Rwanda Genocide

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.

Webster's dictionary defines genocides as the deliberate killing of people who belong to a particular racial, political, or cultural group. Genocide has existed for thousands of years, and while there are many examples of these horrific events, some of the most well known are the holocaust and the genocide in Rwanda 1994. The United States’ responses to these killings as well as the way in which they ended were similar, but the driving force behind each differed.

What is genocide you ask? Genocide is the deliberate killing of an astronomically immense group of people, especially those of a concrete ethnic group or nation.

On April 7th, 1994 in the small East African country of Rwanda the darkest and most brutal tragedy occurred, the Rwandan genocide. 800,000 Tutsi’s and Rwandan men and women were grossly slaughtered by the Hutu government. This was one of the worst genocides in history and yet not many people spoke about it, why? I believe many people did not say anything is because they were scared that they would be caught and then killed. A man by the name of Philippe Gaillard was a part of the Red Cross international committee in Kigali. He was one of the few people who spoke up about the tragedies occurring in Rwanda. He told his friend who was a news reporter for the BBC in France and published his story. By Gaillard not “shutting up” about the situation it made the Hutu extremists embarrassed and this lead to the Hutu government allowing the Red Cross committee to have safe passage throughout Rwanda. “America, the beautiful America, the brave”, was what America was known for being, but after the ethnic cleansing of the Rwandan people it changed.

With over eight hundred thousand to one million deaths, the Rwandan genocide is undoubtedly one of the most sad and shocking examples of the lack of intervention by not only the US and the UN, but by other countries as well. The ongoing tensions between the Hutu, the largest population in Rwanda, and the Tutsi, the smaller and more elite population is what eventually lead to the Rwandan genocide. The killings began quickly after President Habyarimana 's plane was shot down. After hundreds of thousands of deaths, the US did not intervene in Rwanda because being a landlocked country with no natural resources to benefit the US, there was no economical benefit, and the risk of sending in troops simply outweighed the rewards. The aftermath of the genocide has not only impacted those who lived through it, but it has also impacted future generations as well. At the end of the genocide, the ICTR was formed by the UN to find justice. The Rwandan genocide has shocking similarities between the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide as well. Overall, the Rwandan genocide was a terrible event that escalated far beyond what it should have if there had been intervention from other countries and the UN.

There were many occasions in history that were an act of genocide. One event was that aboriginal children were dying in schools the Canadian government had forced them to attend. Canada was trying to eliminate their true religion and treated them terribly. Also, Armenians were thought to be disloyal because of their religion. Therefore, they were executed by the Ottoman Empire’s government. Although, one of the main examples of genocide was the Holocaust. Adolf Hitler killed a vast group of Jews to where

April 7, 1994 marked the beginning of one hundred days of massacre that left over 800,000 thousand dead and Rwanda divided by a scare that to this day they are trying to heal. The source of this internal struggle can be traced back to the segregation and favoritism established by Belgium when they received Rwanda after the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1918. At the time the Rwandan population was 14% Tutsi, 1%Twa, and 85% Hutus; the Belgian’s showed preferential treatment to the Tutsi, who were seen as socially elite, by giving them access to higher educations and better employment. This treatment causes the uprising of the Hutus in 1959 overthrowing the Tutsi government forcing many to flee the country, sparking even greater resentment between the two ethic groups. Without the interference and preferential treatment by the Belgian’s this atrocity could have likely been avoided.

Genocide has been around for many centuries. One of the most known happened in 1915 when residents of the Ottoman Empire were told to leave upon orders from the government. Due to the long and harsh travels, there was an enormous amount of disease trapped in the concentration camps. With that alone, there was an estimated amount of one million Armenians killed. Another example of genocide is when the Khmer Rouge took control of the Cambodian government in 1975. Citizens who were suspected of receiving an education were tortured at the Tuol Sleng prison. In four years, approximately two million Cambodians died in the “Killing Fields.” A Civil War in Rwanda aroused tension between the Tutsi minority and Hutu minority. When the Rwandan president’s plane was shot down, there was no doubt that a war was about to break out. The two minorities found themselves in the center of the conflict; in the end, the “outbreak” claimed the lives of an estimated 100,000 people. About a decade ago, the Sudan government showed an act of genocide when they murdered 300,000 Darfuri citizens and displacing two million. In addition to that, Native Americans died from colonial conflict, disease, and discrimination devastated their population. Within this time period, over nine million Natives died

Genocide is when mass murders are committed especially when they are committed on a certain religion or race. You’d think that something as big as millions or thousands of people being killed would get a lot of attention or cause many problems but it’s the opposite. People are being killed because of differences that are driving people apart instead of connecting them. They read newspapers hearing about the terrible things going on around them and didn’t care. They looked outside seeing everything around them crumble, still not caring. Then, they were the ones who were being killed and tortured. By then it was too late to care, too late to stop it from happening. An example of this is the Holocaust and the Stolen Generation. The Holocaust and the Stolen Generation are some of the darkest periods of history although, they differed in the perpetrator’s reason behind them, the people who were impacted, and how they ended.

Genocide is a term that can be defined as a planned and systematic destruction of whole or parts of certain national, religious, race, ethnic, cultural or political group (Akhavan 21). Genocide is deliberated with a different set of actions for a purpose to destroy an essential foundation of life. Genocide is characterized with the massive killing of members of a group, causing mental or bodily injuries to a group of people, imposing mechanisms to prevent birth, removing particular group children and putting conditions of life in order to bring to an end existence of a particular group. Therefore, genocide is an illegal action and a crime recognized and punishable by international law (Charmy 35). For instance, Rwanda genocide is characterized by ethnic tensions within the country. Initially the definition of the term genocide as by genocide convection only comprised of racial, ethnic, national and religious groups. They argued that inclusion of other groups cannot strengthen but rather weakens it. This definition failed to recognize other groups such as political groups, economic and cultural groups that are essential elements of genocide. Genocide therefore, is generally considered the worst moral crime the ruling authority can commit against those it controls Naimark (2017).

What is genocide? Genocide is a deliberate and systematic attempt to destroy an ethnic, religious, racial, or national group. Two genocides that happened fairly recently are the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide. The victims of the Rwandan genocide and the victims of the Holocaust experienced similar stages of polarization, preparation, extermination, classification, symbolization, and dehumanization and different stages of organization and denial.

A genocide according to Dictionary.com, is “the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular ethnic group or nation.” Genocides can happen when someone of power wants to eliminate a potential threat, spread terror among enemies, to aquire economic wealth, or to implement a belief or ideology.

From the dawn of time to even now, genocides have been happening throughout history. Some earlier genocides have not even been recorded or documented. Genocides happen because one group wants complete control and absolute power of another. People can be killed for having different ideals or being different. Knowing this, one could see that genocides only end with senseless and brutal discrimination and death. From 1975 to 1979, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge carried out a genocide in Cambodia killing all people who seemed to oppose them and their communist government (“The Cambodian Genocide”).

Genocide is a powerful word. International law requires intervention if something is deemed genocide. There is no doubt that the Holocaust is the most famous and most studied case of genocide, although there have been numerous throughout history. One of the more recent is the Rwandan genocide, in which 800,000 people were killed (United Human Rights). The two have several similarities and differences in their origins, exterminations and aftermath.

Genocide is a term that can be defined as a planned and systematic destruction of whole or parts of certain national, religious, race, ethnic, cultural or political group (Akhavan 21). Genocide is deliberated with a different set of actions for a purpose to destroy an essential foundation of life. Genocide is characterized with the massive killing of members of a group, causing mental or bodily injuries to a group of people, imposing mechanisms to prevent birth, removing particular group children and putting conditions of life in order to bring to an end existence of a particular group. Therefore, genocide is an illegal action and a crime recognized and punishable by international law (Charmy 35). For instance, Rwanda genocide is characterized by ethnic tensions within the country. Initially the definition of the term genocide as by genocide convection only comprised of racial, ethnic, national and religious groups. They argued that inclusion of other groups cannot strengthen but rather weakens it. This definition failed to recognize other groups such as political groups, economic and cultural groups that are essential elements of genocide. Genocide therefore, is generally considered the worst moral crime the ruling authority can commit against those it controls Naimark (2017).