Philosophy 381 : Genocide, Language And Power

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

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?

Never ending battles have occurred over the past sixty years in Rwanda due to their atrocious economy. It has been the Tutsi and the Hutu, two out of the three ethnic groups in Rwanda, that have been battling for the government spot. As the years went on, the fighting kept getting more brutal. This brutality ended up being an all out massacre in Rwanda from the Hutu. It has been argued whether if the killings were an act of genocide or an act of war. But what are exactly genocide and war, and which one relates to the conflict in Rwanda? Because of the way the Hutu went through with there harsh brutality towards the Tutsi provides enough evidence to prove that the Hutus actions were an act

In 1994, a tragedy occurred in Rwanda where millions of Tutsis’, the minority, were brutally murdered by the Hutu, the majority. This event is known as the Rwandan genocide and left many people wondering what could have caused this devastating event to occur. Over the years, many theories have surfaced and among those were the theories of Peter Uving. In both Why Did People Participate in Genocide? A Theoretically Informed Synthesis and The Condition of Structural Violence Peter Uvin seeks to explain why violence occurs in society. Nevertheless, the two articles are different in the sense that Why Did People Participate in Genocide? A Theoretically Informed Synthesis is primarily focused on the other theories which include political scientists,

Genocide is an extremely broad subject with various different definitions. Genocide could be one or more leaders trying to get rid of a large group of people by killings or attacks, or it can be against a smaller group of people in a less violent manner. Genocide has been a very extreme problem in society and various reports of genocidal events have been recorded in history, but how does one go about finding the precise and accurate definition of a “genocide”? Genocidal acts are placed into different categories and are defined in different degrees. The Commission on Human Rights has set up seven treaties that describe acts of genocide. Regardless of committees’ attempts to limit or abolish acts of genocide, genocide was a very important

“Darfur is ranked as the bloodiest century in history”(Sanders,Edmund pg.2). The Darfur bloodshed caused so much harm to so many people. The word genocide has so much power. “Labeling Darfur as a genocide led government officials to hide and reduce their actions”(Sanders, Edmund pg. 2). Some people say that the Darfur bloodshed is an ongoing genocide. Other people question whether it meets the legal definition of genocide. Two consecutive American presidents and several activist groups have defined Darfur as a genocide. I believe that the darfur bloodshed is a genocide. I think that since the darfur bloodshed was a mass slaughter, and rape it should be called a

What does 200,000, 800,000 and 11 million mean to you? Anyone seeing these numbers simply just sees them as a random group of figures; however, to the victims of former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and the Holocausts, these are the number of civilian casualties as a result of genocide, or the methodical massacre of a sizeable group of individuals. Throughout history, there have been several examples of genocide. In some instances, those affected received aid or a form of intervention, while others did not. I believe humanitarian intervention is permissible, especially in the cases of Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and victims of the Holocausts. When it comes to saving innocent lives, protecting human rights, and preserving the state, humanitarian intervention

The United Nations established this international law against genocide after the appalling Nazi genocide in hope to prevent future genocides. However, the end of the twentieth century proved that a law was not enough. The collapse of the State of Yugoslavia lead to ethnic cleansings. Rwanda became chaos with Hutus killing the Tutsi ethnic group in mass murders and internment camps (Morgan, 2011). “It seemed that the twentieth century, one of the most violent in human history, was ending in an orgy of state-sponsored atrocities” (Morgan, 2011).

The number of Native Americans throughout American from the time of the Europeans arriving to now has dramatically dropped. As churchill argues in, A Little Matter of Genocide, it was not just a coincidence so many of these indigenous people died, it was genocide. Genocide is the deliberate killing attempt to wipe out a religion, race, or culture of people. However, it was not all Europeans who participated in this effort to kill off the natives.

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

In 1994 the Rwandan Genocide led to the deaths of 500,000-1,000,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu. Meaning 75% of the Tutsi and between 100,000 sympathetic Hutu were murdered in the span of a 100-day period. Decades of civil war and ethnic rivalry had torn these ethnic groups apart. In Rwanda, the Hutus (primarily) broke the Geneva Conventions and U.N. Assistance in Rwanda (UNAMIR) tried to assist the Rwandan civilians.

In April of 1994, a terrible atrocity began in the African country of Rwanda where around eight hundred thousand individuals were massacred over a time period of 100 brutal days. If thought about in mathematical terms, this works out to about 333 deaths per hour; which is a rate of deaths worse than what occurred during the Holocaust. (2) The term genocide is defined in the United Nations Genocide Convention, established in 1948, as “any of the following acts committed with the intent to destroy in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: a) killing members of the group; b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to

Genocide, a dire event, has been recurring time and time again throughout history. In the past, there was the Holocaust, where Hitler exterminated over six million Jews based on his anti-semitic views. Elie Wiesel, a Jewish author, has become a very influential man in educating the world of the true events of the Holocaust due to his involvement in the disaster. Presently, a genocide is occurring in the Darfur region of southern Sudan, in which according to Cheryl Goldmark, “a systematic slaughter of non-Arab residents at the the hands of Arab militiamen called Janjaweed” has been taking place since 2003. (1) Not only is genocide a tragic historical event, it also continuously occurs today.

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

With this conceded class distinction came the fight for reigning ability, and amidst this power vacuum, Rwandans fell victim to conflicting groups and crime, the eventual building blocks that lead to the massacre of 800,000 civilians. The origins of this ethnic loathing and in turn ethnic genocide can be secured to European colonialism, where those who arrived to colonize and yield the wealth of western knowledge, instead carried racist beliefs. Through this haunting event in history, when foreign governments unfittingly place their ideologies in unknown territory, revealed is how uninvited nations can destabilize a state by stimulating ethnic warfare, causing it to collapse and crumble through conflict.