The Rwandan Genocide
100 Days of Slaughter
April 6, 1994-July 18, 1994
Source: David Simon, The Teaching of Africa, PIER, Yale University , July 11, 2005
Classification (Rwanda)
Belgian colonialists believed Tutsis were a naturally superior nobility,
descended from the Israelite tribe of Ham. The Rwandan royalty was Tutsi.
Belgians distinguished between Hutus and Tutsis by nose size, height & eye
type. Another indicator to distinguish Hutu farmers from Tutsi pastoralists
was the number of cattle owned.
Stage 2: Symbolization (Rwanda)
• “Ethnicity” was first noted on cards by Belgian Colonial Authorities in 1933.
• Tutsis were given access to limited education programs and Catholic priesthood. Hutus
were given less assistance by colonial authorities.
• At independence, these preferences were reversed. Hutus were favored.
• These ID cards were later used to distinguish Tutsis from Hutus in the 1994 massacres
of Tutsis and moderate Hutus that resulted in 800,000+ deaths.
Stage 3: Dehumanization
• One group denies the humanity of another group, and makes the
victim group seem subhuman.
• Dehumanization overcomes the normal human revulsion against
murder.
.
Der Stürmer Nazi Newspaper:
“The Blood Flows; The Jew Grins”
Kangura Newspaper, Rwanda: “The
Solution for Tutsi Cockroaches”
Dehumanization
• Hate propaganda in speeches, print and on hate
radios vilify the victim group.
• Members of the victim group are described as
animals, vermin, and diseases.
• Hate radio, Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines,
during the Rwandan genocide in 1994, broadcast
anti-Tutsi messages like “kill the cockroaches” and “If
this disease is not treated immediately, it will destroy
all the Hutu.”
• Dehumanization invokes superiority of one group
and inferiority of the “other.”
• Dehumanization justifies murder by calling it “ethnic
cleansing,” or “purification.”
• Such euphemisms hide the horror of mass murder.
Organization (Rwanda)
• “Hutu Power” elites
armed youth militias
called Interahamwe
("Those Who Stand
Together”).
• The government and
Hutu Power
businessmen provided
the militias with over
500,000 machetes and
other arms and set up
camps to train them to
“protect their villages”
by exterminating every
Tutsi.
Extermination (Genocide)
Government organized
extermination of Tutsis in
Rwanda in 1994
Extermination (Genocide)
• Although most
genocide is
sponsored and
financed by the
state, the armed
forces often work
with local militias.
Rwandan militia killing squads
Nazi killing squad working
with local militia
Pre-colonial ethnic divisions?
• Arrival of the Tutsi and Hutu
in Rwanda
• Are the divisions between
Hutu and Tutsi ethnic or
socio-economic
– Share language, religion, and
cohabitate
– Division was occupationally
defined: based on size of
cattle herds.
• “Tutsi feudalism”- cattlework exchange
– Some physical differences:
height, skin color, skull shape
History of the Conflict
• In the fifteenth century the Tutsis were the rulers of
most of today's Rwanda
– Put in place by the Belgians to rule
• Tutsis were a minority of the population, mostly
herders
• Majority Hutus were mostly croppers
• When kings distributed the land, they gave it the to
Tutsis who charged Hutus to live and work on the
land
Rwanda Background
• In Rwanda the Tutsis are the minority in terms
of population.
• They held the most power and land.
• This was brought about by favoritism towards
them when Rwanda was under Belgian Rule.
• The Hutus were the majority in terms of
population.
RadiSys Corporation
Confidential
11
Evolution of Titles
• Originally an ethnic distinction
• Everyone who wasn’t Tutsi is labeled Hutu
• Became an economic status
– Gaining wealth meant losing “Hutuness”
• When the Belgians gained the land as part of the
Treaty of Versailles in 1918, they used the distinction
to “divide and rule”
– Issued passcards to Rwandans
– Gave preferential treatment to
Tutsis (“with the long nose”)
• Hutu’s had “blunt nose”
Pre-colonial political system
• Pre-colonial political system is not well
understood.
– Rwanda was a kingdom ruled by Tutsi king and
predominantly Tutsi court.
– Was this a centralized and inegalitarian system or
more theoretical?
Three Tribes of Rwanda
• 3 tribes of people that inhabit
Rwanda
–Twa, the original inhabitants
–Hutus, migrated in 1000 A.D.
–Tutsi, migrated in the 14th or 15th
century
Dominance of the Tutsis Tribe
• The Tutsis tribe of people gained a large dominance
over the Hutus
• By the late 18th century, a single Tutsi-ruled state
occupied most of the present day Rwanda
• The rule was headed by a Tutsi King who controlled
the land and gave power over the regions to the Tutsi
groups
• The Tutsis, in turn, dominated the Hutus, who had
the majority of the population-The population of
Rwanda was :
– 75% Hutu
– 20% Tutsi
– 5% Twa
Colonial Rwanda: Fixing ethnic difference
•
•
•
•
Indirect rule
Ethnic identification cards
Empowered Tutsi to rule Hutu majority
– Given weapons and support for rule
– Incorporation of North-West
Rwanda into Tutsi rule
Official discourse that viewed Tutsi as
more intelligent, reliable and
hardworking
– Administration and army jobs
reserved for 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 Rwandan Civil War
• Conflict lasting from 1990-1993+
• Between the government of
President Habyarimana (Hutu)
and the rebel Rwandan Patriotic
Front (Tutsi group in other country)
Habyarimana
– Tutsis were trying to take back the power in Rwanda
– Peace agreements were signed, but Habyarimana (Hutu
President) doesn’t cede power to any other political party
Rwanda 1990-1993
• In 1990, Rwanda was invaded from Uganda by the
Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), made up mainly of
Tutsi refugees. The invasion was unsuccessful, but
the president of Rwanda agreed to share the power
of the country
• In 1993, a power-sharing agreement was signed
between Hutus and Tutsis
The Action of…
• two extremist Hutu militias
– The Interahamwe
• "those who stand together" or "those who work
together" or "those who fight together”
• A Hutu paramilitary organization
• Backed by the Hutu Government
– Impuzamugambi
• "Those who have the same goal" or "Those who have a
single goal"
• Hutu militia
Threats to Regime in 1990s
• FPR (Rwandese Patriotic Front) invasion.
Comprised predominantly of Tutsi refugees
pushed into Uganda following postindependence ethnic conflict.
• Frustration among Hutu in south with lack of
power within regime
• International pressure to democratize, power
share with FPR.
•This also created a
Tutsi exile community
in Africa, eager to
get back to their
homeland.
•This group was
called the Rwandan
Patriotic Front, or
RPF, and led by their
General Paul Kagame.
Paul Kagame in
the early 1990’s
Before the Genocide
• In 1990 Rwanda was invaded by the Rwandan Partiotic
Front(RPF). Most of these soldiers were Tutsi refugees.
Many Hutus were killed.
• In 1993 he United Nations sent peacekeepers to maintain
a peace accord.
• Over the next few months presidents from both
countries and tribes were killed suspiciously.
• In April 1994 the Rwandan and Burundi presidents were
killed. Hutu extremist retaliated by killing 11 United
Nations Peacekeepers.
• After this killing the peacekeeping mission came to
abrupt halt and the UN evacuated all peacekeepers.
•Scared of losing their
influence, the Hutu
Power movement
was formed.
•They put pressure on the
President of Rwanda
Juvénal Habyarimana to
President Habyarimana
not share power with
the RPF, and to
withdraw from the UN
peace agreement
known as the Arusha
Accords.
Background:
In 1994, Rwanda had a population
of seven million, comprised of the
following three tribes:
•Hutu: 85 percent
•Tutsi:
14 percent
•Twa:
1 percent
Immediate Cause:
Plane Crash and Death of the
President of Rwanda and
President of Burundi
Rwanda 1994
• In April 1994, the president of Rwanda and
the president of Burundi were killed in a
suspicious plane crash
• Civil strife erupted on a massive scale
• Rwandan soldiers and Hutu gangs slaughtered
an estimated 500,000 to 1,000,000 people,
mostly Tutsis and moderate Hutus
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 Catalyst
• On April 6, 1994,the airplane carrying Rwandan
President Habyarimana and the Hutu president of
Burundi was shot down as it prepared to land in
Kigali
• Both presidents died when the plane crashed.
• Responsibility for the attack is disputed, with both
the RPF and Hutu extremists being blamed
• In spite of disagreements about the identities of its
perpetrators, the attack on the plane is to many
observers the catalyst for the genocide
The Beginning
Started with a plane crash (April 6, 1994)
• 2 Presidents killed
• Juvenal Habyarimana (Rwanda)
• Cyprian Ntayamira (Burundi)
The beginning
• Hutu extremists are
considered responsible
for the crash
• President of Rwanda
was about to sign a
Peace Accord
– The extremists
disapproved
The Genocide Begins
Racism as a political instrument
• In order to deflect internal and external threats to
power, Rwandan regime initiated program of
vilification of Tutsi
– Mobs organized by government officials to attack Tutsi
– Political rallies and media vilified Tutsi
– Tutsi described as an “enemy within”
• This diverted people’s attention from their own
subjugation and impoverishment by the government
and toward an “external” threat.
The killings begin
• The same night of the
plane crash
• The Rwandan Armed
Forces (FAR) and Hutu
militia begin killing
Tutsis and Hutu
moderates
The Beginnings of Genocide
• National radio urged people to stay in their homes
• the government-funded station RTLM
broadcast vitriolic attacks against
Tutsis and Hutu moderates
• Hundreds of roadblocks were set up by the militia
around the country
• Lieutenant-General Dallaire of the UN Peacekeeping
Force and UNAMIR, escorting Tutsis in Kigali, were
unable to do anything as Hutus kept escalating the
violence and even started targeting the
peacekeepers themselves
“Beware of the cockroaches…”
The Hutu Ten Commandments,
1990
1. Every Hutu must know that the Tutsi woman,
wherever she may be, is working for the Tutsi ethnic
cause. In consequence, any Hutu is a traitor who:
- Acquires a Tutsi wife;
- Acquires a Tutsi concubine;
- Acquires a Tutsi secretary or protégée.
2.Every Hutu must know that our Hutu daughters are
more worthy and more conscientious as women, as wives
and as mothers. Aren’t they lovely, excellent secretaries,
and more honest!
Rwanda Genocide
• The genocide began on April 6th, 1994
• The genocide lasted for 100 days.
• Extremist leaders from the Hutu majority started to
murder the Tutsi minority.
• Nearly one million Tutsis were killed.
• Thousands of women were raped. Hutus who hid
Tutsis were killed.
• The Tutsis were killed because the Hutus militants
made people believe that they were the enemy out
to kill them first.
RadiSys Corporation
Confidential
38
The killings begin
• Roadblocks set up to
capture Tutsis and Hutu
moderates
• Machetes are the
weapon of choice for
killings
How was the Genocide Carried Out
• The Hutus militia that carried it out killed the Tutsis just by
using machettes and clubs.
• They were trained ahead of time.
• The Hutu militia used constant propaganda to incite their
followers
• They used the radio to broadcast that the tutsis were
cockroaches and devils.
• They also used the radios and speakerphones to tell the
location of fleeing Tutsis.
• The Tutsis also couldn’t jam the radio signals because they
didn’t have the technology.
RadiSys Corporation Confidential
41
•These factors gave birth to the Hutu death
squads of unemployed Rwandan young men
known as the Interahamwe, or “Those who
attack together.”
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.
Genocide in Rwanda April-July
1994
• Many Tutsis ran to churches and missions to hide, thinking that
they would be protected there. These became the sites of
some of the worst massacres because they were trapped.
• In many local villages, Hutus were forced to kill their Tutsi
neighbors or risk death for themselves and their families.
• They also forced Tutsis to kill their own families.
• By mid-May, over 500,000 Tutsis had been murdered. The UN,
under media pressure, agreed to send up to 5,000 troops to
Rwanda, but never sent them in time to stop the massacre.
• The butchering did not stop until July of 1994 when 200,000
Tutsis from neighboring countries invaded and attacked Hutu
forces, stopping the genocide.
• The total death toll ended at 800,000 people.
The Killings
• Killed in their villages or in towns, often by their neighbors
and fellow villagers
• Militia members typically murdered their victims by hacking
them with machetes, although some army units used rifles
• The victims were often hiding in churches and school
buildings, where Hutu gangs massacred them
• Ordinary citizens were called on by local officials and
government-sponsored radio to kill their neighbors and those
who refused to kill were often killed themselves
• Everyone killed so they weren’t killed themselves:
– Mayors
– Priests
– EVERYONE
Number Killed
• Unlike Nazis they didn’t keep record
• The RPF government has stated that 1,071,000 were
killed, 10% of which were Hutu (determined in
February 2008)
• Gourevitch agrees with an estimate of one million
• United Nations lists the toll as 800,000
• African Rights estimates the number as "around
750,000,"
• Human Rights Watch states that it was "at least
500,000
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.
Rwanda 1994
• “Hutu Mobs armed with machetes and other weapons killed
roughly 8,000 Tutsis a day during a three-month campaign of
terror. Powerful nations stood by as the slaughter surged on
despite pleas from Rwandan and UN observers”
National Geographic 2006.
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.
Quotes From Survivors
“When I came out, there were no birds…
there was sunshine and the stench of death”.
“I couldn’t believe that the international
communities would sit and watch us being
slaughtered”.
*Both of these persons survived by hiding under
dead bodies.
International Responses to the
Rwandan Genocide
Rwanda: International Response
• 800,000 Tutsis murdered
with government support
• Began April 6, 1994 and
lasted 100 days
• Few international
organizations helped
• United Nations sent in
peacekeeping soldiers
A cemetery in Nyanza-Rebero,
Rwanda, where genocide victims are
buried.
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10007216
The role of the U.N.
• Forbidden to intervene
• Only allowed to
“monitor” the situation
The killing of Belgian soldiers
• 10 Belgian soldiers who
work for the United
Nations
– Guarding the Hutu prime
minister at his home
– Hutu radicals kill him and
the Belgian soldiers
The Role of the U.N.
• The role of the U.N. in the Rwanda genocide was
very neutral.
• Before and during the genocide, the United Nations
only had 2,500 peacekeeping troops in Rwanda.
• A person named Masozera said, “ U.N. soldiers were
here and left when the killings were happening,” the
U.N troops really didn’t do anything to prevent the
genocide from occurring or even stop afterwards.
• They were peacekeeper not peacemakers and their
lack of action caused the death of many innocent
Tutsis and Hutus.
The Members of the U.N. That Had
a Direct Role/Connection
Kofi Annan
Secretary-General of the
United Nations.
Roméo Alain Dallaire
Lieutenant-General,
Force commander of UNAMIR
(United Nations Assistance Mission
for Rwanda)
Qutoes from General Romeo Dallaire
"The genocide was
brutal, criminal and
disgusting and
continued for 100 days
under the eyes of the
international
community."
"I don't think there's
any justification for
what happened, it was
a shameful episode for
collective shame."
Rwanda
• Response
– International community
was evacuated
– Media did not emphasize
intentional killing of
civilians
– Only a few humanitarian
organizations stayed to
help
Lt. Gen. Roméo Dallaire
www.canadasworld.ca/timeline/19932000
Rwanda
• Responses
– UN Security Council
reduced peacekeeping
forces, handicapping them
– Genocide only ended when
Tutsi-dominated rebel
group, Rwandan Patriotic
Front, defeated the Hutu
regime
www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showt
hread.php?...
Rwanda
• Prosecutions: November 8, 1994, U.N. establishes
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha,
Tanzania
• Sept. 2, 1998: ICTR 1st ever conviction for genocide
judgment of Jean-Paul Akayesu for inciting violence
against Tutsis
www.crimesofwar.org/icc_magazine/
icc-cassese.htmlRemove frame
The International Response
All the nations collectively failed to do anything
about the Rwandan Genocide and remained
silent while innocent Rwandans were being
slaughtered.
The United States did not even refer to it as a
Genocide, but rather as “genocidal acts” or
“killings”.
Lack of political agreement, motivation, interest
and economic profit in Rwanda were responsible
for the international communities failure.
As Romeo Dallaire said, Rwanda was a mission of
“a lost priority” for the international community.
Historical Emblem Symbolizing the Rwandan
Genocide
• The golden sun represents the sun
found on the new Rwandan flag.
• However, the tips of the rays are red,
symbolizing the blood shed during the
Rwandan genocide.
• Moreover, the center of the sun is red
as well for the same reason
mentioned above because the scars
of the genocide remain deep down in
every Rwandan’s heart.
• The pin in the middle, which has been
created in honor of Rwandan people
and in order to support them, bears
the colors of hope (blue sky and
peaceful green).
• In the middle of the pin the gold
zigzag pattern signifies the wings of a
popular Rwandan bird known as
agasake.
Post-Genocide Rwanda
Issues Post-Genocide
• Approximately two million Hutu
refugees, most of whom were
participants in the genocide and with
anticipation of Tutsi retaliation, fled
from Rwanda, to Burundi, Tanzania,
Uganda, and Zaire (now the
Democratic Republic of the Congo)
• Thousands of them died in epidemics
of diseases common to the squalor of
refugee camps, such as cholera and
dysentery
– These are the refugee camps that were
aided by the UN and the US
• The refugees have fueled wars in
Uganda, Burundi, and the DRC
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