The Rwandan Genocide.

Kwibuka 27

27 years ago this month, the Rwandan Genocide began. How did it happen? What sparked it? This is a short article for anyone who is curious about it and has never understood what it means.

Rwanda had 3 ethnic groups

• Hutus — majority
• Tutsis — minority
• Twa — original inhabitants

The Hutus murdered as many as 800,000 people who most of them were the Tutsis. So the ethnic tensions began during their colonial period. Rwanda was colonized by the Belgians and the French. The Belgians who were the last, favored the Tutsis and used them to oppress the Hutus.

This created ethnic tensions. Even the Hutus started seeing the Tutsis as foreigners. They profiled them saying how to differentiate between a Hutu and a Tutsi was by the noses and the height. The Tutsis had long noses and were a bit taller than the average height of a Hutu. Anyway even before the 1990s, the Hutus tried to make sure there were no Tutsis in Rwanda.

Like in 1959, they forced approx 330,000 Tutsis to flee from Rwanda. The remaining Tutsis were much smaller in number. By early 1961, the Hutus had forced the Tutsi mornach into exile and declared the country independent. The Belgians had relied on their support, labor, local leadership from the Tutsis so having a small number , weakened them. Belgium granted Rwanda their independence in July 1962.

As much as the Tutsis were the minority, the ethnic motivated violence was seen years after the independence with both groups retaliating against each other. In 1973, Major General Habyarimana was installed to power by a military group. He was a moderate Hutu and the leader of Rwanda for the next 2 decades. A new constitution was ratified in 1978 and MG Habyarimana was elected the new President twice in 1983 and 1988. He had also founded a new political party.

All this time, the Tutsis are angry, some of them fled their home country to neighboring states ; Congo and UG. Well, in 1990, the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF) which consisted of Tutsi refugees invaded Rwanda from Uganda. Remember there were Tutsis that remained in Rwanda? President Habyarimana accused them of being accomplices and hundreds of them were arrested. 1990–1993 was a difficult time for the Tutsis as most govt officials directed hundred of killings of the Tutsi.

In 1992, a ceasefire led to negotiations between the gov and the RPF. President Habyarimana signed an agreement in the EAC HQ — Arusha Tz in aug 1993. This called for a creation of a transition govt that would include the RPF. There were Hutu extremists and this whole power sharing agreement did not sit well with them. So they maliciously planned to prevent it from happening.

So the Genocide began on April 6th 1994. It started with the killing of President Habyarimana. He was on a plane that carried him and the Burundian President at the time. April 6 1994. The plane was shot down over the capital city of Rwanda — Kigali. There were no survivors.

Up to date, the culprits have never been determined. Within the hour — the President guard, Rwandan armed forces and Hutu militia groups set up barricades and began a massacre. They killed Tutsis and moderate Hutus. The mass killings started in Kigali and they spread to the rest of the country quickly. The radio was the biggest catalyst as news reached the rural areas quicker. The govt radio station propelled and even encouraged people to spread the massacres.

Most Tutsis lived in Central and Southern Rwanda. The local administrators resisted the genocide which led the govt officials to remove them and killed several of them. The officials rewarded the killers. With money, food, drinks and drugs. Within 3 months more than 800,000 people had been slaughtered (sorry to say this way but this is what happened) RPF resumed fighting and now civil war was spread across the country. And by July, RPF had regained control over most of the country including Kigali. More than 2million people nearly all Hutus fled into refugee camps in the neighboring countries, mostly in Congo.

RPF emerged victorious and they established a coalition govt.

• Pasteur Bizimungu — Hutu — President
• Paul Kagame — Tutsi — VP & defense minister.

New constitution adopted in 2003 eliminated reference to ethnicity and Pres. Kagame was elected thereafter for a 10 year term.

International community? The United Nations Security Council voted in Apr 1994 to withdraw UNAMIR ( UN Peacekeeping ops) Mid may the UNSC voted to supply force but by the time the forces arrived the genocide had been over for months. A separate intervention by the French was approved by UN. The troops entered Rwanda from Zaire Congo in late June. Hundreds of people had been killed already. The UN , AU, EAC and neighbouring countries failed Rwanda and that will forever be remembered.

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