Power Struggles In Rwanda Essay

During the 100 days of the brutal massacre known as the Rwandan Genocide, between 800,000 to a million people were tragically murdered. Tutsis were not the only ones being killed. Hutus were also being killed for various reasons. If people thought they felt regretful for what they were doing to the Tutsi, they would be killed. If the Hutus tried to help the Tutsi in anyway they were killed. Many of the Hutus were killed if they opposed the killing campaign and the forces directing it.

After the atrocities of the Rwandan Genocide and the lack on international intervention, Rwandan was forced to rebuild itself from scratch. Rwanda is a small country located in central Africa. Its population is divided between two ethnic groups: the hutus and the tutsis. The roots of the Rwandan genocide date back to 1924 when Belgium first took over Rwanda, formally a part of Tanzania. The Belgians viewed Tutsi superior to the hutus. Many referred to this as Hamitic hypothesis. It was motivated mainly by the fact that Tutsi were taller and thinner than hutus. This lead to a major boost in Tutsi egos and mistreatment of the Hutus for decades. This angered the Hutus leading to a major conflict between the two ethnic groups.

George Santayana once said “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” The Rwanda Genocide is a contemporary representation of the events that occurred during the Armenian Genocide. It is an unforgiving circumstance that even after massacres from the latter and the Holocaust that Genocides still emerge in a world who far too often shuts their door to the idea of intervention. Countries can have an abundance of supplies, unmatchable man-power, and exceptional military equipment, however, with interests in absentia, countries will be reluctant to deploy forces despite exclamations of help. The culmination of the Rwanda Genocide is absolutely an unforgiving portion of history that will be remembered by the victims, the witnesses, and the decision-makers.

This sparked a massive war, which came to be known as the Rwandan genocide. Extremists created riots and war areas for weeks. In that time over 800,000 men, women and children fell victim to this horrible catastrophe. This genocide event wiped out almost 3/4 of the Tutsi population. This was as close to extinction of a culture anyone has seen before. It took years to return to a normal state of being. All of this resulted from greed, people who wanted to strike fear and hatred into people, only to keep themselves in a powerful position, most likely in government. The United Nations became aware of this massive slaughter eventually, but no-one would step up and acknowledge it as being a genocide, even though this was in exact terms of what it

One reason this is considered to be one of the worst genocides cause of the countless deaths that happened the estimated deaths that occured during the genocide is 800,000.the hutus show no care to the tutsi while they slaughtered them.

They couldn’t get jobs or get a well education like the Tutsis and health care was low. The Tutsis assassinated the Hutus president by a plane explosion which made them furious and started a massacre. The Tutsis had majority of the weapons while only the farmers of the Hutus had weapons. They wiped out forty-five percent of Hutus teachers, students and five percent of the population were killed (Cause and effects,n.d).

The Rwandan Genocide was one that will never be forgotten. It occured from April 7, 1994 to July 1994. Rwanda was mainly separated into three different ethnic groups. The Hutus, the Tutsis, and the Twa. The population of the Hutus in Rwanda was about 84 percent of the country, the Tutsis group was 15 percent, and the Twa ethnicity was only a trivial 1 percent. The start of the country’s civil war was triggered by the killing of the Rwandan president. The country was having difficulties before the assassination, and the killing only initiated the anger. The Rwandan Genocide left the country struggling to reconstruct the relationships between its people.

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.

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 1990 's was a grim time in history all across the globe, its epicentre being Rwanda. In April of 1994 the Rwandan President Habyarimana was shot down from a plane. In consequence, immediate war was struck and the goal of extermination of the Tutsi was commenced. This genocide was the result of conscious choice of the elite, therefore, president Habyarimana to promote hatred and fear to keep itself in power. Rwanda’s political elite blamed the entire Tutsi minority population for the country’s increasing social, economic, and political pressures. Tutsi civilians were also accused of supporting a Tutsi-dominated rebel group, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). Using hateful propaganda, reading out names of people that must be killed and articles on newspapers. Tutsi and people suspected of being Tutsi were killed in their homes and as they tried to flee at roadblocks set up across the country during the genocide. Leaving an unimaginable 800,000 people dead. Mothers and daughters raped, children, boys and men slaughtered with machetes (United Human rights coucil,2015). How did it get this far? What was the worlds reaction to this gruesome mass murder?

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.

On the early summer of 1994 the exodus of the Genocide in Rwanda began. Almost 800,000 people were killed in the period of 100 days. All due to bitter accusations from the biggest ethnic group- the Hutus. Somewhere inside Rwanda’s political elite, the group of Hutus aggressively criticised less than half of the Tutsi population, for the incredibly increasing social, economic, and political pressures, within the country, and were also wrongly accused of encouraging a ‘Tutsi-dominated rebel group’. Due to this, and also by the help of propaganda and perpetual political manipulating, the president, Habyarimana, (a Hutu), decided to split up the two ethnic groups, towards the end of 1992.

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

The Hutus slaughtered many Tutsis in retribution; the Tutsis were brutally murdered in a number of ways. The killings spread quickly, from towns to churches and even to schools. The Tutsis were massacred in their homes, in fields, along roads, and even as they tried to hid in bushes. The Hutus murdered the Tutsis with axes and stones, clubs and machetes, and firearms and explosives. It was like an open battlefield; the Hutus killed many Tutsis, and age didn’t matter at this period. Ten year olds killed ten year olds, and Hutu mothers killed Tutsi mothers; some mothers even had babies on their backs as they were killing the other. With all these tragic events happening, teenage girls were raped. There were quite a few killings in churches also. Hutu throngs would gather into the church and beat terrified women and children to death (DeSouza). The corpses were left on the roads; in the countryside, dead bodies were covered with banana leaves. Over the radio in Rwanda the killers were encouraged as long as they didn’t leave the bodies on the road (Rwanda 1994). The Hutus in this genocide killed the approximate of

The Hutu and Tutsi tension broke out in 1994 when the genocide began. The hate that the Hutu had towards the Tutsi grew larger and larger as time went on. The Hutu referred to the Tutsi as “cockroaches”. At the peak of the killing in 1994, the Hutu Power private radio station broadcasted that the effort to exterminate all Tutsi from world must be continued. This alone showed how much hate the Hutu had for the Tutsi. The Hutu even went as far as killing thousands of their own, if they suspected them of being against the campaign to eradicate the Tutsi.