Role Of Ngo In The Rwanda Massacre

Genocides happen when ethnic divisions become apparent. Many times, these ethnic divisions were due to colonization from people of different race. These cases are especially true in Africa when Europeans colonized their territory, with clear racial divisions between them (Gavin). These genocides go on because of nations acting on ignorance and refusing to help out the nations in turmoil, allowing the genocides to continue, without wasting their own resources. These nations purposefully ignoring the slaughter of people cause the nations to also be guilty of the genocide underway (“The Heart”). The genocide occurred in Rwanda in Central Africa during 1994. The decades of Tutsi oppression of Hutus and the assassination of President Habyarimana in 1994 led to the genocide in Rwanda.

After the atrocities of the Rwandan Genocide and the lack on international intervention, Rwandan was forced to rebuild itself from scratch. Rwanda is a small country located in central Africa. Its population is divided between two ethnic groups: the hutus and the tutsis. The roots of the Rwandan genocide date back to 1924 when Belgium first took over Rwanda, formally a part of Tanzania. The Belgians viewed Tutsi superior to the hutus. Many referred to this as Hamitic hypothesis. It was motivated mainly by the fact that Tutsi were taller and thinner than hutus. This lead to a major boost in Tutsi egos and mistreatment of the Hutus for decades. This angered the Hutus leading to a major conflict between the two ethnic groups.

Throughout the 20th century, numerous acts of genocides have attempted to bring the complete elimination and devastation of large groups of people originating from various particular ethnicities. With these genocides occurring in many regions of the world, the perpetrators often organizing such crimes, have historically been larger and more powerful than the victims themselves. Often being the government and its military forces. However, the lack of international response associated with these genocides, further contributed to the devastating outcomes. On April 6,1994, the fastest killing spree of the century took place in Rwanda against the Tutsi minority population. With many warning signs having already been proclaimed prior to the start of the Rwandan genocide, I believe that with international interference, this bloodshed could have ultimately been prevented.

The United Nations failed Rwanda, in a time of need they abandoned the Rwandan people giving them no physical protection. Sadly, things go wrong with the slaughter of almost 800,000 Rwanda people, left defenseless in a country where no one outside cared. U.N. troops were present as only “peace-keepers.” The dispute was between the Hutus and Tutsis people could of been controlled if the U.N. changed their position, but the result could bring more consequences. This conflict between the two social groups in Rwanda,was left to be resolved on its own with many lives lost.

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.

The birth of Red Cross can be traced back in 1828 when Jean-Henri Dunant was born in Geneva. Dunant’s character and education drove him to aid the distressed and the unfortunate and to be concerned about social work. It was until 1853 when Dunant was appointed as an accountant to a secondary firm in Algeria. This appointment involved a lot of traveling. In 1859, he arrived at Solferino where he saw one of the severest fights of the nineteenth century that only lasted for 15 hours but left approximately 40000 people wounded. During this battle, he was filled with shock and pity to an extent that he decided to help together with the villagers. They gave comfort and medical care to the wounded men.

Nevertheless, they failed to prevent this ridiculous genocide because of their lack of attempt and lack of effort to stop it. On the fourteenth-anniversary of the genocide, the UN’s thoughts go out to the victims who have been traumatized, hurt, or dead during Rwanda’s Genocide. Quote UN secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon’s message “It is often those who most need their rights protected, who also need to be informed that the Declaration exists -- and that it exists for them.”- This message was a little too late after hundreds of thousands of people have been brutally massacred in the genocide in Rwanda. Though the UN seemed to have convinced the people in Rwanda that they were doing their best to stop this, nevertheless, the UN is respectively responsible for their inability to keep peace among the ethnic tribes (Hutus and Tutsis). (M2PressWIRE, 2008)

One of the most prominent genocides that has occurred within the century was not only the Holocaust in 1940s, but also occurred in 1994 in Rwanda… which eventually would be referred to as a “preventable genocide” (p. 447). Rwanda was considered this because, “…On the one hand, it is possible to isolate the key developments that led step by step from the earliest colonial period in Rwanda to the genocide a full century later. On the other, there was nothing inevitable about this process” (p. 447). The genocide that occurred within Rwanda initiated between the two main groups of the country… the Tutsi and the Hutu. The genocide would last for roughly one-hundred days of which, “During 100 days in 1994, between 500,000 and 1,000,000 Rwandan Tutsi

Moral courage, small or large, is life-altering to the savior and the victim. The idea of a person risking their life and possibly enduring the same conditions as the victim is unbelievable. Personally, it is inspiring to see someone stand up and fight back for something they believe is immoral. Carl Wilken’s, a brave soul of providing aid to the villager’s suffering while dodging the killings in the Rwanda genocide, was motivating and I intend to follow his lead, but not precisely facing the same dangers. Preferably, educate the people of the world on the vulnerabilities society undergoes with discrimination based on gender, religion, race, or sexual preferences. If only people understood why individuals believed in such morals and saw their

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.

Post-genocide Rwanda engages political, development and social academics and researchers in the pursuit to better understand how this small African nation collapsed into genocide and rebuilt itself since. Rwanda is best known for its 1994 Rwandan Genocide, also referred as the Genocide against Tutsis, witnessed over 800,000 Rwandan Tutsis and moderate Hutus butchered in just 100 days (Prunier 1995, 143, 213, 263). While the nation is often praised by international institutions and other states for its rapid social and economic development, high usage of foreign aid and policies against corruption since the end of the genocide (Zorbas 2011, 103, 109-10), it is often mired in controversies and weighing debate by the academic community.

The RPF may have found that their invasion of Rwanda in 1990 to be the prime opportunity because in 1989, “the international coffee price plunged by over 50 per cent,” leaving the Rwandan economy in a vulnerable position and any national army would be weaker if the economy was suffering (Pottier 21). It was, however, found that “towards the end of 1990, just after the RPF invasion, extremist elements of the Hutu government began planning mass murder of Tutsi,” and the international community was aware of these dangers (Clark 24). Johan Pottier was blunt when he states that “preparations for genocide, invariably dressed up as self-defense against the Rwandese Patriotic Front, an organization ethnicised as ‘the Tutsi invader’, had started some two years before the actual slaughter” (30-31). There had been known killings of human rights activists and journalists, as well as orders from prominent officials for the Hutu majority to prepare for the killings and even organizing death squads to thoroughly eradicate the Tutsi (Pottier 22, 30). All of these conditions, once mixed together with encouragement from the RPF and the Rwandan government, spelt disaster for civilians and hundreds of thousands of people would lose their lives over something that could have been prevented had the international

Rwanda is enmeshed in another cycle of repression, with an elite that represents a definite minority involved in legal and extra-legal policies that impoverish the majority of the people in the country. Unfortunately for all concerned, while the foreign aid is essential for the evolution of Rwanda and to raise it out of poverty, this same foreign aid is continuing the crisis and the government laws by and for the elite Tutsis who came out of Uganda in 1994 and their little group of allies. Despite, aid that flows to that government have the perverse effect of enabling this group to keep control even when that power begins from purposefully restricting the growth of the huge majority of people in the country. The civil war took place in Rwanda in the 1990 and 1994 and subsequently spread to the DRC and caused an enormous loss of human capital through countless victims. The war also destroyed the infrastructure and equipment, public and private buildings. Additionally, rich sources were diverted toward war activities. Additionally, productive resources were diverted toward war activities. Hakizimana, E., Endless, B. (2009, April 15). Rwanda Today: when foreign aid harms more than

Rwanda is a small country located in central Africa. It borders with Uganda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Tanzania. One of the most terrible “ethnic conflicts” occurred here in 1994, two tribes fought each other within the same territory, the rest of the world bizarrely ignored this event and thousands of people were killed. The event lasted 100 days and almost 1 million people died, even though the Rwanda government asked other countries for military

Beginning April of 2004, the Rwandan Hutu started mass murders of Tutsi. This genocide is believed to have spawned from the civil war that was taking place at that time. This civil war was based on issues over power and resentment between the Tutsi and the Hutu. (Rwanda, 2008) Eventually the war escalated to the point where the Hutu began genocide of the Tutsi and anybody who opposed the ideas of the Hutu. The killing of the Tutsis became so common—in a very short amount of time—that it was practically acceptable amongst the Rwandans. (Hintjens, 1999) This was a very brutal and gruesome genocide. In just five weeks, approximately half a million Tutsi and innocent civilians had been murdered. (Hintjens, 1999) This is an astounding number of people, especially because the Hutu murdered the Tutsi at knife point—usually with a machete. (Snow, 2008)