Rwanda Genocide Quotes

The socio/cultural cause of the genocide in Rwanda came from the German and Belgian colonization, bringing along with them an idea of social science. Both colonial powers reinforced the Tutsi’s political power, which further oppressed the Hutus. This reinforcement caused the Hutus to envy the Tutsi’s aristocracy because they were privileged to all things, while the Hutus were privileged to nothing (Kapuscinski). This oppression led to many Hutu revolutions that the Hutus were successful in over the unprepared Tutsis. These victories of the Tutsis incidentally reversed the Rwandan apartheid system. The reversion of the system then gave

Rwanda was taken over by the Belgians causing the Hutus and Tutsis to not get along which caused genocide. “Facing a revolution instigated by the Hutu, the Belgians let the Hutus, who constituted the majority of Rwanda 's population, be in charge of the new government. This upset the Tutsi. The animosity between the two groups continued for decades.” Both clans were upset and started Genocide in Rwanda. The causes of their mass casualties resolved in a never ending dispute between the two clans.

For years, Rwanda has been a hotbed of racial tension. The majority of the Rwandan population is made up of Hutu's, with Tutsi's making up the rest of it. Ever since European colonial powers entered the country and favoured the Tutsi ethnic group over the Hutu by putting Tutsi people in all important positions in society, there has been a decisive political divide between the two groups. This favouring of the Tutsi over the Hutu, and the Hutu subjugation as an ethnic lower class resulted in the civil war and revolution of 1959, where the Hutu overthrew the Tutsi dominated government, and resulted in Rwanda gaining their independence in 1962.

The Hutu’s believe the Tutsi’s were trying to regain power. There was a long history of rivalry and violence between these two tribes and the killing of the president was the catalyst ignited the voracious flames of revenge. The Hutu’s began their manhunt to find and kill the Tutsi’s in revenge for the years of perceived oppression when the Tutsi’s ruled Rwanda.

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

The two ethnic groups that were include in the Rwanda Genocide was the Tutsis and Hutus. The Tutsis were the minority population in Rwanda, but they held all the positions of authority. On the other hand, the Hutu made up around 85% of Rwanda’s population, but held no political power, they were denied higher education and land ownership. The size of the nose and the color of the eyes were the factors that determined whether a person was Hutu or Tutsi. The Tutsis disapprove of the colonial rule of the Belgians and demanded to become more independent. After World War II, the Tutsis felt impatient and that it was time they took matters in their own hands to pursuit their independence. In 1959, the tension and violence between the Tutsis and Hutus were greatly increased.

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 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.

The Hutu had no heart when they brutally killed the large percentage of Tutsi all they cared about was cleaning their country of the “Cockroaches” as they would say.

Dehumanization was a major factor during both the Holocaust and the Rwandan Genocide; people should not be killed because of ethnicity, prior prejudices, or from what some claim is for the “betterment of society.” The Rwandan Genocide occurred on April 7th- June of 1994. At this time, Rwanda’s population consisted of 85% being Hutu, and the remaining percentage being Tutsi (“The Rwandan Genocide”). The Rwandan Genocide focused upon the Tutsis being blamed for the suffering of the Hutu society; therefore, the Hutu society wanted “revenge” resulting into mass killings of the Tutsi society.

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 Belgians also decreed that Tutsis should be the only ones in power and thus removed Hutus from positions of power and excluded them from higher education (Arraras). “By assuring the Tutsis’ monopoly of power the Belgians set the stage for future conflict in Rwanda” (Arraras). The Tutsis were enjoying their status as being superior to the Hutus but all that changed in 1959 with the Hutu revolution and so in 1960 and 1961 the Hutus won the elections. Since then, ethnic tensions had always been brewing between the Hutus and the Tutsis. However the tensions escalated when Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, was shot down above Kigali airport on April 6, 1994. I consider this to be a form of political violence because someone or a group that opposed this President which represented only the political interests as well as the viability of the Hutus had to be killed in order for another group possibly the Tutsis to fill the vacuum of power left by the Hutu president. The Hutus blamed the assassination of their president on the Tutsis and in turn sparked an all out massacre waged on to the Tutsi people.

While there were many events that led to the war, these were some of the causes; The Hutus and Tutsis had been in feud for a while. Germany angered the Hutus when they colonized Rwanda, and gave the Tutsis all of the power. The Belgians later took command of Rwanda and did the exact same thing that Germany did to the

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)