Rwanda
In 1994, there was a mass murder of at least 800,000 people in Rwanda. The Rwanda Genocide happened during at least 100 days beginning in April and ending on July forth. An estimated 20% of the country’s population was killed. All these people were killed because of the competition between the minority group Tutsi and the majority group Hutu. The Tutsi people had been in power for many centuries until the Hutu people rebelled and over threw the Tutsi monarchy in 1962.
The Belgians and other Europeans had split the two groups of people when they had colonized the country. The Tutsi were the most like them, lighter skinned and taller with thinner noses. The Hutu people were darker skinned and had bigger noses. They gave the Tutsi’s, who were the minority group, more power over the Hutu people, when the Europeans left the Hutu rebelled. Over 200,000 Tutsi people fled to surrounding countries after the Hutu people came into power and commited acts of violence against them. These people formed a small gurilla army and in 1990 went back and started to attack the Hutu people.
The genocide really began when the Hutu people’s leader was thought to be assassinated by the Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Force or the RPF. He had just signed a peace deal for shared power between the two groups. This sparked a major fight between the two groups of people. The Hutu soldiers started to kill Tutsi people left and right. They even killed Hutu civilians who helped their Tutsi neighbors, and Hutu pro-peace people who they called traitors.
The UN was in Rwanda at the time as just peacekeepers. When things got out of control in Rwanda the UN started to evacuate the European and US citizens in the country. We left them practically to fend for themselves just leaving practically a few peacekeepers there that had orders not to shoot. The UN tried hard to keep from classifing the genoside as a Genoside. They called it a breakdown between the Hutu and Tutsi cease-fire to keep from having to do something about it.
I can’t believe what people can do to other people. We just left them there. We didn’t help them because of what they look like. If they had a different color of skin I bet our countries would have helped them. I bet that all the people who had to leave felt like crap. They probably had to leave friends they made and people they had helped. They probably didn’t see them as black people they just saw them as people who needed help. I am glat that the Tutsi people won and stopped the Genocide.
http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/rwanda.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Genocide#U.S._role
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwanda
Picture sources
http://marybrittany.blogspot.com/2011/05/1994-rwandan-genocide.html
Comments
Well done!