escaped to bordering countries. A large group of Tutsi exiles created a rebel group, the Rwandan Patriotic Front. The RPF(abbreviated) came into Rwanda to start a war which ended in a peace agreement in 1993. Following the civil war in Rwanda between the Tutsis and the Hutus, the Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana’s plane was shot down near the Kigali, which also was carrying two Hutus. The Hutus blamed the RPF and began to slaughter them all immediately. It was complete devastation, people killing their friends, neighbors, and even husbands/wives who had Tutsi ID cards. The main points or central issues of the Rwandan Genocide were shown through the actions of the perpetrators, victims, upstanders, and the bystanders. Perpetrators(Hutus) were brainwashed to believe what they were doing was just

This was due to countries wanting to avoid a messy slaughter, which would have lead to a loss of lives from their army and political implications. Instead, they hoped that Rwanda would be able to settle the issue them selves. Another international response was the Security Council, who did respond by sending 5,000 peacekeepers across to prevent further casualties. However, because of their delayed arrival, they had little impact on the genocide. The Domestic response to this slaughter was by the RPF (Rwandan Patriotic Front) who defeated the people responsible for any killings. Their campaign was swift, taking back the whole country within 100

By early July, the RPF had control of the majority of the country. Fearing reprisal killings, hundreds of thousands of Hutus fled the country. To think that people would have that much disrespect for human life is unbelievable. Instead of taking the initiative to put an end to the brutality, the international community ignored the crisis. While the United States created a ton of excuses regarding the lack of intervention. The genocide was distorted and incompletely portrayed by the international community for months due to a lack of interest in the country of Rwanda. Even today, large governments choose not to intervene in circumstances of human rights violations when those countries are not part of the Western world. If the international community had given more help to the people in Rwanda instead of focusing on their own national interests, the genocide’s effects possibly could have been minimized or even

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

The first person arrested was the past mayor of Taba, Jean-Paul Akayesu in 1998 who was convicted of genocide. Over 120,000 people are jailed. A day after Jean Paul Akayesu the prime minister of Rwanda Jean Kambanda with multiple convictions of genocide and crimes against humanity and conspires. After the genocide it is believed that 750,000 Tutsis, 50,000 moderate Hutus and 10,000 to over 100,000 Hutus were killed. In 2002 the Rwanda government released a statement saying that 1,074,017 people were killed. Now the RPF controls the government, but they have turned a lot of blind eyes on RPF soldiers that did inhumane actions. The economy is having a tough time growing thanks to the genocide and loses of land. Rwanda is getting back on its feet and even though it’s facing hard times it is still trying to

Less than 20 years ago more civilians were murdered in Rwanda in a three-month spree of madness than during just about any other three-month period in human history, including the Holocaust. No country in Africa, if not the world, has so thoroughly turned itself around in so short a time. Kagame’s government has reduced child mortality by 70 percent; expanded the economy by an average of 8 percent annually over the past five years; and set up a national health-insurance program(Gettleman 1). In Rwanda, vagrants and criminals have been collected and taken by the police and sent to a youth “rehabilitation center”. In Rwanda there are not even large slums due to the fact that the government does not allow it. The controversy of this topic is if Rwanda should have amended the constitution to allow Kagame to run for a 3rd term? The fact is that Rwanda should have amended the constitution to allow Kagame to run for a 3rd term

On April 6 1994, prior to the death of president Juvenal Habyarimana, the nation of Rwanda become released into turmoil as genocides claimed the lives of at the least ½ a one million of its citizens (Seltzer in Des Forges, 1999,). Instigated by using the Hutu political elite and its military guide, their top objectives were the Tutsi, as well as Hutu moderates. Many have purported “ethnic hatred” as the motive of the Rwanda Genocide and at the same time as an ethnic divide became indeed found in Rwanda across the time of the warfare, the reasons for the genocide are more than one and was greater complex.

Later those children became rebels, and were the Rwandan Patriotic Front known as RPF, They came to the country and started a civil war in 1990. That was cause ethnic tensions, which kept going through April 1994 as genocide. Millions of Tutsi and Hutus people died during that war. The Tutsis defeated the national army and the Hutu refugees which became scared of the Tutsi and fled in the neighbor countries which some ended up by going further abroad, others stayed and others went back to Rwanda. Rwanda had election in 1999 and they had their first post-genocide presidential and legislative elections in 2003. CIA says that “ estimates for this country explicitly take into account the effects of excess mortality due to AIDS; this can result in lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality, higher death rates, lower population growth rates, and changes in the distribution of population by age and sex than would otherwise be expected (July 2016 est.)” The lower population of Rwanda is due to genocide and low life expectancy that is seen in most of African countries. There are 84% Hutus (Bantu), 15% Tutsi (Hamitic) and 1% Twa