Rwanda Genocide Of 94 Essay Research Paper

Rwanda: Genocide Of 94 Essay, Research Paper

In the year of Nineteen hundred and ninety four a great injustice was done totwo minority groups in Rwanda know as Tutsi and Twa . In this piece severaldifferent issues will be addressed all concerning Rwanda and the eventssurrounding the genocide of 1994. The issues range from the controversial bookwritten by Philip Gourivich, We Wish to inform you that tomorrow we will bekilled with our families , to the fax sent to the UN Peacekeeping Council days beforethe massacre predicting the events to come, to the UN and US involvement or lackthere of in the Rwandan situation. Before embarking on these issue let us first define genocide so that there canbe no confusion, this definition was taken from the United Nations archive of 1948in which the Convention for the Prevention and the Punishment of the Crime ofGenocide was undertaken, there delegates made a universal definition for genocide: Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or inpart, a national, ethnically, 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 aboutits 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. Now to truly understand the Genocide of 94 one must look into Rwanda spast to see what corruption caused this future. Rwanda is made up of three mainethnic groups: Hutu (Bahutu), about 90 percent of the population in the 1990 s;Tutsi (Batutsi or Watutsi), 9 percent; and Twa (Batwa), 1 percent. Its history didnot have signs of tension between the three groups until German explorers arrivedin the 1880s, and Roman Catholic clergy established missions in the area. Later inthe decade Rwanda (then called Ruanda) and Burundi (Burundi, is a landlockedrepublic in eastern Africa, bounded on the north by Rwanda, then called Urundi) were incorporated into German East Africa. The native rulers maintained goodrelations with the Germans, and later, with the Belgians, who occupied the countryduring World War I (1914-1918). After the war the area was entrusted to Belgiumby the League of Nations and became known as the Territory of Ruanda- Urundia.Following World War II (1939-1945) it became a United Nations trust territory. TheBelgians continued previous policies of supporting education by missionaries and ofruling through the Tutsi chiefs. However, they also forced the Tutsi to phase out theubuhake system, in which the Hutu became a caste of serfs subject to the Tutsi, by1958. As political awareness increased among Africans after World War II, theHutu grew more vocal in protesting the political and social inequalities in Rwanda.In 1959 the conflict between Tutsi and Hutu erupted into violence; the next year theTutsi king fled the country, and an mass departure of some 200,000 Tutsi followed.A republic was established in January 1961. In elections held the followingSeptember, the Hutu-dominated Parmehutu Party won a large majority of the seatsin the National Assembly. At the persistence of the United Nations trusteeship council, Belgium grantedRwanda independence on July 1, 1962, with Gr goire Kayibanda, leader of theParmehutu (now renamed the Democratic Republican Movement; MDR), aspresident. The MDR won the elections in 1965 and 1969. In 1963 some exiled Tutsi returned to Rwanda as a rebel army. Althoughunsuccessful, the takeover attempt prompted a large-scale massacre of Tutsi by theHutu, followed by periodic ethnic violence. At the same time thousands of Hutuvictimized in Burundi took refuge in Rwanda. In July 1973 the defense minister,General Juv nal Habyarimana, led a bloodless coup that ousted Kayibanda.Habyarimana, a Hutu from the north, charged that Kayibanda favored southernHutu and was trying to monopolize power. Both parliament and the MDR weresuspended after the coup. Political activities resumed in 1975 with the formation of anew ruling party called the National Revolutionary Movement for Development(NRMD). In 1978 a new constitution was approved, and President Habyarimanawas confirmed in office for another five years. After thwarting a coup attempt in1980, he was reelected without opposition in 1983 and again in 1988. In 1990,Belgium and several central African nations sent troops to Rwanda to oppose anuprising by the Tutsi-backed Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a movement of Tutsirefugees and moderate Hutu, invading from Uganda. As seen from a historians viewpoint one could only guess at how long untilthe groups would give into tensions and erupt into civil war. Throughout its historythe Hutu found many reasons to despise the Tutsi, and it came to no surprise whenin April of 1994 a genocide ,only paralleled by Hitler and the Holocaust, headed byHutu extremists led to the deaths of some 1,000,000 Tutsi, Twa, and HutuModerates (Hutu s who did not agree with the genocide). The killings to did notstart immediately but instead began with the destruction of PresidentHabyarimania, he had been working months prior to the genocide in a effort tomake a peace treaty. Throughout the so-called peace implementation period,President Habyarimana was under tremendous pressure from the extremists not toimplement the peace process. He did everything within his power to avoid it. Onearly April of 1