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Cause and effect of genocide
Defining genocide essay
Defining genocide essay
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From April to July of 1994, in about 100 days, an estimated 800,000 people were killed in Rwanda by Hutu extremists. The Hutu extremists were said to be targeting only the minority ethnic group called "Tutsi", but were also found to be killing any of their political enemies regardless of their race.
The Tutsi race has long held control over the Rwandan government because, though they only make up an approximate 14 percent of the Rwanda population, the Europeans who took over the country chose them because they were said to resemble the Europeans more than the Hutus. The Hutus later started a revelution for independence that the Belgian, who controlled the country at the time, quickly ended it by letting the Hutu run the government instead of the Tutsi. Of course, this did not make the Hutu forget the years of oppression they suffered at the hands of the Tutsi. So, naturally, there were Hutus who believed that the Tutsi race should be exterminated. These people were called Hutu extremists. The Hutu etremists within the government blamed the Tutsi as a whole for the countrys' st...
The main reason the Hutus killed Tutsis in the Rwandan genocide was for economic reasons. The Tutsis began to benefit greatly from killing Tutsis by looting them and gaining things like money, land, and cattle. The looting of Tutsis became a means of income to the Hutus. The Hutus neglected their fields in favor of killing so they could loot for better food and goods. As Jean Baptiste states, “Why dig in the dirt when we were harvesting without working, eating our fill without growing a thing?”(Hatzfeld, 60) The Hutus mind set of being farmers shifts to being killers who can benefit more from that, than from their regular jobs of harvesting. As stated by Adalbert, “…we didn’t care about what we accomplished in the marshes, only about what was important to us for comfort.” (Hatzfeld, 83) This shows how the men became more concerned with looting and profiting from the killing than actually being concerned with killing people. So in a sense, the job of killing became a means for the men to do their more comfortable job of looting. One can begin to enter the Hutu mind set and see how, by killing other people, people they may have a...
United Nations. "Rwanda, genocide, Hutu, Tutsi, mass execution, ethnic cleansing, massacre, human rights, victim remembrance, education, Africa." UN News Center. UN, n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2013. .
The Rwandan genocide occurred due to the extreme divide between two main groups that were prevalent in Rwanda, the Hutu and the Tutsi. When Rwanda was first settled, the term Tutsi was used to describe those people who owned the most livestock. After the Germans lost control over their colonies after World War I, the Belgians took over and the terms Hutu and Tutsi took on a racial role (Desforges). It soon became mandatory to have an identification card that specified whether or not an individual was a Hutu, Tutsi, or Twa (a minority group in Rwanda). The Tutsi soon gained power through the grant of leadership positions by the Belgians. Later on when Rwanda was tying to gain indepe...
It is impossible to even imagine the scale of hate, destruction, and massacre that occurred in Rwanda during those 100 days. Linda Melvern, on the International Development Research Centere website, describes in an article the Gikondo Massacre, one of the bloodiest mass-killings during the genocide. On the third day of the turmoil, about 500 Tutsi, many of them children, gathered at a church in the middle of Kigali, having stepped over the bodies of their neighbors to get there. They pleaded the clergy for protection. The priest did his best, but presidential guard soldiers arrived and accused the church of harboring evil. He then left, telling soldiers not to waste bullets; the Interahamwe, he said, would arrive with...
After the Europeans supported the Hutus, they began the revolt. By 1959 the Hutus had gained power and were taking land from the Tutsis. The Tutsis moved to neighboring countries and created the Front Patriotique Rwandais and were trained by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). The Hutus finally gained independence for Rwanda in 1962. The new Hutus government, which was inexperienced, had problems. Tension between the people grew and in 1990 the civil war began and didn 't end till 1993. Then in 1994 the Hutus President’s plane was shot down, and the Hutus believe it was the Tutsi that did it, and the Tutsi believe the Hutus people did it to have a reason to start the genocide. The Rwandan Genocide of 1994 happened over a period of 100 days. The brutality perpetrated by the Hutus upon the Tutsis resulted in 800,000 deaths After the Genocide the government get rid of ethnicity cards that would be able to ethnically identify them. In today’s Rwandan society the Hutus and the Tutsis get along, because they have realized that they are similar to each other when it comes to everyday
Rwanda was a German colony but then was given to Belgium “who favored the minority Tutsis over the Hutus, exacerbated[exacerbating] the tendency of the few to oppress the many”(History.com). This created a feeling of anger towards the Tutsis, because they had much more power than Hutus. The RPF decided to create a government consisting of a Hutu and a Tutsi holding the highest government positions. As the RPF took control of the government, “some two million Hutus – both civilians and some of those involved in the genocide – then fled across the border into DR Congo.
Africa has been an interesting location of conflicts. From the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea to the revolutionary conflict in Libya and Egypt, one of the greatest conflicts is the Rwandan Genocide. The Rwandan Genocide included two tribes in Rwanda: Tutsis and Hutus. Upon revenge, the Hutus massacred many Tutsis and other Hutus that supported the Tutsis. This gruesome war lasted for a 100 days. Up to this date, there have been many devastating effects on Rwanda and the global community. In addition, many people have not had many acknowledgements for the genocide but from this genocide many lessons have been learned around the world.
The Rwandan Genocide “It is our responsibility to empower the powerless while giving voice to the voiceless” -(Irwin Cotler “Six Lessons from the Rwandan Genocide”) When the Rwandan Hutu majority betrayed the Tutsi minority, a destructive mass murdering broke out where neighbor turned on neighbor and teachers killed their students; this was the start of a genocide. In this paper I will tell you about the horrors the people of Rwanda had to face while genocide destroyed their homes, and I will also tell you about the mental trauma they still face today. Hutu and Tutsi Origins When Rwanda was first settled, the people there raised cattle, the ones with the most cattle were considered “Tutsi” and everyone else was ‘Hutu”.
...ause the colonial masters believed that they resembled them. It was unethical for the Belgians to interfere with the peaceful coexistence that the two communities had enjoyed in the past. As a result, the Hutus acquired negative misconceptions about the Tutsis’ origin, what they stood for, and what they had done for them in the past. The Hutus expertly planned and organized the Rwandan genocide as a result of such historical distortions created by their country’s colonial masters.
When the Belgian colonizers entered Rwanda in 1924, they created an ethnic classification between the Hutu and the Tutsi, two tribes who used to live together as one. After independence in 1962, there was a constant power struggle between the two tribes. Former Canadian Prime Minister, Jean-Pierre Chrétien described the situation as “tribalism without tribes.” (Destexhe, 1995) There were many signs leading towards genocide, yet the nations in power chose to ignore them. From April 6, 1994 until mid-July, a time spanning approximately of 100 days, 800,000 people were murdered when the Hutu attacked the Tutsi. No foreign aid came to the rescue until it was too late. Ten years after the genocide the United Nations was still involved in Rwanda, cleaning up the mess that was left behind because of man’s sinful nature. Could the Rwandan Genocide have been prevented, or is it simply a fact of life? Even though the international community is monitoring every country and race, such an event as the Rwandan Genocide could occur again because the European colonizers introduced ethnic classification where it did not exist and the nations in power chose to ignore the blatant signs of genocide.
The Hutu tribe was the aggressors and their targets were the Tutsi tribe. The Hutu and Tutsi conflict lasted throughout the twentieth century. Throughout then, 200,000 Hutus were killed by the Tutsi army. After the Rwanda genocide started, the Hutu militia targeted the Tutsi which resulted in a death toll between 800,000 and one million.
Tutsi and Hutus are very similar thus categorizing then as different was a very crucial misunderstanding between them when Belgians recognized Tutsis as being the top tribe to rule Rwanda. Hutus gained control of Rwanda after independence with this giving them the power to undermine Tutsis as continued to believe that Hutus took their places in secondary and higher teaching institutions as well as employment and private sector. Hutu believed that by forbidding Tutsis to educate themselves and actively play in government or military they would marginalize them minimizing their participation in society. Who was the better race? There is a long history of the differences they had to grow up with however, one day this “difference“ becam...
In the country of Rwanda, three groups make up the population: the Hutu, the Tutsi, who originally dominated politics, and the aboriginal Twa. However, during the beginnings of independence in 1959, the Tutsis were no longer in power as the Hutus managed to seize power during the times of violence in the region. A main factor causing this result was the size of the groups; the majority of the Rwandan population was Hutu but only 17% was Tutsi. In an attempt to gain their control back, the Tutsi refugees invaded Rwanda and the Hutus responded by killing many of the members of the Tutsis clan. The Hutus dominated every political aspect in Rwanda, from military to economics and violence with the Tutsi evaded for nearly fifteen years.
In 1994 in Rwanda, a million members of the Tutsi tribe were killed by members of the Hutu tribe in a massacre that took place while the world looked away. "Hotel Rwanda" is not the story of that massacre. It is the story of a hotel manager who saved the lives of 1,200 people by being, essentially, a very good hotel managerIn 1994 in Rwanda, a million members of the Tutsi tribe were killed by members of the Hutu tribe in a massacre that took place while the world looked away. "Hotel Rwanda" is not the story of that massacre. It is the story of a hotel manager who saved the lives of 1,200 people by being, essentially, a very good hotel managerIn 1994 in Rwanda, a million members of the Tutsi tribe were killed by members of the Hutu tribe in a massacre that took pla...
Although the Hutu and Tutsi people had been fighting before the Rwandan Civil War, that is the point in time fighting was the worst between these people. The most people died during this war. This feud began in the year of 1990. Before, the Hutu and Tutsi people actually lived together in harmony, though they had their fights every now and again. However, that all changed when independence came into the picture. The Belgian troops, who ruled and defended their area, were withdrawn from their positions. Then, in about 1962, Rwanda was formed. There was one leader who ruled the area. However, one day, he decided he could no longer rule and told the Tutsi people, who tended to be lighter-skinned to be in charge of Rwanda. This decision greatly upset the Hutu people, and war started. This genocide caused the death of about a million people.