Genocide of Rwanda:
A Case Study
Bryan Schilling
Keri Rose
Scott Johnson
Scott Johnson
www.geographic.org/flags/new3/rwanda_flags.html
 Asking students to grapple with an issue as horrible as
genocide, termed”the crime without a name” by
Winston Churchill, is a daunting, wrenching, and above
all, sad challenge. Yet, as the film “Ghosts of Rwanda”
shows, while people and governments turned their
backs on what was happening in Rwanda in the spring
of 1994, some individuals stood up to the horror and
acted effectively, often with breathtaking heroism.
Students can witness both the depths to which
humans can sink and the heights to which they can
soar.
www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/teach/ghosts/
Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
Article 2
In the present convention, genocide means any of the following
acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a
national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such:
 Killing members of the group
 Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
 Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to
bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
 Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
 Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Scott Johnson
www.hrweb.org/legal/genocide.html
A Century of Genocide
 Armenian’s 1915-1923,
1.5million dead
 European Jews 1933-1945,
11 million dead
 Bosnia 1992-1995
 Rwanda 1994, 937,000 dead
 Darfur Current, 2 million and
counting
Scott Johnson
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/1288230.stm
People of Rwanda
Twas first people in region, now one percent of
total population
Hutu’s migrated in 1st century
Tutsi’s left Ethiopia and conquered Hutus in 16th
century
BUT!!!! Belgian colonists defined it differently!!
A Hutu was a person with squashed nose and
less than ten cows.
A Tutsi had a long nose and more than ten cows.
Scott Johnson
Colonial History
1890-European powers meet in Brussels
and declare Rwanda a German colony.
No Rwandans were present.
1916-Belgium occupies Rwanda during
World War I
1919-Belgian League of Nations
mandate officially recognizes Rwanda as
a Belgian colony
1962-On July 1st, Belgium declares
Rwandan independence, not Rwanda.
Scott Johnson
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/belgium and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/germany
Colonial history
 Originally a German colony
 Became a Belgian colony following WWI
 Hutus and Tutsis given ID cards that identified them by ethnicity, and
became the foundation of hatred that led to civil violence and
genocide
 Enforced monocrop of coffee which eventually led to economic
catastrophe in the country when coffee prices went belly up on the
international market, and led to initial stages of civil violence
Keri Rose
Tutsi
Made up approximately %14 of
population.
Belgians saw them as more regal in
physical characteristics because they
were taller and more slender
Were mainly herdsman, and had control
of the cattle. Belgians equated this with
the ability to rule.
Keri Rose
Hutu
Made up the majority of the population
Were viewed as more savage by the
Belgians than the Tutsis because they
were shorter and stockier
Were mainly farmers
Keri Rose
Rwanda Genocide
 Began April 1994
 An estimated one million people killed in the span of three months
 Weapons used were mainly machetes and grenades
 The world watched from afar, although they were aware of what was
occuring
 Killing took place in homes, stadiums, churches, hotels, orphanages,
etc…
 Over three quarters of the Tutsi population was killed
 The genocide was said to be revenge for the years of Tutsi rule over
the Hutu during colonization
Keri Rose
The U.N. Intervention
- The role of the U.N.
- Romeo Dalliare
Bryan Schilling
Media Coverage
 Did the press do its job?
 What were the factors that affected the
coverage of Rwanda?
Bryan Schilling
Tribunals
 Was justice finally served?
 Whose stories were told?
Bryan Schilling
Rwanda Today / The Aftermath
Learning to Forget, or
Forgetting to Learn?
Consequences…
Bryan Schilling