Rwanda Genocide Research Paper

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.

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 Hutus were very brutal and efficient in killing the Tutsis. They broadcasted their hit lists of victims including their names, addresses and license plate numbers. Those who heard their name on the radio fled their homes because they knew if they stayed they would be killed. In the beginning, the Hutu were well-equipped militiamen who used grenades and guns to peruse their mission. In the countryside the Hutus initially used firearms, but when more and more Hutus joined in the killings, the weapons became more barbaric. The weapons changed from grenades and guns to knives, machetes,

Although the book did not mention the genocide much, it is important background information that sets up the scene Ruxin works in. He was working after a genocide that killed roughly 800,000 people (Rwanda). Let’s just take a moment to realize how many people that is. That’s three times the amount of people that live in Cherokee County (Cherokee). The American Civil War had roughly 620,000 deaths (Who). 800,000 men, women, children who had lives, dreams, hopes, friends, and family just like us: gone. I cannot imagine. The people killed were not the unknown enemy where the killers never saw their face. These were neighbors, friends, family, co-workers. Rwanda was in a time of healing when Ruxin entered the scene. People were mourning deaths,

After the overthrow of the Tutsis by the Hutus there was the formation of RPF in 1959. This led to an increase of tension between the ethnicities to the point where both sides could not handle it. A war had broke out in 1990 when the RPF invaded Rwanda. The fighting had lasted until 1993 when a peace agreement was formed. Even with the peace agreement the war had created further hatred from both sides to the other which would be shown in 1994 at the start of the Genocide.

Less than a year separated the end of the Battle of Mogadishu and the start of the Rwandan Genocide. The United States didn’t want to have a similar situation where American lives were lost, that weren’t a part of a war. The United States turned away from the situation going on in Rwanda so they wouldn’t have to take part in the Peace Keeping Operation. By not acknowledging the Genocide that was happening the United States wasn’t obligated to assist the country. The United States was taking part in a type of Non-Interventionism foreign policy when working on the Rwandan Genocide

The US didn’t really help contribute to the genocide happening in Rwanda in 1994, they tried their best to keep a good distance from Rwanda as well. The US knew that the genocide was happening and we were well aware of the genocide. Bill Clinton found out about the genocide and didn’t show any sympathy or want to help Rwanda. He only worried about the media saying that US is doing nothing to help Rwanda, this media spread. The US claimed that they did not know the genocide was going on and failed to respond to the genocide in any way possible, things began to change but not significantly. Rwanda was not getting the attention they should have been getting when it was a major problem where over five people were killed each minute of the day.

According to Michael P. Scharf, over 800,000 Tutsis were slaughtered in just 4 months. To put that in perspective, that is two times more people than everyone in Atlanta, and every single one of their lives were taken in a third of the year. Such a terrible atrocity and no one accepted the blame. A small group of African leaders came together and blamed other countries such as the United States and the members of the United Nation’s for not intervening on the genocide that was occurring. Others, however, stated that it was not their place to get in the middle of a civil war. Looking deeper into this matter, some even say that the Rwandan government shares a portion of the blame for putting the two groups, the Hutus and the Tutsis, against each other. There has been a long, thick tension between the two for many years going back to when Belgium owned a colonial state known as Rwanda-Burundi.

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

War is a necessary part of human nature. War has always been a part of countries and nations history. Militarism in countries , people who are nationalist extremist showing their aggression towards other countries. War is a necessary part of humanity because people naturally view others as ‘Us and them’, people being patriotic,nationalist or extremist causing tension between nations of the world.

The genocide started with the assassination of the Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana and Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira, when the their plane was shot down on April 6, 1994. The current President of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, was suspected to have influenced this assassination because he was the leader of a rebel Tutsi group and Habyarimana was a Hutu. Due to his death the Hutu rebel groups, such as the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), arose because they had felt threatened by their past violent history. The Hutu and the Tutsi lived within the precolonial Kingdom of Burundi in 1972 which was ruled by the Tutsi. The government became increasingly dangerous for the Hutu people, “In 1929, the Belgians decided to merge

The slaughter and killing from Kigali soon spread all across Rwanda. In just three months 800,000 people were killed. 3/4 Tutsi’s were murdered during the Rwandan genocide. People were killed in churches, homes, schools, and many other place (“A Good Man in Hell”). During this time, government radios and officials were telling civilians to kill. They were told to kill anyone who was Tutsi or anyone who supported the Tutsi’s. The RPF kept fighting back and by early July the RPF had claimed and got control over most of Rwanda. Then over two million Hutu’s fled the

“If human is capable of conducting genocide, no need for an asteroid to wipe out dinosaurs.” -Toba Beta

By early July, the RPF had control of the majority of the country. Fearing reprisal killings, hundreds of thousands of Hutus fled the country. To think that people would have that much disrespect for human life is unbelievable. Instead of taking the initiative to put an end to the brutality, the international community ignored the crisis. While the United States created a ton of excuses regarding the lack of intervention. The genocide was distorted and incompletely portrayed by the international community for months due to a lack of interest in the country of Rwanda. Even today, large governments choose not to intervene in circumstances of human rights violations when those countries are not part of the Western world. If the international community had given more help to the people in Rwanda instead of focusing on their own national interests, the genocide’s effects possibly could have been minimized or even

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