Explaining The 1994 Rwanda Genocide

In the world today no crime as much an impact on the world then genocide. Genocide has caused entire generations of people to be slaughtered. To recognize what genocide truly is, it first needs to be explain what it is. Secondly it is likewise important to comprehend why it happens. Lastly an example of genocide will be explained and compared to the most notorious genocide of all, the Holocaust.

Genocide was officially and clearly defined by the United Nations General Assembly on December 9th, 1948 in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) after the events of the Holocaust and the resulting World War II Nuremberg Tribunal. It this convention also known as the General Assembly Resolution 260 it puts

It is essential to give an example of genocide. It is necessary to give some background information on the genocide in that will be examined and compared to the Holocaust. In “Explaining the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda” the author Hintjens explains the how the Rwanda Genocide was caused. On the night of April 6th 1994 at 8:30 p.m. a plane was flying over the capital city of Kigali in Rwanda when a surface-to air-missile slammed into the plane shooting it out of the sky. In the plane was Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana who was returning home from a summit in Tanzania was killed alongside everyone else on board in the plane crash. The Rwandan President Habyarimana, a Hutu, since 1973 ran a totalitarian governmental regime that purposely barred all Tutsis from contributing to government. This all changed on August 3, 1993 when President Habyarimana signed the Arusha Peace Agreement which damaged the Hutu hold on Rwanda and allowed Tutsis to finally participate in the government. This significantly upset the Hutu extremists. It was never determined who was responsible for the assassination but, the Hutu radicals benefited the most from Habyarimana's murder. In the next 24 hours after the crash, the Hutu fanatics had completely overthrown the current government. The Hutu extremists blamed the Tutsis for the assassination, and started their massacre. On April 6th 1994, the same day as the

One of the most important similarities in these genocides is that they were both suspected of being started under false premises or a “false flag operation” which is an event used during peace time by a group or organization by attacking one of their own, by way of assassination or other terroristic acts, to frame another opposing group (Hughes, 2011). The Nazi move toward complete power over Germany was started after the arson fire of the Reichstag building when the ruling Nazi party and President Hindenburg issued the Reichstag Fire Decree suspending most civil liberties in Germany in the wake of the attack. In Rwanda the event that started it was the assassination of President Habyarimana when a surface-to air-missile was launched toward and slamming the plane he was on. There never was a suspect to emerge for the responsible of the assassination but, the Hutu radicals benefited the most from Habyarimana's assassination because they could then blame it on the Tutsis (Hintjens, 1999). The biggest similarity is that there was so many seemingly normal people that allowed this happen. They could have stopped the genocides but did not. An example would be Adolf Eichmann a lieutenant colonel in the German Nazi army during his trial for war crimes he said it was just ‘‘a job, with its daily routine’’ and he was “only following orders”