The Genocide And The Holocaust Of Night By Elie Wiesel

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.

The UN was sent to monitor this peace agreement. Although in 1994 Habyarimana and the Burundian president, both being Hutu’s, were killed after their plane was shot down. Hutu extremists, Militias, blamed the RPF, and immediately started a well-organised campaign of slaughter. The RPF said the plane had been shot down by Hutus to provide an excuse for the genocide. The 1994 genocide, killed around 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in just 100 days. Militias went out to kill people, they set up roadblocks and used ID cards to identify Tutsi’s which they slaughtered. Neighbours killed neighbours and some husbands even killed their Tutsi wives. Around 2 million Hutu refugees fled from RPF controlled areas to refugee camps in Burundi, Zaire and Tanzania. The Rwandan Genocide is said to be the most efficient, high-speed, low-tech mass killing the world had ever

This genocide started when the president of rwanda was killed. The president was killed by his plane getting shot down above the kigali airport on april 6,1994. The hutus rose to power cause rwanda was granted independence. The hutus targeted the tutsis cause they were the majority of the population so they were easier to enforce.

The assassination of Habyarimana in April of 1994 set off even more violence during which Hutu groups conducted mass killings of Tutsis. The genocide was supported and coordinated by the national government as well as local military. Along with the local military, primary responsibility for all of the Tutsi killings lies with two Hutu militias that were organized for this purpose by political parties, the Interahamwe and the Impuzamugambi. Although once the genocide began, a great number of Hutu civilians took parts in the murders as well. There was no peace agreement in place at this point, the Tutsi rebels started their offensive, defeating the army and seizing control of the country.

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.

Slowly, France replaced Belgium as the dominant power in Rwanda and in October 1990 an organization of Tutsi refugees, called the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) invaded Rwanda. The United States failed to see the obvious clues leading up to the Rwandan genocide; death squads had been exposed in October 1992, two years before the official genocide occurred. “A top ideologue of the MRND was known to have given a speech in November 1992 calling for genocide. In August 1993 a UN investigator warned of the threat of ethnic killing in Rwanda…” (48). The saddest part, perhaps, was the new radio system that was created by a few members of Habyarimana’s inner circle, the radio station was called RTLM and was used solely to whip up ethnic hatred about the Tutsi. Evidence was given to the U.S ambassador and the secretary general’s special representative

Men, women, children, even babies, were tortured to death in a fight between two tribes, the Tutsis and Hutus. On April 7th 1994 in Rwanda one of the top ten genocides took place over the span of 3 months. The genocide was started by the death of the Rwandan president Junenal Habyarimana, a Hutu. When his plane was shot down at kigali airport. Over the course of 100 days from April 7th to July 16th 1994, an estimated 800,000 to 1 million Tutsis and some Hutus were murdered in the Rwandan genocide. The male Tutsi population almost got wiped out, males in rwanda are only 20% of the population now with 90% of the existing population suffering from symptoms of PTSD. Over the past two decades Rwanda has done an amazing job of rebuilding its institutions and economy. Tutsis and hutus, survivors and former killers now live together side by side even with the sad past.

The struggle for power and the constant tension between these two groups led to the event that would spark this genocide. It would occur at 8:30 p.m., on April 6th 1994. On this day President Juvénal Habyarimana of Rwanda was returning from a summit and his plane was shot down, causing the death of everyone on board. (BBC) Hutu extremist immediately took control over the government and blamed the assassination on the Tutsi. This was the last straw for the Hutu.

During 1959, the Hutus removed the Tutsi monarchy and thousands of Tutsis escaped to bordering countries. A large group of Tutsi exiles created a rebel group, the Rwandan Patriotic Front. The RPF(abbreviated) came into Rwanda to start a war which ended in a peace agreement in 1993. Following the civil war in Rwanda between the Tutsis and the Hutus, the Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana’s plane was shot down near the Kigali, which also was carrying two Hutus. The Hutus blamed the RPF and began to slaughter them all immediately. It was complete devastation, people killing their friends, neighbors, and even husbands/wives who had Tutsi ID cards. The main points or central issues of the Rwandan Genocide were shown through the actions of the perpetrators, victims, upstanders, and the bystanders. Perpetrators(Hutus) were brainwashed to believe what they were doing was just

This ended class movement through labor or other means. While Hutu and Tutsi were originally concepts, these identification cards identified and enforced the separation. Tutsis were given positions of power, and confiscated the property of the Hutus. Towards the end of the period in which Belgium would control Rwanda, the Belgians switched support to the Hutus, knowing that they would eventually take power being the majority. In November of 1959, rumors claiming that the death of a leading Hutu politician was the responsibility of Tutsi youth were spread.

The Rwandan genocide didn’t just start right after that. There was a spark that marked the beginning of the Rwandan genocide. On April 6, 1994, a plan that had President Habyarimana and the president of Burundi Cyprien Ntaryamira was shot down. It has still not been concluded who shot the plane down. The Hutu’s blamed the Rwandan Patriotic Force (RPF) and the Tutsi’s blamed the Hutu’s. Soon after this, the Presidential Guard, the Rwandan armed forces, and Hutu militia groups started to slaughter all Tutsi’s. They set up roadblocks all across Rwanda so that nobody could flee or try to escape (history.com). Before any political leaders could take any action, the Hutu’s killed them. Tutsi women were raped and taken to be used as sex slaves (humanrightscouncil).

On April 6, 1994, a plane with the President of Rwanda on board was shot down, killing everyone inside. It was not identified who or what group caused the crash, but it was blamed on the Tutsis. Hutu extremists began to kill all Tutsis. “Two major militia groups played a role in the killing of the Tutsis, the Interahamwe which means those who attack together and the Impuzamugambi (those who have the same goal)”(“Rwanda genocide of 1994”). Radio broadcasters made the killings worse by referring to the Tutsis as “cockroaches” that should be exterminated. One method that was used to kill the Tutsis was machetes. The extremists used the machetes to hack and chop away at the victims. Another method was rape. Hutus would

The Hutu and the Tutsi have a violent history dating back to 1959 when the Hutus overthrew the Tutsi king appointed by the Belgian colonizers. Thousands of Tutsi were killed and over a hundred thousand were driven into neighboring countries. Years later the exiled Tutsi formed the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) and began a civil war in 1990. This resulted in years of political and economic disruption and culminated in 1994 to a state-orchestrated genocide which led to the deaths of ¾ of the Tutsi population as well as about 30% of the Twa. The genocide ended when the RPF defeated the national army and established a government of national unity led by the RPF (CIA). Nearly 2 million Hutu fled Rwanda in fear of Tutsi retaliation which may have been well founded. In August 2010 the UN published a report which accused Rwanda’s Tutsi leaders of “crimes against humanity, war crimes, or even genocide”. The report details the systematic and premeditated nature of attacks on Hutus in the DRC by the Rwandan army from 1993 to 2003 (United Nations, “DRC”). The Rwandan government has since denied the allegations however multiple mass graves have been found where the genocides were

War, a method people use when communication is useless. In Rwanda, an estimation of 800,000 people had died in such a short time. It was called Rwanda genocide. Rwanda is a small country in Africa with a great agriculture economy. It was controlled by Belgium. Belgium likes the Tutsi's family more than the Hutu's. The Hutu's did not like it so they started violence resulted of the migrating of most of the Tutsi. They were becoming less every time. On 1961, Hutus forced Rwanda's Tutsi Prince into dropping and declaring the country as republic. A year later, Belgium finally granted them their independence. In 1990, the Tutsi formed an army named (RPF) to conquer back their land from Uganda. The attacks started on the 7th of April and ended on

This genocide was a bloody massacre from beginning to end. All types of weapons were