The Sources:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/1288230.stm
http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide
/rwanda.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1252049.stm
~Most of the dead were Tutsis
~And most of those who perpetrated the violence
were Hutus
~Even for a country with such a turbulent history as
Rwanda, the scale and speed of the slaughter left
its people reeling
 Beginning
on April 6, 1994, and for the next
hundred days, up to 800,000 Tutsis were killed by
Hutu militia using clubs and machetes with as many
as 10,000 killed each day
 The genocide was sparked by the death of the
Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu,
when his plane was shot down above Kigali airport
on April 6, 1994
 Rwanda
is one of the smallest
countries in Central Africa, with
just 7 million people, and is
comprised of two main ethnic
groups, the Hutu and the Tutsi
 Although the Hutus account for
90 percent of the population, in
the past, the Tutsi minority was
considered the aristocracy of
Rwanda and dominated Hutu
peasants for decades, especially
while Rwanda was under Belgian
colonial rule
 There
had been disagreements
between the majority Hutus and
minority Tutsis, but the
animosity between the ethnic
groups grew substantially since
the colonial period
 Ironically, the two ethnic groups
are actually very similar - they
speak the same language,
inhabit the same areas and
follow the same traditions
 However, Tutsis are often taller
and thinner than Hutus, with
some saying their origins lie in
Ethiopia
 During
the genocide, the bodies of Tutsis were
thrown into rivers, with their killers saying they
were being sent back to Ethiopia
 When
the Belgian colonists arrived in 1916, they
produced identity cards classifying people
according to their ethnicity
 The Belgians considered the Tutsis to be superior to
the Hutus
 Not surprisingly, the Tutsis welcomed this idea, and
for the next 20 years they enjoyed better jobs and
educational opportunities
 Resentment among the Hutus gradually built up,
culminating in a series of riots in 1959
 More than 20,000 Tutsis were killed, and many
more fled to the neighbouring countries of Burundi,
Tanzania and Uganda
 Over
subsequent decades, the Tutsis were
portrayed as scapegoats for every crisis
 At the same time, Tutsi refugees in Uganda –
supported by some moderate Hutus – were
forming the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF)
 Their aim was to overthrow Habyarimana
and secure their right to return to their
homeland
 Habyarimana chose to exploit this threat as
a way to bring back dissident Hutus back to
his side, and Tutsis inside Rwanda were
accused of being RPF collaborators
 In
August 1993, after several attacks and months of
negotiation, a peace accord was signed between
Habyarimana and the RPF, but it did little to stop
the continued unrest
 When Habyarimana’s plane was shot down at the
beginning of April 1994, it was the final nail in the
coffin
 Exactly who killed the president – and with him the
president of Burundi and many chief members of
staff – has not been established
 The effect of the killing was both instantaneous
and catastrophic
 In
Kigali, the presidential guard immediately
initiated a campaign of retribution
 Leaders of the political opposition were murdered,
and almost immediately, the slaughter of Tutsis and
moderate Hutus began
 Since
all individuals in Rwanda carried
identification cards specifying their ethnic
background, a practice left over from colonial days
 These ‘tribal cards’ now meant the difference
between life and death
 Amid the onslaught, the small U.N. peacekeeping
force was overwhelmed as terrified Tutsi families
and moderate politicians sought protection
 Among
the peacekeepers were ten soldiers from
Belgium who were captured by the Hutus, tortured
and murdered
 As a result, the United States, France, Belgium,
and Italy all began evacuating their own personnel
from Rwanda
 However, no effort was made to evacuate Tutsi
civilians or Hutu moderates
 Instead, they were left behind entirely at the
mercy of the avenging Hutu
 Back
at U.N. headquarters in New York, the killings
were initially categorized as a breakdown in the
cease-fire between Tutsi and Hutu
 Throughout the massacre, both the U.N. and the
U.S. carefully refrained from labeling the killings as
genocide, which would have necessitated some
kind of emergency intervention
 On April 21, the Red Cross estimated hundreds of
thousands of Tutsi had already been massacred
since April 6 – an extraordinary rate of killing
 Encouraged
by the presidential guard and radio
propaganda, an unofficial militia group called the
Interahamwe (meaning those who attack together)
was mobilized
 At its peak, this group 30,000 strong
 Soldiers and police officers encouraged ordinary
citizens to take part
 In some cases, Hutu civilians were forced to
murder their Tutsi neighbors by military personnel
 Participants
were often given incentives, such as
money or food, and some were even told they
could appropriate the land of the Tutsis they killed
 On the ground at least, the Rwandans were largely
left alone by the international community
 UN troops withdrew after the murder of 10 soldiers
 The day after Habyarimana’s death, the RPF
renewed their assault on government forces, and
numerous attempts by the UN to negotiate a
ceasefire came to nothing
 The
U.N. Security Council responded to the
worsening crisis by voting unanimously to abandon
Rwanda
 The remainder of U.N. peacekeeping troops were
pulled out, leaving behind a only tiny force of
about 200 soldiers for the entire country
 The
Hutu, now without opposition from the world
community, engaged in genocidal mania, clubbing
and hacking to death defenseless Tutsi families
with machetes everywhere they were found
 The Rwandan state radio, controlled by Hutu
extremists, further encouraged the killings by
broadcasting non-stop hate propaganda and even
pinpointed the locations of Tutsis in hiding
 The
killers were aided by members of the Hutu
professional class including journalists, doctors and
educators, along with unemployed Hutu youths and
peasants who killed Tutsis just to steal their
property
 Many
Tutsis took refuge in churches and mission
compounds
 These places became the scenes of some of the
worst massacres
 In once case, at Musha, 1,2000 Tutsis who had
sought refuge were killed beginning at 8 a.m. and
lasting until the evening
 Hospitals also became prime targets as wounded
survivors were sought out and then killed
 In
some local villages, militiamen forced Hutus to
kill their Tutsis neighbors or face a death sentence
for themselves and their entire families
 They also forced Tutsis to kill members of their
own families
 By
mid May, an estimated 500,000 Tutsis had been
slaughtered
 Bodies were now commonly seen floating down the
Kagera River into Lake Victoria
 Finally,
in July, the RPF captured
Kigali
 The government collapsed and the
RPF declared a ceasefire
 As soon as it became apparent that
the RPF was victorious, an estimated
two million Hutus fled to Zaire (now
the Democratic Republic of Congo)
 These refugees included many who
have since been implicated in the
massacres
 Rwanda’s
now Tutsi-led government has twice
invaded its twice much larger neighbor, saying it
wants to wipe out the Hutu forces
 And a Congolese Tutsi rebel group remains active,
refusing to lay down arms, saying otherwise its
community would be at risk of genocide
 The world’s largest peacekeeping force has been
unable to end the fighting
Primary Source: Hamis Kamuhanda, 11 years old in
1994
“The following day we had rumors that Hutus were
out to kill every Tutsi in the country, claiming that
we, the Tutsis had killed the Hutu president. We
were advised to stay indoors. I had never seen my
parents so agitated and terrified all my life.”
“Then there was a knock at the door and before we
could even respond, the door fell in and about four
or so people came in and dragged my father out by
his legs. That was the last we saw of him.”
“We were hiding under the bed but we could see
everything. Mother told us to keep quiet. Then
the shooting began. The bullets came in and hit
everything in the way. Yet no one dared to scream.
Mother could not cover all of us. I could feel blood
coming from under my right shoulder and I did not
know whether I was hit or not. I could not feel
any pain then. My mind was occupied with the
terror being hacked to death.”
“Suddenly the door burst open and they came in
praising themselves for a good job done. I was
closer to the door and they kicked me in my belly.
It was painful but the thought of being severed
alive with their machetes, made me stay as quiet
as a mouse.”
“One of them said: ‘Let’s make sure that he is dead
with this.’ I didn’t move an inch, nor did I make
any noise. They must have thought that I was
dead. I just felt a very sharp pain on my leg and I
must have passed out…When I woke up, mother
was nursing my wounded leg…”
“…The armed Hutu men, the Interahamwe, were
scattered and patrolling every corner. The
situation was tense for a very long time and we
could smell the stench of the dead even inside our
fenced house. We were terrified.”
“We thought that those men were going to return
and realize that we, a Tutsi family were still
breathing. The leg was getting worse and I was
feverish all the time.”
“The fact that at age 11, my mother had to do
everything for me, including helping me to relieve
myself, drove me insane. We were running out of
food. We kept praying for some rescue mission
from somewhere.”
“Mother peeped through the wall and saw Tutsi
soldiers coming towards the house. She prayed and
waited for our fate. What would it be? It was RPF
(Rwanda Patriotic Front) soldiers. These were good
people.”
“They liberated us and freed us from our selfimposed solitary confinement. The RPF soldiers
took me to the hospital. I was there for about six
months.”