What Are The Causes Of Rwanda Genocide

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.

With over eight hundred thousand to one million deaths, the Rwandan genocide is undoubtedly one of the most sad and shocking examples of the lack of intervention by not only the US and the UN, but by other countries as well. The ongoing tensions between the Hutu, the largest population in Rwanda, and the Tutsi, the smaller and more elite population is what eventually lead to the Rwandan genocide. The killings began quickly after President Habyarimana 's plane was shot down. After hundreds of thousands of deaths, the US did not intervene in Rwanda because being a landlocked country with no natural resources to benefit the US, there was no economical benefit, and the risk of sending in troops simply outweighed the rewards. The aftermath of the genocide has not only impacted those who lived through it, but it has also impacted future generations as well. At the end of the genocide, the ICTR was formed by the UN to find justice. The Rwandan genocide has shocking similarities between the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide as well. Overall, the Rwandan genocide was a terrible event that escalated far beyond what it should have if there had been intervention from other countries and the UN.

April 7, 1994 marked the beginning of one hundred days of massacre that left over 800,000 thousand dead and Rwanda divided by a scare that to this day they are trying to heal. The source of this internal struggle can be traced back to the segregation and favoritism established by Belgium when they received Rwanda after the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1918. At the time the Rwandan population was 14% Tutsi, 1%Twa, and 85% Hutus; the Belgian’s showed preferential treatment to the Tutsi, who were seen as socially elite, by giving them access to higher educations and better employment. This treatment causes the uprising of the Hutus in 1959 overthrowing the Tutsi government forcing many to flee the country, sparking even greater resentment between the two ethic groups. Without the interference and preferential treatment by the Belgian’s this atrocity could have likely been avoided.

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)

History has a funny way of repeating itself. After World War II, the United States and the rest of the international community promised to do all they could to prevent future genocides. However this was a promise they were unable to keep. In 1994 when Rwanda went through genocide the United States and U.N were absent, leaving the Tutsis to be brutally murdered by the Hutus. As a consequence 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed and dumped into mass graves. Once again the United States and U.N promised to do more, but this time it was too late.

In between 1930 and 1945, an event took place that changed the world in many ways. The Holocaust was a genocide that consisted of the decimation of one single race, the Jews. This solemn event is very similar (and also quite different) to another event that took place only four thousand miles away. Like the Holocaust, this event is was a genocide and it took place at Rwanda in 1994. This genocide was between the Hutus and Tutsis. These two groups have a long background with each other that consisted of civil wars, switches in power and superiority, and tension. It began when the Europeans put the Tutsis in a superior position because they were the ones that closely resembled them, the Europeans, in physical appearance. It was the death of

First, in order to understand the implications of the state with the genocide, its colonial and post-colonial history must be understood. Rwanda was under Belgium colonial rule. When Rwanda was formed, its two major ethnic groups consisted of the Tutsies and the Hutus. During colonial rule, the Belg favoured the minority which were the Tutsies. The Tutsies were favoured by receiving better education and public treatment (Hintjens, 1999, p.245). Near the end of colonial rule, the Hutus obtained power. In post-colonialism the Hutus remained in power, but they were struggling in governance and economically. Therefore, in order to protect the Hutus government from being overthrown or perceived as weak, the Hutus government blamed their struggles on the Tutsies. In effect, the Hutus government used ethnicity as an instrument to protect themselves and put their failures on the Tutsies. When the government tells their population that the Tutsies are to blame and ''if you do not kill them, they will kill you'', there is an incentive for Hutus to want to protect themselves. Scott Strauss argues that even though some individuals do not actually believe the problem was the Tutsies, they will kill in order to protect themselves because they carry fear (Strauss, 2008, p.521). The horrid events of which occurred during these 100 days and caused around 800,000 deaths have left a population with multiple physical and mental scars (Abrahamsen, 2016). The state of Rwanda played a horrid role in the creation of the genocide. Although rivalry in ethnicities seemed to be the cause of the genocide, ethnicity was only an instrument used in order to achieve national interest. The sate is largely to blame for the genocide, but post-genocide the conversation of the genocide was no longer legal (Amnesty International, 2010). Genocide ideology was criminalized in

The tensions that led up to the genocide came into being after Belgium colonized Rwanda and had divided the people into two groups: the Hutus & the Tutsis. Although the Hutus held the majority, the Tutsis had the power because the Belgians had favoured the Tutsis. As a result, this caused a lot of resentments among the Hutus. Once Rwanda had gained independence and Belgium had left, the Hutus claimed control over the nation. As depicted in the movie, the genocide began with the murder of President Juvénal Habyarimana, a Hutu. The Hutu extremists blamed the Tutsi rebels for shooting down the president’s plane and killing everyone else on board. Although this was never confirmed, the Hutus began to slaughter thousand of Tutsi civilians, as a

In October 1993, the United Nations deployed a peacekeeping force, called United Nations Assistance Mission (UNAMIR), to Rwanda for the purpose of monitoring the cease-fire accord between the RFP and the Rwandan government. The UNAMIR consisted of 2,500 soldiers from 23 countries, with Canadian General Romeo Dallaire as the Commanding Officer. In December 1993, Dallaire received a letter from a Hutu informant revealing plans of mass murder of the Tutsis by the Hutus. Dallaire sent a cable to the United Nations warning of a potential genocide risk, however, the cable was disregarded. On April 8th, 1994, two days after the genocide began, Dallaire sent a message to the UN characterizing the killings as mass extermination. Again, his message was disregarded. After the death of 10 Belgium soldiers, 2230 UNAMIR troops were withdrawn, leaving only 270 unarmed troops under the command of Dallaire and hundreds of thousand Tutsis at the mercy of the Interahamwe. Chris McGreal, a senior writer for Guardian US and witness to the genocide, recalls Helena Nwitizina, a Rwandan survivor stating, "We knew the UN was abandoning us. We cried for them not to leave. Some people even begged for the Belgians to kill them because a bullet would be better than a machete" (McGreal 2). The Tutsis knew the UN could help, yet the UN decided to abandon them. Fortunately, with the onset of the genocide, the RPF

There were many causes to the Rwandan genocide, including previous arguments against the racial groups, and whoever shot down the president’s plane. All the people involved in the genocide were important; if there was even 1 less person in the making of the genocide, it could have ended completely differently. The outcome of the Rwandan genocide was terrible, but it also made lots of people aware of the types of things that are happening to people in the war. Types of things like this genocide are not okay, and they should be prevented from

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

Minority groups have struggled to fit in and to have a voice in their communities in nearly every aspect of life since the beginning of time. To add to this struggle, some of the majority groups have taken advantage of these situations and caused chaos for the minorities. This chaos has ranged from simple discrimination to extreme measures of mass annihilation. Throughout history, genocide has been a recurring problem in several countries around the world, due to war, economics, and leadership. Despite the cause, world leaders have been ignoring these mass killings and onlooking countries must work together to identify genocides as quickly as possible and bring them to an end. As the rest of the world waits for a solution to come about, thousands

The Rwandan genocide did not occur overnight, but was a result of the ethnic conflict building up between the Tutsi and Hutu tribes. In the late 1980’s, Tutsi exiles living in Uganda, formed an army called the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), with the intention to overthrow the Hutu government and return home. On October 1st, 1990, the RPF invaded Rwanda, beginning the civil war that lasted for almost two years. On July 12th, 1992, a cease-fire accord was signed, which went into effect on July 31st, 1992. Meanwhile, in the early 1990’s, Rwandan government officials met secretly and began assembling the Interahamwe, a militia of Hutu youths. Dr. Gregory Stanton, President of Genocide Watch, explains that the Rwandan army provided the Interahamwe

The president’s death stoked the fire that started the violence against the Tutsi and Hutu civilians across the country. In a moment, the Hutus took over the streets of Kigali and surrounded the capital. The next day Rwanda’s government was extinguished. As the days evolved, any Tutsis and anyone having connections with them were slaughtered. (

The Rwandan Genocide was a mass slaughter of the Tutsi in Rwanda by members of the Hutu majority government. Many were killed over the one hundred day period. This not only affected Rwanda, but many neighbouring countries. In the end, over two million refugees fled to Rwanda to different countries.