Rwanda

The Rwandan Genocide

From April to July 1994, nearly one million Rwandans were brutally murdered in a genocide orchestrated by the Hutu extremist-led government. The primary goal was the extermination of the Tutsi population, but moderate Hutus who opposed the regime were also targeted and killed. 

Targeted Groups 

The targeted groups in this genocide were the Tutsi population of Rwanda, as well as moderate Hutus who were seen as sympathetic to the Tutsis or who stood in the way of the Hutu plan of extermination. Additionally, any children that were from a “mixed” marriage would be considered Tutsi.

Social mobility was possible, with movement between these categories occurring based on wealth. Intermarriage was common, and Hutu and Tutsi communities lived together in relative harmony before colonial rule deepened divisions. Germany was the first European country to take possession of Rwanda, colonizing it after the Berlin Conference as part of German East Africa in 1897.  At the end of WWI, after Germany’s colonial possessions were stripped by the Treaty of Versailles, administration of German East Africa was granted to Belgium. The Belgians, beginning in 1922, established a racial policy.

Distributing identification cards, like South Africa. The Belgians codified this distinction in 1932, passing a law requiring all Rwandans to carry identification cards with their tribal identity. These identification cards would be used to identify Tutsis during the genocide. Belgium officials often favored the Tutsis over the majority Hutus.  This began a 70+ year chain of events where the Hutus grew hostile over the preferential treatment and privilege given to the Tutsi population, contributing to the tensions that ultimately led to the genocide in 1994.     

Decolonization movements began to gain momentum in the world during the 1950s. The African continent was no different and Belgium began to make plans to leave Rwanda.  The Hutu majority, unhappy with the way they were treated under Belgian rule began to plan for the day when they would claim majority rule over the country.  In 1959, the “Hutu Peasant Revolution” began, marking two years of violence and killing against the Tutsis and resulting in the migration of over 100,000 Tutsi refugees destined for Uganda, Burundi, and Tanzania.  Eventually, in 1962, Rwanda officially gained its independence from Belgium with a Hutu-run government.  

After independence, Tutsis continued to leave Rwanda as the Hutus strengthened their control over the country with sporadic acts of violence taking place over the next thirty years.  However, by the 1980’s, many of the almost 500,000 Rwanda refugees began to organize and call for their return to Rwanda.  Ultimately creating the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a Tutsi-led movement determined to return to Rwanda and participate in governmental reform.   

On October 1,1990, the RPF attacked Rwanda from Uganda with a force of 7,000 fighters, kicking off the four-year Rwandan Civil War.  This conflict was characterized by RPF attacks inside of Rwanda and a Hutu government policy of propaganda and discrimination against Tutsis.   

In August 1993, to bring the civil war to an end the Organization of African Unity (OAU), other governments in the region, and the United Nations, negotiated a peace treaty known as the Arusha Accords. The terms of the peace agreement, between Rwanda’s Hutu President Juvenal Habyarimana and RPF leader Paul Kagame, included a power-sharing arrangement in Rwanda where Hutu and Tutsi would share power in the government and the military.  The United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR), established by the United Nations Security Council, was given the mandate for peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance and general support for the peace process.  

This agreement from the start had many issues, as Hutu extremists in Rwanda had no intention of implementing the power-sharing agreement.  Instead, the Hutu Power party began to plan their campaign to exterminate the Tutsi population of Rwanda.   

Rwanda and the Ten Stages of Genocide

On the evening of April 6, 1994, a missile shot down the plane carrying Rwanda’s president, Juvenal Habyarimana, as it was landing in Kigali.  Historians today still aren’t sure who fired the missile, but the assassination was used as the signal to launch the campaign to exterminate the Tutsis, as well as moderate Hutu leaders who might oppose this program of genocide. A militia, known as the Interahamwe, immediately established roadblocks and began going door-to-door killing Tutsis and any moderate Hutu leaders who might have tried to stop the killing.  including Agathe Uwilingiyimana, the moderate Hutu Prime Minister.  Within the first 24 hours of the genocide, over 7,000 people were murdered. 

Over the next 100 days, between 800,000-1,000,000 people were slaughtered.  Schools, churches, and community centers became mass killing sites.  Thousands of Tutsis, people suspected of being Tutsi, and moderate Hutus were killed in their homes and in the street, by the army and the Interahamwe. Entire families were killed at a time. Women were systematically and brutally raped. Often neighbors, encouraged by the Hutu propaganda and the use of the radio, killed their neighbors.  It is estimated that some 200,000 people participated in carrying out the genocide. 

The genocide ended on July 4, 1994 when the RPF retook Kigali and the Hutu leadership, along with many of the genocidaires, fled the country.  The international community, which had left Rwanda in the early days of the genocide, was shocked and horrified at the scope and extent of the catastrophe. 

Discrimination/Polarization 

Under the Hutu government, Tutsis were denied government and military positions. Kangura was an anti-Tutsi, Hutu-Power newspaper published in Kigali.  The Hutu Ten Commandments appeared in the December 1990 issue of the newspaper. 

Legacy and Aftermath

Reconciliation 
One of the priorities of the new Tutsi-led government after the genocide was to find a way to heal the country. The new president, Paul Kagame, worked to find a way to help the citizens of Rwanda move past the Hutu-Tutsi tensions. To relieve the overburden Rwandan court system, a process known as “Gacaca” was created. This form of local justice allowed communities to hold “legal” procedures, run by local elders and respected members of the community to assign responsibility for members of their community. Those responsible for committing the genocide could reduce their sentences if they confessed to their crimes and gave truthful information about their actions during the genocide.  

Rwanda also established “reconciliation villages” where those who committed genocide lived next to victims of genocide. Both groups of people worked together to farm the land.  In exchange for government support, those who live in reconciliation villages agree to share their experiences in an effort to heal.  

The Rwandan court system did prosecute many accused of committing acts of genocide, but also used the gacaca court system to bring thousands of perpetrators to justice.