Outline of the Rwandan Genocide

On April 6, 1994, a plane carrying Habyarimana and Burundi’s president Cyprien Ntaryamira was shot down over Kigali their were no survivors. They did not know who shot the plane down but they are blaming Hutu extremists and the leaders of the RPF. An hour after the plane went down the Rwandan armed forces and the Hutu militia groups had started setting up roadblocks and barricades, and started killing Tutsis and moderate Hutus. the first victims of the genocide were the moderate Hutu Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana and her 10 Belgian bodyguards, with that happening it started more conflict and interim government of extremist Hutu Power leaders from the military high command had stepped in on april 9. The killing in Rwanda had spreaded to the rest of the country, up to 800,000 or more had been slaughtered within 3 months.

In 1959 a series of Hutu riots occurred killing around 20,000 Tutsis. After 38 years of being under Belgian control, Rwanda gained independence in 1962. After this, the fighting between Hutus and Tutsi continued to become more and more prevalent. In July of 1973, the president of Rwanda Gregoire Kayibanda was overthrown by juvenile, Juvénal Habyarimana who declared himself president. At the time hundreds of thousands Rwandan refugees were living in primarily neighboring countries. These countries were poor and did not have enough resources for the refugees. As president, Habyarimana would not let these refugees back into Rwanda. The refugees formed the Rwanda Patriotic

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

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

During the 100 days of the brutal massacre known as the Rwandan Genocide, between 800,000 to a million people were tragically murdered. Tutsis were not the only ones being killed. Hutus were also being killed for various reasons. If people thought they felt regretful for what they were doing to the Tutsi, they would be killed. If the Hutus tried to help the Tutsi in anyway they were killed. Many of the Hutus were killed if they opposed the killing campaign and the forces directing it.

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.

One hour after the plane crash, the Hutu militia known as the Interahamwe constructed road blocks and began slaughtering both Tutsis and moderate Hutus. Towards the start of the genocide, the Hutus murdered moderate Hutu prime minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana and her bodyguards, leaving the Hutu extremists to seige power over Rwanda. Though the massacre originated in Kigali, the slaughtering soon traveled into the rest of the country. To increase the number of murders, local officials and radio stations encouraged citizens to slaughter their neighbors. The genocide finally ceased in early July 1994, when the rebel Tutsis drove the Hutu army across the border and into

The Rwandan Genocide was one of the most horrific acts of genocide since the Holocaust during World War II.  Lasting only one hundred days it claimed the lives of over 800,000 people and had lasting effects on global civilization to this day. Even though the world had been consumed by many travesties before, the Rwandan Genocide exposed that violent human injustices on a grand scale could still happen regardless of the advancements made within “global society”. Decades of internal conflict within Rwanda because of colonialism, class, and clan played a great role in marring cultural identity and thusly created a foundation for the genocide.  The homogeny of cultures evolved, separating the population of Rwanda into three distinct groups: Hutu, Tutsi, and a marginal group of Twa that made up one percent of the population. Hutu ultimately came into power and with the help of the Interahamwe (a Hutu militia group) and the Rwandan Armed Forces committed atrocities towards Tutsi peoples under the ideal of 'social revolution ' and extermination of perceived 'enemies ' of the Hutu race. The planning and execution to erase and exterminate the culture and identity of Tutsi people is a classic and legal example of Genocide.

A Genocide is the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially of those of an ethnic group or nation. There has been seven genocides, and the Rwanda genocide is no exception. Only a little less than a million people were killed, over a period of approximately 100 days (Singh 1). With the bad living conditions already in Rwanda, it is a place of poverty and discomfort for many people among other problems such as inequality. The genocide could have been prevented if Rwanda, and surrounding countries, had placed refugee camps near Rwanda for fleeing Tutsis, the United Nations stepping in sooner and educating the public on the genocide, and allowing the Hutus to have as much of a voice that the Tutsis had (before the genocide had started).

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.

Twenty years ago in the small east African country of Rwanda, eight hundred thousand people, mostly those of the Tutsi tribe, were slaughtered by their own government. The Hutu and the Tutsi tribes followed the same traditions and inhabited the same territory for over a thousand years. The rise of conflict between the Tutsi and the Hutu dates back to 1918, when the Germans lost their colonies following World War I, and the Belgians took control of Rwanda. In 1933, the Belgians establish the superiority of the "Tutsi" over the "Hutu" which lead to a great divide between these two groups (Admin of PBS.org). When the Belgians handed over power to the Hutu majority, a deep resentment of

The slaughter and killing from Kigali soon spread all across Rwanda. In just three months 800,000 people were killed. 3/4 Tutsi’s were murdered during the Rwandan genocide. People were killed in churches, homes, schools, and many other place (“A Good Man in Hell”). During this time, government radios and officials were telling civilians to kill. They were told to kill anyone who was Tutsi or anyone who supported the Tutsi’s. The RPF kept fighting back and by early July the RPF had claimed and got control over most of Rwanda. Then over two million Hutu’s fled the

800,000 Tutsi people were killed by the Hutu’s over one hundred days, that is 8,000 everyday. The Rwandan Genocide was sparked after the killing of the Hutu, Rwandan President he was allegedly killed by Tutsi rebels. There are stories that say otherwise and they blame the Hutu’s, no one knows who shot down the plane there are only theories. There had been tension for many years after the Hutu’s took power off the Tutsi’s after the Belgians left. Tutsi’s then did small terrorist attacks on them. It had been brewing for years. This is similar to the Holocaust in the way that the Tutsi’s were made out to be evil as Hitler did to the Jews. If one was half Tutsi and half Hutu how they determined if they were one or the other was that they would measure their nose, how far apart their eyes were or if their skin was a certain colour etc. Once they determined what they were they would give them a ‘passport’ that stated whether they were a Hutu or Tutsi. This is very similar as to when Hitler picked out all the different measurements or way a Jew looked. When the killings started they used machete’s, garden tools or anything they could get their hands on because if a Hutu was neighboured next to a Tutsi they would go next door and butcher their whole family. A lot of bodies were thrown into rivers similar to when the Jews bodies were thrown into pits at the time of the

“In the Rwandan genocide over one million helpless Tutsi were murdered in a span of 100 days” (Briggs). Because of the underlying government and cultural problems in Rwanda, the Hutu led a 100 day massacre against the Tutsi in an attempt to eradicate them. To begin, the word genocide contains many definitions and has been used several times throughout history. The dispute of the Rwandan Hutu and Tutsi occurred long before the events of 1994. There were lots of methods that were taken to eradicate the Tutsi. Furthermore, the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide had many atrocities.

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