Essay on The Rwandan Genocide: Factors that Contribute to Genocide

On April 6, 1994, a plane carrying Habyarimana and Burundi’s president Cyprien Ntaryamira was shot down over Kigali their were no survivors. They did not know who shot the plane down but they are blaming Hutu extremists and the leaders of the RPF. An hour after the plane went down the Rwandan armed forces and the Hutu militia groups had started setting up roadblocks and barricades, and started killing Tutsis and moderate Hutus. the first victims of the genocide were the moderate Hutu Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana and her 10 Belgian bodyguards, with that happening it started more conflict and interim government of extremist Hutu Power leaders from the military high command had stepped in on april 9. The killing in Rwanda had spreaded to the rest of the country, up to 800,000 or more had been slaughtered within 3 months.

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.

On April 6, 1994, the Rwandan president was returning from Tanzania when his plane was shot down and he was killed. The death of the president was the spark needed for a campaign of violence against the Tutsi and moderate Hutu civilians across the country. In hours, Hutu rebels surrounded the capital and took over the streets. As the weeks advanced, Tutsis and anyone suspected of having connections to a Tutsi member was killed.

The Hutus are now in the position of power; the Hutu officials began to carry out massive genocides on the Tutsis. According to Document 8 it states, “The Hutu officials who took over the government organized the murders [of Tutsis] nationwide…Meanwhile, when the murders started the RPF [Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front] in Uganda invaded Rwanda again.” This quote demonstrates the back and forth genocide each ethnic group is imposing on each other. The genocide in Rwanda was sparked by the death of the Hutu Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, when his place was shot down. Many Hutus blamed the Rwandan Patriotic Front and instantly started campaigns of slaughter. This also provided additional reasons why the Hutu had hatred against the Tutsis. According to Document 9a it states, “Over the course of the genocide nearly one million people were killed.” This shows how extreme the genocide was and how extensive the genocide

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

On the day of April 6th 1994, the mass murders sparked a ferocious wave of bloody reprisals as thousands of ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered over the next three months, killing almost 10,000 people everyday. Hutu extremists were told to load up on weapons like knives, guns, axes, whatever they could find so they could kill tutsis. They could do whatever they wanted to the Tutsis. The Hutu government said “Spare no one, especially the babies.” The Hutus goal was to kill every Tutsi in Rwanda. As told by Border guards, people have been floating down the river in hundreds everyday for weeks. Many bodies had their hands tied behind their backs. They were either shot, hacked, clubbed, burned, or drowned.

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.

In 1994, Rwanda was in its darkest days. 800,000 people died in a matter of 100 days. But it was all because of a simple separation between the Rwandans, the Hutu and the Tutsi. To understand the topic we must first look at the topic from the beginning. Who were the Hutu and the Tutsi?

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

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 Hutu militia groups set out to murder any and all Tutsis that they could find regardless of their age or sex. They forced Hutu civilians to participate in the genocide, or be killed in return. The Hutu militia groups used radio airwaves as a way to contact other Tutsis and to provide them with information on what to in order to keep themselves alive. Most nations evacuated their diplomats and nationals from the country and abandoned their embassies in the initial stages of violence. Militia began to set up hundreds of roadblocks around the country and used them to block off areas and make it easier for them to attack certain areas. This militia also sent cables to

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

An incident that occurred on April 6 1994 led the Hutus to express grievance against the Tutsis population in Rwanda. The death of the Rwandan president caused by a rocket attack ignited weeks of massacres between the Tutsis and Hutus. As a result, the Hutu population of Rwanda attempted to rid the entire Tutsi population. Within an hour of the plane crash, the Presidential Guard, along with armed forced and Hutu militia groups known as Interahamwe and Impuzamugambi assembled road blocks in the streets of Rwanda and began the Tutsis. A political vacuum erupted following April 7th after the Hutu Prime Minister and 10 of her Belgian bodyguards were killed (Jones 2011).

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)