Pros And Cons Of Being The President Of Rwanda

Considering the UN’s recent failures to facilitate peace in Africa, more care should have gone into assigning leadership roles. While Dallaire came across as a passionate and enthusiastic leader, he admitted he lacked experience and had no prior knowledge on the history of Rwandan cultural or its ethnic conflicts. Even as Dallaire set up his campaign in a rundown hotel in Kigal the peace agreement was being undermined. His arrival was marked by a slew of riots and assassinations, all of which were tests of his ability to maintain the peace. It soon became apparent to Dallaire and Hutu extremist than the UN was ill prepared to handle the peace keeping mission at hand.

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.

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.

Rwanda is a country in East Africa, which has had a mass killing with over 800,000 of its civilians dead. On April 6, 1994, present Rwandan President, Paul Kagame - at the time the leader of a Tutsi

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.

Imagine living a life of fear, turmoil, with death all around. Hearing gun shots being fired, death chants, machete use, dead bodies everywhere. Afraid to close your eyes at night to rest, yet more afraid to wake up in the morning. To sustain your life and the life of your loved ones you must hide out, kill others, watch your neighbors be killed at the hands of the enemy. Knowing if you are caught you could be forced to murder your own family, be raped, be held captive, be starved to death, and most likely be killed. In 1994, this was the life many faced in Rwanda. “Rwanda has become a synonym for one of the worst genocides of the 20th century (Lemarchand, (n.d.), p. 483).

John A. Ausink establishes the actors within the confines of Rwanda. These actors include the Tutsi and the Hutu. The Tutsi are looked at as elite in a sense but the Hutu make up the majority of the Rwandan population. Ausink also establishes the government of Rwanda early in the piece. “In 1973, General Juvenal Habyarimana seized power in Rwanda and established a government that only allowed political participation by the Republican Movement for Democracy and Development” (Ausink 1997, pg.2). This is important within the context because it leads to the introduction of the RPF (Rwandan Patriotic Front) in 1986. Their presence within Rwanda leads to political unrest and eventually violence. “After the government forces had killed two senior rebel commanders, the RPF resorted to guerrilla warfare . . . “(Ausink, pg. 2, 1997). Habyarimana’s

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 1994, Rwanda’s population was made up of three ethnic groups, the Hutus, the Tutsi, and the Twas. Hutu extremists blamed the Tutsi for their country’s social, economic, and political problems. Because of this, The Hutu extremists decided to kill the Tutsi and the Hutus who were opposed to the extremists. “In the early 1990s, hutu extremists within Rwanda’s political elite blamed the entire Tutsi minority population for the country’s increasing social, economic, and political pressures.” This shows that human rights are being violated because one ethnic group decided to blame a minority population for their country’s growing problems. The extremists decided they wanted control back and because of this they felt it was justified to kill as

Many were killed and had to be buried in mass graves due to the corpses in mass amounts (“Genocide”). The few survivors lost their families, homes, friends, and suffered awful health complications. Many survivors already lived in poverty, but now lived in unpropitious poverty. Survivors also had to undergo severe trauma from their horrific experiences. They had to reconstruct their lives as well as the city they knew and loved. These people subsided the awful treachery they had endured and united as a community to rebuild their homeland. Although, ten years after the genocide, ethnic relations in Rwanda remained tense (Genocide & Persecution Rwanda 39). Signs of genocide are still everywhere today and the effects of this tragedy are

Historical Context: The Rwanda Genocide was a genocidal slaughter of the Tutsi’s by the Hutu’s, taking place in 1994. This event was a shock to the world, as 1,000,000 Rwandans were killed within the space of 100 days. The atrocity took place following the Civil War, an on-going conflict that had reached a conclusion in 1993, which many Hutu’s weren’t happy with. As a result, in 1994, Hutu’s within the army, police, Government backed militias and the civilian population turned on the Tutsi’s. This mass slaughter marked a significant disruption to World Order, due to the large number of deaths and the inaction of the world to reinstate peace in Rwanda. Nations who faced criticism for their lack of action include; the US, UK and Belgium, who failed to support the UN peacekeeping troops in Rwanda.

He is also the leader of the Rwandan Patriotic Front. Shortly after the genocide, Rwanda developed a gender quota that mandated that at least 30% of legislature seats be comprised of women (Hunt & Heaton, 2014. According to an article in National Geographic (2014), President Kagame has, “mandated that its lineup be 50 percent female”. However, women have far exceeded either of these goals. By 2013, women made up over 60 percent of parliament and Rwanda’s government has pushed for equality in elections and increased education of its citizens about the democratic process (Hunt & Heaton,

hold power in Rwanda and it became a central actor of the new regime. It was established in a transitional government and appointed a National Assembly where the RPF occupies 13 seats out of 70. The Hutu Pasteur Bizimungu is the new President, while Paul Kagame, the Tutsi military leader, assumed the positions of Vice-President together and Minister of Defense. The shock of genocide profoundly marked the regime, defining the vision and the behavior of the new Rwandan elites and shifting political tools. The new administration has to pursue the ambitious goals of pacification and the definition of the democratic

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.

Beginning in 2008, my research focuses mostly on Rwanda’s political, militarily, economic reconstruction since the 1994 Rwandan Genocide. This research has led to a greater exploration of regional dynamics between other African Great Lakes region nations. During my various periods living within Rwanda, I have had the opportunity to perform independent research and analysis on the nation’s political, military, agricultural-focused development, religious and social history and presence. This research resulted in my publication for the Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs titled, “Rwanda, Israel, and Operation Protective Edge.” I wish to continue my current research on Rwandan perceptions of the international community with a more specific