Rwanda is a country in Africa. Ten years ago, in the year 1994, there was a genocide happening. It was named the Rwanda Genocide. It all started with Belgium being in control of Rwanda after World War II and it was used as a UN Trust Territory. During the time Belgium was in control two groups rose up, the Tutsi and the Hutu. After the Belgium stopped helping and “controlling” the country they gave the power to the Hutus. Since the Hutus and the Tutsi were not great friends, the Hutu started killing the Tutsis and made around 100,000 to leave and stay in bordering countries. Juvenal Habyarimana became president in 1973, which lessened the violence towards the Tutsis. The RPF (Rwanda Patriotic Front) was a Tutsi rebel group who, in 1990, went in to Rwanda and tried to captured Rwanda from the Hutus and their government. They were able to capture the Northern Rwanda, but no the south. This caused Juvenal to lose some of his power over the country. This lead to the Rwanda Civil War. In 1993, both sides decided to sign a cease-fire treaty, but that did not last long.
On April 6, 1994, the plane carrying President Juvenal Habyarimana and the president of Burundi. The Rwanda Genocide started soon after this happened. This was the mass murders of 800,000 Tutsis and Hutus who helped the Tutsis. This lasted 100 days after April 6th. Interahamwe and Impuzamugambi were responsible for most of the murders towards the Tutsis. They used machetes because they were cheaper than guns.
The UN called the Rwanda reaction a “failure.” They called it a failure because they did not react the way they should’ve. January 11, was when Lt. General Romeo Dallaire notified the Military Advisor about the Hutus threats to the Tutsis. February 21, the Minister of Public Works was killed and the UN did not agree to UNAMIR idea of investigating the murder. RTLM accused Belgium peace-keepers of killing the President and shooting down the plane. This lead to ten Belgium UN soldiers. This then lead to the UN thinking it was “too risky” to become involved and help. The UN ended up not getting involved and they say that they regret not doing anything.
My thoughts on this is, the UN should of stepped up and helped out the situation. They should of taken the chance to fix things and get everything under control. Also I think that this is truly sad that this happened to a country. Genocide is never a good thing and its terrible that so many people had to die because of this. I was a little confused on why Belgium choose the Hutus over the Tutsis and what not. There was a lot of fighting during the 1950’s through 1990’s in Rwanda. This is still a sad story today!
Picture of skulls from the victims of the Rwanda Genocide.
a picture of just one of the Rwanda Genocide Memorials.
Comments
Good!