Rwadan Genocide.
Rwanda in 1990 was in a Civil War. The disagreement was between President Juvenal Habyarimana and the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) On October 2, 1990 the RPF invaded Rwanda trying to get rid of their govenrment. But this ended on August 4, 1993 when the Arusha Accords was signed to create a power sharing government.
Rwanda's population of about seven million people was made up of ethnic groups: Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa.
1994 there was a mass murder of about 80,000 people who were all killed in about a hundred days.
The genocide started when the Rwandan President,( a Hutu) Juvenal Habyarimana was killed. His plane was shot down above the Kigali airport, on April 6, 1994.
Violence began almost immediatley afterwards. Hutu extremists made their plans to destroy the entire Tutsi civillian population.
The other political leaders who may have been able to take control of the situation and other high profile opponents of the Hutu extremists were killed immediatley.
The tutsi people believed to be Tutsi's were killed in their homes. If these people tried to flee they were stopped at roadblocks and were killed. Whole families were even killed at one time.
In just a few weeks after April 6th, 800,000 men, women, and children were murdered in the Rwandan Genocide. Three quarters of the Tutsi population were killed, and thousands of Hutu were also murdered because they disagreed with the killing campaign.
The UN did not do very much to try and prevent the genocide. In the beging they had a few troops in Rwanda but pulled many out. The UN had failed to respond and act quick enough to prevent this genocide. Not until May did the UN reverse their decision and sent about 5500 troops to Rwanda but most of them arrived in July after most of the massacre had ended. The RPF restarted their group, and eventually took back over the country.
I think this was a horrific and awful tragedy and think it should have been stopped immediatley. I think the UN should and is a shamed for not stepping in quick enough to prevent the many lives lost. But I also think that the hate for a race and to kill that many people for no reason is horrific. I think this is so terrible and hope nothing like this happens again.
http://www.un.org/ecosocdev/geninfo/afrec/newrels/rwanda.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Genocide
Comments
Good job!