Rwandan Genocide Case Study

War never changes, it will always be around for as long as we are here, with it, it brings genocide. Every day we are in a constant battle with each other, whether it be at home or across the oceans. We have invented weapons solely to cause mass destruction across entire continents. This has led to limitations being placed on warfare, but sometimes it's not enough. "We have to protect our Earth, so our children and grandchildren will never suffer like that"

On April 4, 1994, Hutu President, Juvenal Habyaimana and another Hutu leader, Cyprien Ntaryamira were on an airplane flying back to Rwanda. The plane was shot down and everyone on board was killed. The Hutu people blamed the terrorist attack on the RPF political group. They began to create hit lists for the Hutu militia to kill all of the Tutsi officials. Roadblocks were set up by the Hutu and if Tutsi people tried to pass, their IDs were checked. If they had any form of Tutsi identification, they were killed. The slaughter was just getting started. Neighbors were killing neighbors. Friends were killing friends. Family was killing family. Even religious leaders were killing the Tutsi people. There was thought to be no stop to the slaughter. (BBC)

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.

Twenty-three years ago, in a small, central African country identified as Rwanda, approximately 1,000,000 individuals belonging to the Tutsi tribe were massacred by a rival tribe, known as the Hutus. The hatred that resulted in the Hutus slaughtering the Tutsis originated from a rivalry that was created centuries before the infamous massacre. Living in an agricultural community, the Hutus were traditionally peasant cultivators, while the Tutsis were cattle lopers. Through their work, the Tutsis gained wealth and, consequently, political power. The divide between the Hutus and the Tutsis was only made more dangerous as Europeans traveled to Rwanda, favoring the Tutsis. As the inferior race, the Hutus were denied government positions, higher education, and were forced into slave labor. In retaliation, the Hutus gained political power through a democratic vote put on by Belgian missionaries from the Tutsis through the 8:1 majority ratio. The Tutsi power was completely reversed into total Hutu power, as “the oppressed became the oppressor.”

Propaganda for the Rwanda Genocide began when the RPF (Rwandan Patriotic Front) invaded Rwanda in 1990. Thus, the Hutu Power Movement began. A group of government officers and officials began a magazine called “Kangura”, which spread anti-Tutsi propaganda. The Hutu Ten Commandments, which were published in the Kangura, was an example of racist guidelines for the Hutus if they ever came into contact with a Tutsi. By 1990, the Rwandan army began arming its civilians with swords and clubs under the pretense of self defense. These weapons became the main tools used in the genocide. After the ceasefire between the Rwanda government and the RPF in 1992, Hutu extremists in the Rwandan government and the army began to plot against the President in fear of allowing the Tutsis to participate in governmental issues. The extremists began a new radios station named “Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLMC), which broadcasted racist propaganda against Tutsis. Hutu extremist leaders also staged or reported false events to convince the Hutu population that the Tutsis were accomplices of the RPF. (Propaganda and Practice) The Holocaust, on the other hand, utilized many more ways of propaganda.

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

800,000, and most of those people were from of the Tutsi tribe. It began by the

You sit in your kitchen, shivering, hearing the bombs surround you. Fear covers any other thought in your mind, you don’t want to think of what is to come for you nor your family. The deliberate and systematic murdering of a group, a genocide, have made millions experience these very feelings. When every genocide starts, the days seem endless and the problem exacerbates. It’s not until the other countries and the victims work together that they can end what the perpetrators started, mass murderings. Yet the foreign countries still lack the will needed to help find a solution. People are scared of what will come if their countries contribute to helping, though the the phrase “never again” is always spoken among them. The only way for these

The killings were carried out with meticulous organization and their militias had the help of the government who gave them specific locations and people to go and kill (BBC News). Not only did government officials help the Hutus in the killing but the radio played a major role in it as well. The United End to Genocide article states that “The radio was utilized to not only list the location of specific Tutsis to be targeted, but to also justify the genocide. Radio hosts discussed discrimination the Hutus suffered under the power of the Tutsis … Radio stories were used to anger the Hutus and channel that anger into action” (United End to Genocide). The Hutus were going around exterminating every Tutsi when they encountered a Tutsi rebel group who fought back which only made the fighting more toxic on both sides. According to an article by BBC News “The killings were carried out so swiftly and effectively because the then governing party, MRND, had a youth wing called the Interahamwe, which was turned into a militia to carry out the slaughter. Weapons and hit-lists were handed out to local groups, who knew exactly where to find their targets” (BBC News). The newspaper and radio affected everybody, including priests and nuns who were also convicted of killing people just to save

What caused a genocide in Rwanda? This is an important question because there was a massive genocide that took place in Rwanda. This question matters because it is time to get down to the bottom of what happened and why it happened. There have been many speculations on the reasons why a genocide occurred and many of those speculations are true. When there is a fall in government, social differences and lack of intervention, it then leads to the reason why there are genocides. Many countries have faced genocide and it has taken a while for them to recover from it. The genocide in Rwanda can count for one of the biggest genocides to occur other than the genocides that did occur in other countries. I believe that this is a serious issue and my

In the country of Rwanda, one of the most infamous events was the genocide that took place in the spring of 1994. Even though Rwanda was known as a turbulent country already, the rapid pace of the killings still left people around the world in shock. In the span of just one hundred days over eight-hundred thousand people were slaughtered by their own government.

Merriam-Webster defines a genocide as, “ the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group”, and the mass murder of the Tutsi in Rwanda fits this definition perfectly. From April to July of 1994 around 800,000 Tutsis were slaughtered by the Hutus. This massacre was a genocide because a specific ethnic group was targeted.

The Rwandan Genocide took place in 1994 and involved members of the Hutu mass killing Tutsi and Tutsi sympathizers who were Hutu. The genocide resulted in the deaths of around 800,000 people, majority Tutsi. The separation of classes came from Belgian internationals creating the two ethnic classes and giving power to the Tutsi who were taller and had lighter skin, and generally appeared more European. In response to this, after the country gained independence from Belgium, Hutu extremists gathered enough power through manipulation and groupthink in order to form the militia, for example the Interahamwe and Impuzamugambi. The killings were initiated by the assassination of president Juvenal Habyarimana, which ended any ties of peace between the two ethnicities. After his death, many Hutu extremists called for other Hutu individuals to brandish weapons and kill, rape, or destroy Tutsi citizens and their property. Predominantly, the utilization of propaganda was vital in uniting and brainwashing groups of Hutu into acting violent against Tutsi civilians. Often Tutsi were compared to cockroaches and were deemed an infestation, desensitizing the murders. There was a lack of help from outside countries and the UN, or even support of the genocide from countries such as France, which allowed for the genocide to last until the Rwandan Patriotic Front was able to push the rebels into the Congo, but there was no actual peace process that occurred between the two ethnicities. Thus,

Centuries ago the Tutsis had taken over the land sacred to the Hutus living there, and they had exploited their new resources, limiting them enough for the opposing clan to spark controversy between the two tribes. A political rivalry still existed centuries later, when a plane carrying the president of ….. Was shot down. That had been the last straw for the Hutus, who had been waiting for the perfect chance to lash out with nothing to hold them back. The government had turned on its citizens, and the Rwandan Genocide had

The Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a group of exiled Tutsis and sympathetic Hutus that formed in 1988 came into action. They had to