The Rwandan Genocide Essay

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.

The UN had failed to resolve conflict in Rwanda there is still some little minor conflict going on in Rwanda this day. The UN had put up some camps for the tutsis and helped alittle for people to seek shelter and safety. The hutus knew that the UN could not do anything physical because they are primarily peacekeepers and trying to resolve the problem so the hutus was still killing everyone so nothing was resolved.

The documentary “Ghost in Rwanda” illustrates the devastation of the 1994 Genocide where approximately eight hundred thousand Rwandans were exterminated by their own government. The genocide was a result of ongoing conflicts between the Hutu, the ethnic majority in Rwanda, and the Tutsi the ethnic minority. The United Nation assisted in the establishment of a peace agreement between the two warring parties and sent General Romeo Dallaire, UN Force Commander, to Rwanda to ensure the terms of the agreement were honored. Dallaire had never seen action and welcomed opportunity to make a difference supporting peace in Africa. The peace mission was especially important to Dalliaire in light of recent U.N. failures to maintain peace in Somalia and Bosnia.

After April 6th, with the death of the president and the ensuing call-to-arms, one of the first victims of the genocide was the Prime Minister, and her bodyguard of 10 Belgian UN commandos. The mission the UN soldiers were deployed on did not have sufficiently provide instructions regarding whether they could use force retaliate to fighting, so they surrendered their weapons to presidential troops when asked, only to then be captured, tortured and murdered at the enemies compound.

Along with the Belgians support toward the Hutu came the Hutu Revolution in 1959. It all started with the Belgians getting the Hutu more political positions, getting them into secondary schools, and getting them to just participate in more public life. This scared the Tutsi. The Tutsi, feeling that there power was being jeopardized, decided they had to do something. Feeling that they were in a desperate situation they ended up killing a Hutu sub-chief. The vivid Hutu, feeling that it was time to take a stand, attacked Tutsi officials, who in return attacked the Hutu. This turned into one of many small

The United Nations failed Rwanda, in a time of need they abandoned the Rwandan people giving them no physical protection. Sadly, things go wrong with the slaughter of almost 800,000 Rwanda people, left defenseless in a country where no one outside cared. U.N. troops were present as only “peace-keepers.” The dispute was between the Hutus and Tutsis people could of been controlled if the U.N. changed their position, but the result could bring more consequences. This conflict between the two social groups in Rwanda,was left to be resolved on its own with many lives lost.

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 UN and the US government are accredited for deploring conflict situations as well as contributing humanitarian aid, and this is what these two organizations did in Rwanda and Darfur. However, the UN did not do anything to punish or prevent the genocides that took place in these two countries. The US government promised to support the peace talk’s agreement in Darfur and hold the perpetrators accountable for their acts. It never kept that promise since nothing has been done. So far, the UN’s Security Council has also failed in its peace keeping mission effeorts, and is instead pressuring Sudan with words only. No solid steps have been made to bring the wrong doers into justice (Shapiro).

Nevertheless, they failed to prevent this ridiculous genocide because of their lack of attempt and lack of effort to stop it. On the fourteenth-anniversary of the genocide, the UN’s thoughts go out to the victims who have been traumatized, hurt, or dead during Rwanda’s Genocide. Quote UN secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon’s message “It is often those who most need their rights protected, who also need to be informed that the Declaration exists -- and that it exists for them.”- This message was a little too late after hundreds of thousands of people have been brutally massacred in the genocide in Rwanda. Though the UN seemed to have convinced the people in Rwanda that they were doing their best to stop this, nevertheless, the UN is respectively responsible for their inability to keep peace among the ethnic tribes (Hutus and Tutsis). (M2PressWIRE, 2008)

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.

The world’s history has been tainted by many instances of violence targeted at specific groups of people due to either their ethnicity or beliefs. This paper will discuss the characteristics of the Rwanda Genocide and the Jewish Holocaust. The Rwanda Genocide targeted the Tutsis because of their ethnicity, while the Holocaust targeted the Jews because of their ethnicity and religion.

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

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 Rwandan president, Habyarimana and the president of Burundi, Cyprien Ntaryamira, are killed when the president’s plane is shot down near Kigali Airport, on April 6th, 1994. That night on the 6th of April, 1994, the genocide begins. Hutu people take to the streets with guns and machetes. The Hutus set up roadblocks and stopped anyone that looked Tutsi or suspected of helping Tutsi people to hide. On April 7th, 1994 the Rwandan Armed Forces set up roadblocks and went house to house to kill any Tutsis found. Thousands of people die on the first, while the U.N. just stands by and watches the slaughter go on. On April 8th, 1994 the U.N. cuts its forces from 2,500 to 250 after ten U.N. soldiers were disarmed and tortured and shot or hacked to death by machetes, trying to protect the Prime Minister. As the slaughter continues the U.N. sends 6,800 soldiers to Rwanda to protect the civilians, on May 17th, 1994, they were meant to be the peacekeepers. The slaughter continues until July 15th, 1994, in the 100 days that the genocide lasted 800,000-1,000,000 Tutsis and Hutus

Rwanda is a small country located in central Africa. It borders with Uganda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Tanzania. One of the most terrible “ethnic conflicts” occurred here in 1994, two tribes fought each other within the same territory, the rest of the world bizarrely ignored this event and thousands of people were killed. The event lasted 100 days and almost 1 million people died, even though the Rwanda government asked other countries for military