This week's web log post is about the genocide that occured in 1994 in Rwanda. The genocide took place between two groups in the country; the Hutu and the Tutsi. The latter being the group that was being wiped out. About 500,000 to 1,000,000 were executed. That was about 20% of the population gone in about 100 days.In 1990, the Tutsi invaded northern Rwanda from Unganda, and they got in a big ol' fight with the Hutu. The ethnic tensions created led to the rise of the Hutu Power, which was an ideology that was basically the Tutsi were going to enslave all the Hutu. They wanted to prevent this, but I think genocide is too far. This of course wasn't the main cause, but it sure helped. The country was split, with Tutsi in the north, and Hutu in the south. Large displacements of Hutu people occured in the north, and ethnic cleansing of Tutsi took place a lot in the south.The genocide was pretty organized before it all happened. The Rwandan militia was fairly large, with about the same number of militants as Obama is sending over to Afghanistan. There was one militia member for every ten families. The Hutu and Tutsis were given I.D. cards which showed their ethnicity, but usually darker-skinned people were Hutu and lighter-skinned being Tutsi.Very many Hutu elite politicians have been found guilty for organizing genocide. In one meeting, a cabinet minister even said that she was in favor of genocide, as wiping out the Tutsi would solve all of Rwanda's problems. I personally don't see how much good can come from wiping out an entire race of people. It's horrible and brutal. I believe all people are equal.Military and Hutu milita groups set out to kill all the Tutsis they could get their hands on. They didn't care if they were male or female, young or old, etc. If they found a Tutsi, they killed them. On April 9th, 1,000 highly trained and heavily armed European soldiers were sent to help European civilians get out of the country. But on that same day, UN observers witnessed a massacre of children. If killing many innocent children isn't wrong enough, though, it was at a church.Many places were starting to organize genocide, but the Butare province didn't. After seeing that the people in the Butare province weren't killing Tutsis, the gov't flew milita members in to do "the job". People were basically forced to kill Tutsi. Local officials and gov't radio told people to kill their neighbors or be killed.The genocide eventually stopped, and the Tutsi are still around, and it is now a terrifying memory in the minds of everyone involved.
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