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Main Cause Of The Rwandan Genocide

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Assess the view that the Rwandan Civil War was the main cause of the Rwandan Genocide
The Rwandan Genocide began to take place in 1993 when President Habyarimana signed an agreement, agreeing to power sharing, with the Tutsis in the town of Arusha in Tanzania, this signalled the end of the civil war. Rwanda is situated in Central Africa and covers approximately 24,668 square kilometres of land and 1,670 square kilometres of water, making it the 150th largest nation in the world with a total of area of 26,338 square kilometres As a result of this a UN mission was sent out to Rwanda to monitor the peace agreement. The first major event to happen, kicking off the genocide was the deaths of president Habyarimana and the Burundian president in …show more content…

Within 100 days of the genocide beginning roughly 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed, the Hutu militias fled to Zaire and took with them around 2 million Hutu refugees. As a result of this happening the refugee camps in Zaire fell under the control of the Hutu militias that were responsible for the genocide in Rwanda. In 1995 the extremist Hutus and Zairean government forces attacked the local Zairean Banyamulenge Tutsis authorities in Zaire and attempted to force the Tutsi refugees back into Rwanda. Following this the UN appointed an international tribunal that begin to charge and sentence a good majority of people responsible for the atrocities. It is up for discussion as to why the genocide was allowed to happen, I have narrowed it down into three predominant main themes; the previous civil war within Rwanda; the ethnic tensions between the Hutus and the Tutsis and finally how the genocide was dealt with internationally. I would argue that the most …show more content…

As the genocide was beginning to be reported via the media, the Security Council supplied around 5,000 troops to provide a strong force. However the delay and denial of recommendations stopped the force from getting there on time and they arrived months after the genocide had ended. In the events that developed after the genocide, many of the government officials in the communities mourned over the losses of many and were surprised about the world’s obliviousness to the situation that could have prevented the massacre from taking place. The Rwandan genocide didn’t interest the world in the same way the Yugoslavian genocide did. The outbreak in Rwanda were not viewed as of significant interest and value to warrant prevention of the violence, expense of resources or the risk of losing more casualties. This delay caused thousands of Rwandan lives to be lost and mentally and psychologically scared millions of those who live on to tell the

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C. Introduction The Rwandan genocide lasted three months and in those three months it is said that 1 million Tutsis were killed. The Holocaust lasted 4 years and 6 million Jews were killed. Bearing this in mind it would be expected that The Rwandan genocide should be extremely well known because of the loss of lives, impact and brutality of the event and the similarities it holds with The Holocaust. The fact is that the Rwandan Genocide is not very well known and is not thought to be in the same category as The Holocaust, where in fact it is.

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When the international community responded indifferently toward the Rwandan genocide, “labeling it an ‘internal conflict’,” as the U.S. Holocaust Museum states, perpetrators could commit those genocidal crimes with little constraint; this directly led to the genocide later in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. “Adding fuel to [the Congo’s] unstable mix, some one million refugees, mostly the Hutu fearing the… Tutsis, fled into [the Congo]… at the end of the Rwandan genocide” and before the first war of the Congo. Additionally, leaders of that genocide followed, and “Organizing themselves in the fertile grounds of the massive refugee camps in Eastern Congo,... [they] began preying on the local Congolese population and making incursions back into Rwanda” (The U.S. Holocaust Museum 1).

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(document 7) Belgians created the ideas of the Tutsis being the superior race and the Hutus are the inferior race, moreover, the Belgian had ethnic identity cards made to distinguish between the Hutus and the Tutsis. Someone shot the president of Rwanda, Habyarimana ‘s airplane down, this gave an open door to the Hutus to gain control of Rwanda and over the Tutsis. Since there was no president all hell broke loose, Hutu officials corrupted government ran radios and newspapers, they suggested the killing of Tutsis. (Document 8) A group called, Rwandan Patriotic Front founded by Tutsis attacked government forces and defeated radical Hutu in Kigali. More than 3 million migrated to Europe, Canada, the United States, or neighboring countries.

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The American Government 's Response to The Rwandan Genocide The United States often have an had interest in the political, social and civil crises of other countries in order to benefit themselves. American senior officials hid the truth of the Rwanda Genocide to avoid public moral obligation. The government did not give any financial or political support to the country because Rwanda did not offer minerals or political advantages and stability; the US ' government did not want to be involved in another conflict, even though it has helped other countries in the past.1 But what is truly deeper hidden, are the stories of people like Immacule, a young girl, who, unlike thousands of others, survived the catastrophic genocide in Rwanda.

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The Rwandan Genocide took place in 1994 in the country of Rwanda. It was a conflict between two ethnic groups, the Hutus and the Tutsis. The Hutus were the majority of the population, 85% and the Tutsis were considered the upper class and were 14% of the population. The conflict was started when a plane carrying the Hutu president was shot down and the Tutsis were blamed for it. However, there is a theory that Hutu extremists committed the attack but the truth has never be determined.

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When the Rwanda genocide began in 1994, its population stood at more that 7 people. Roughly 85% of the population was Hutu, 14% Tutsi, and 1% Twa (un.org). The decades following Rwanda’s independence from Belgium in 1962 saw growing ethnic tensions and periodic violent attacks and reprisals between Rwanda’s Hutu majority and its Tutsi minority. On April 6, 1994, the deaths of the Presidents of Burundi and Rwanda in a plane crash caused by a rocket attack, ignited several weeks of intense and systematic massacres.

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The first significant event was the signing of the Arusha Peace Agreement or the Arusha Accords in August of 1993. This was an agreement between The Rwandan Patriotic front/rebel and the Rwandan government to stop the three year civil war and it was organized by France, United States, and the Organization of African Unity. This agreement was a set of five protocol that gave each party of the government and the rebel forces a seat in the new transitional government and the national assembly. This also meant the military would be a combined force that would include sixty percent government and forty percent rebel

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Rwandan leadership was the perpetrator of the Rwandan Genocide as they exploited a deep-rooted racism involving perceived racial superiority and division. Rwandan leadership manipulated and lied knowing they would cause a mass genocide. In 1994 Rwanda would be impacted for the rest of its history. The President of Rwanda, Juvénal Habyarimana, was a Hutu extremist who fueled and incited violence against the Tutsi. Habyarimanas devotion to instigating hatred against the Tutsi made his death an unprecedented event.

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This was formally known as the Rwanda genocide, informally known as the Genocide of the Tutsi. Many people were affected during the genocide, especially families. The Rwanda genocide is essential to today’s history, and the women who speak out about what happened are important to history. The Tutsis had no one to turn to during the genocide because the government had already believed that the world would be a better place by exterminating the Tutsis. As stated that the higher power of the government was even killing Tutsis

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In 1994, in Rwanda, the mass killings of 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutus occurred. The killings were carried out by Hutus, as tensions rose between the two groups when the country gained its independence in the 1960s and the Belgians openly favoring the Tutsi people. The mass killings that occurred in Rwanda should be considered as a genocide because it fits with the definition of genocide as it was the destruction of a whole/part of a specific group of people. The Hutu people committed acts and crimes in order to achieve the extermination of the Tutsi people. However the events in Rwanda can be considered as a civil war because people from the same nation are fighting each other as well as if it was considered a genocide then the UN can intervene and prevent the genocide from occurring or stopped it, except they didn’t intervene.

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The death of the Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana whose plane was shot down above the Kigali airport in April 6 1994 was the last straw. A French judge blamed the current Rwandan President, Paul Kagame, at the time the leader of a Tutsi rebel group (“How the Genocide Happened-BBC News”). The rebel group wanted to overthrow Habyarimana and return to their homeland. After months of fighting they finally signed a peace treaty but it did little to stop the arguments between the two cultures (“How the Genocide Happened-BBC News”). Then when the plane was shot down the genocide

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The genocide was an after affect of the scramble for Africa by European countries who help no regard for the people who already lived their. In the scramble for Africa many European countries raced to make claims on land in Africa that was already lived on by natives, they mistreated the natives and killed and enslaved many of them. This was prevalent in Rwanda when the belgians imperialized the land. The belgians sent the Hutus who were the majority of the population into slavery and lead to mass deaths of their people. But they lead the land through another ethnic group the tutsis who made up about 15% of the population compared to the 85% population of Hutus.

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official describing the decision to not intervene in Rwanda. The U.S. official is quoted as saying that, “it was a foregone conclusion that military intervention was not on the table for discussion; it was automatically concluded that the United States would not take part in stopping the Rwandan genocide.” Which showed that, all deaths are not the same. The emotionally effect that the genocide caused on the people of Rwanda was massive. During a 100-day period, the people were tortured and terrorized as they saw those they love die and feared the loss of their own life.

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It wasn’t until Rwanda got independence in 1962 that this conflict escalated into violence and ultimately genocide. Rwanda’s population is made up of three ethnic groups the majority being Hutus which holds 85% of the populations, Tutsis 14% and the Twa 1%. The conflict of territory exists between the Hutus and the Tutsis whom both

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Post Conflict Reconstruction in Rwanda In the case of Rwanda, it began with the signing of the Arusha agreement in 1994 which did not mark the end of the conflict in Rwanda. The State still continued to face stagnating conflicts within and outside its own boarders. The conflict spread to Rwanda’s neighboring States and immediate action needed to be taken. The post crisis period left Rwanda with a lot to deal especially after the following results of the Genocide attack; 12% of the entire population was wiped out, the majority of the population that remained were left with physical and mental traumas to deal with, women were infected with HIV/AIDS as a result of rape cases and majority of the children were also mentally affected as they witnessed the entire carnage.

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