The Rwandan Genocide: An
introduction to Major World Issues
The Past
According to the analysis of first
All three classes paid tribute to the Tutsi
colonizers to Rwanda and
king in return for protection and various
Burundi, (Germans first, and Belgians
favours. Tutsi who lost their cattle
later) the populations of Rwanda
due to a disease epidemic
and Burundi were divided into
sometimes would be considered
three ethnic-based classes: Hutus,
Hutu; likewise Hutu who obtained
Tutsis and Twas.
cattle would come to be considered
Tutsi, thus climbing the ladder of the
social strata.
(Today) The ethnic breakdown of the
nation is roughly 84% Hutu, 15%
Tutsi, and 1% Twa ( with smaller
minorities of South Asians, Arabs,
French, British, and Belgians).
Hutus were considered socially
inferior to Tutsis.
Tensions Escalate
After World War II
Ruanda-Urundi became
a United Nations (UN)
"trust territory"
administered by
Belgium.
In 1933 ethnic identification cards were used to classify one's ethnicity.
Belgium and the Catholic
Church’s “Contribution”s
Catholic Church and the Belgians reinforced prejudices,
inequality, and the idea of an “us” and “them”.
Because of the existence of many wealthy Hutu who shared the
financial (if not physical) stature of the Tutsi, the Belgians used a
method of classification based on the number of cattle a person
owned.
(Anyone with ten or more cattle was considered a member of the aristocratic Tutsi class.)
• From 1935 on, "Tutsi", "Hutu" and "Twa" were indicated on identity
cards.
• The Roman Catholic Church, the primary educators in the
country, subscribed to and reinforced the differences between
Hutu and Tutsi. They developed separate educational
systems for each.
• In the 1940s and 1950s the vast majority of students were
Tutsi.
The Beginning
1986 Paul Kagame, a Tutsi who had become
head of military intelligence in the new
Ugandan army, founded the RPF
The Rwandan Patriotic Front
They began to train their army to invade
Rwanda from Uganda, and many Tutsis who
had been in the Ugandan military now joined
the RPF. In 1991, a radio station
broadcasting RPF propaganda from Uganda
was established by the RPF
(So the Tutsis started the propaganda “battle”,
but the Hutus took it much further)
The government of Habyarimana responded in 1993 (to the RPF
invasion) with a radio station that began anti-Tutsi propaganda
On April 6, 1994, the Hutu president of Rwanda was assassinated
when his jet was shot down, allegedly by missiles from the Ugandan
army.
Kagame and several members of Habyarimana's government, however, have
claimed that disgruntled Hutus killed their own Hutu president, to justify the
upcoming genocide.
The Genocide
In response to the April killing of the president, the
Hutu-led military and Interahamwe militia groups
killed about 800,000 Tutsis and Hutu moderates
in the Rwandan genocide over the next
three months (April - July 1994)
UN member states refused to answer UNAMIR's
requests for increased troops and money.
Meanwhile, although French troops were
dispatched, they were only able to evacuate foreign
nationals and in some cases the genocide
continued in zones they occupied while many highprofile Hutu war criminals escaped the RPF though
French-controlled areas.
All of these were common sites
for an everyday Rwandan during
this genocide. Burned and
murdered, the dead were left to
rot out in the open.
Top right is a picture of a survivor
who suffered numerous machete
attacks.
After the mass destruction of the Rwandan people, militia men and the military
simply check to make sure no one is still alive and then leave the bodies to rot.
All these people were most likely cut down with machine guns and machetes.
War Rape
Sexual violence against women and girls during the Rwanda
genocide included:
• rape
• gang rape
• sexual slavery (either collectively or individually through
“forced marriages)
• sexual mutilation
Some women were kept as personal slaves for years after the genocide,
forced to move to neighbouring countries after the genocide along with
their captors.
Pregnant women were not spared from sexual violence and on many
occasion victims were killed following rape
Over 20,000 children had been born as products of rape during the
Rawandan genocide.
HIV & War Rape
Many women were raped by men who knew they were
HIV positive and it has been suggested that there
were deliberate attempts to transmit the virus to Tutsi
women and their families.
War rape occurred across the country and was
frequently perpetrated in plain view of others, at sites
such as schools, churches, roadblocks, government
buildings or in the bush.
Hotel Rwanda
Post Civil War
After the Tutsi RPF took control of the
government, Kagame installed a Hutu
president, Pasteur Bizimungu, in 1994.
However when Bizimungu became critical
of the Kagame government in 2000, he
was removed as president and Kagame
himself took over the presidency.
Bizimungu immediately founded an
opposition party (the PDR), but it was
banned by the Kagame government.
Bizimungu was arrested in 2002 for
treason, sentenced to 15 years in prison,
(but released by a presidential pardon in
2007).
What Kagame did, and is doing, to Rwanda
is stereotypical dictatorship behaviour.
DICTATOR
Present and Future Rwanda
After the Tutsi-dominated RDF party took control of the government in 1994,
they then wrote the history of the genocide and enshrined its version of
events in the current constitution of 2003.
They made it a crime to question the government's version of
the genocide.
In 2004, a ceremony was held in Kigali at the Gisozi Memorial to
commemorate the tenth anniversary of the genocide, and the country
observes a national day of mourning each year on April 7.
Hutu Rwandan genocidal leaders are on trial at the International Criminal
Tribunal for Rwanda, in the Rwandan National Court system, and, most
recently, through the informal Gacaca village justice program. Recent
reports highlight a number of reprisal killings of survivors for giving
evidence at Gacaca.
Continued...
Some have made claims that the memorialisation of the
genocide without admission of the crimes by the Tutsi-RDF
are one sided, and is part of ongoing propaganda by the
Tutsi-led Rwandan government (which is essentially a one-party
government at this time). The author of Hotel Rwanda, Paul
Rusesabagina, has demanded that Paul Kagame, the current
Rwandan president, be tried as a war criminal.
A constitutional amendment banned political parties from
denoting themselves as being aligned with "Hutu" or
"Tutsi." However, the RPF, a primarily Tutsi political
organisation, was not disbanded and therefore continues its
dominance.
Rwanda today struggles to heal and rebuild, but shows signs of
rapid development.
One agent in Rwanda's rebuilding effort is the Benebikira Sisters.
Since the genocide, the Sisters have housed and supported
hundreds of orphans, and created and staffed schools to
educate the next generation of Rwandans.
In Eastern Rwanda, The Clinton Hunter Development Initiative
are helping to improve agricultural productivity, improve water
and sanitation and health services, and help cultivate
international markets for agricultural products.
The Rwandan government has announced that English will become the
official language of the nation, replacing French.
(This is partly an attempt to enable Rwanda to become a part of the
global economic community, but is also a result of a long running feud
between President Kagame and France over the apportioning of blame
for the 1994 genocide).
In 2008, Rwanda became the first country in history to elect a national
legislature in which a majority of members were women