There had always been tension between the Hutus and the Tutsis but, certain events increased tensions between the two groups. Rules, appearances, and opportunities were never the same for any of the groups therefore hate begin to build upon the two groups. This tension would continue for years until the genocide in 1994. One of the major causes of the Rwandan Genocide was tensions brought about by the Belgian rule from 1922 to 1962(Appendix A). Before World War I, Rwanda was a German territory. During the German colonial rule Tutsis were deemed as natural leaders due to their more European features, including slimmer bodies and lighter skin (Baker). Then after the World War I and the German defeat, Rwanda went under Belgian rule. …show more content…
With so many Hutus along with perpetrators of the genocide in Zaire the fighting between the RPF and the Hutus still continued in Zaire. In response the new Rwandan government, aided by the Ugandan government, invaded Zaire (Baker). The head of the Rwandan army, Laurent Kabila, was meet with little resistance, so he claimed Zaire of his own. Kabila was then made president and renamed the country to the Democratic Republic of Congo or DRC (US Holocaust). Ever since 1996, fighting in the DCR has continued killing an estimated 5.4 million people (“Rwanda …show more content…
Paul Rusesabagina, portrayed by Don Cheadle is placed in a difficult situation when the Rwandan Armed Forces come into Kigali and start killing thousands of Hutus targeting his neighbors, friends, and family. In response he houses thousands of Tutsis in his hotel until him and his family flee Rwanda. Hotel Rwanda was made in order to inform viewers on the extent of the Interhamwe and Rwandan Armed Forces on the torture of the Tutsis. For example, in the movie scenes of blood and violence involving children and babies were very common. These scenes emphasize the extent of the torture that the Rwandan Armed forces and Interhamwe were willing to go to with torture. Also scenes of Hutu torturing women are also shown in the movie. These scenes reveal the different forms of torture that were common during the genocide compared to just showing the killings and
After reading this book all I can think about and imagine is the horror and pain that the Tutsi must have gone through and their families and friends who have survived to think about and re-live the memories they have of such a horrible event. In the book, Gourevitch really paints a picture by the way he describes what things looked like and the way things were during that time period. Since watching the movie from last semester Hotel Rwanda and reading this book it reminds me of the movie Tears of the Sun when the rebels are in the small communities murdering everyone in sight and Hitlers reign in which mass genocide that he and his army committed.
“The sweetly sickening odor of decomposing bodies hung over many parts of Rwanda in July 1994: . . . at Nyarubuye in eastern Rwanda, where the cadaver of a little girl, otherwise intact, had been flattened by passing vehicles to the thinness of cardboard in front of the church steps,” (Deforges 6). The normalcy of horrible images like this one had cast a depressing gloom over Rwanda during the genocide, a time when an extreme divide caused mass killings of Tutsi by the Hutu. Many tactics such as physical assault or hate propaganda are well known and often used during times of war. Sexual assault and rape, however, during times of war is an unspoken secret – it is well known that rape occurs within combat zones and occupied territories, but people tend to ignore, or even worse, not speak of the act. There have been recorded cases of rape and sexual assault in almost every war in human history. Genocidal rape was used as a gendered war tactic in the Rwandan genocide in order to accomplish the Hutu goal of elimination of the Tutsi people in whole, or part.
I feel that Social Dominance Theory best explains the Rwandan Conflict. According to Houghton (2009), within every society there is at least one dominant group and one subordinate group. In the Rwandan Conflict, the Tutsis were seen as the dominant group while the Hutus the subordinate group. Despite the Tutsis being a minority, they held more political power than the Hutus. The Tutsis held most of the power up until the year 1994 when the Hutu president was assassinated. There has been constant tension between the two ethnic groups due to the Tutsis social dominance over the Hutus. The peak of the tension occurred when President Juvénal Habyarimana, who was Hutu, was assassinated, causing the Hutu people to start a genocide of the Tutsis. The Hutus, in my opinion, wanted to be in power – i.e. the extremist wanted to be the socially dominant group – so they went to great extremes to make it happen. According to Sidanius & Pratto (1999), the Hutus were the ones who devised the plan to kill their president not the Tutsis.
The Tutsi race has long held control over the Rwandan government because, though they only make up an approximate 14 percent of the Rwanda population, the Europeans who took over the country chose them because they were said to resemble the Europeans more than the Hutus. The Hutus later started a revelution for independence that the Belgian, who controlled the country at the time, quickly ended it by letting the Hutu run the government instead of the Tutsi. Of course, this did not make the Hutu forget the years of oppression they suffered at the hands of the Tutsi. So, naturally, there were Hutus who believed that the Tutsi race should be exterminated. These people were called Hutu extremists. The Hutu etremists within the government blamed the Tutsi as a whole for the countrys' st...
Belgian influence had shaped the government and environment for which caused the genocide. There has been always two main tribes tribes since the settlement of the land in Rwanda, the Tutsis and Hutus. The Tutsis tended to have a lighter complexion and be taller, unlike the Hutus who had a darker complexion and are shorter. The population of Rwanda was about 10 percent Tutsi and 90 percent Hutu. Both tribes shared the same religion and culture. In the late nineteenth century, German colonists arrived in Rwanda. After the defeat of the Germans in World War I, it lost control of Rwanda, which then fell into Belgian control. When arriving in Rwanda, the Belgians placed Tutsis in Rwanda’s government because the Tutsi’s had more “Caucasian” features than the Hutus. The Belgians had help from the Tutsis to run the government. In return, the Tutsis received great advantages, including better education and exemptions
For over a half of a century in Rwanda, the Tutsi and Hutu people had fought back and forth over supremacy, due to a racial battle driven by discrimination and severe torment. The Tutsi and Hutu societies were pressed alongside one another by foreign colonialist powers up to 1994 when a something had finally sparked.
After the Europeans supported the Hutus, they began the revolt. By 1959 the Hutus had gained power and were taking land from the Tutsis. The Tutsis moved to neighboring countries and created the Front Patriotique Rwandais and were trained by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). The Hutus finally gained independence for Rwanda in 1962. The new Hutus government, which was inexperienced, had problems. Tension between the people grew and in 1990 the civil war began and didn 't end till 1993. Then in 1994 the Hutus President’s plane was shot down, and the Hutus believe it was the Tutsi that did it, and the Tutsi believe the Hutus people did it to have a reason to start the genocide. The Rwandan Genocide of 1994 happened over a period of 100 days. The brutality perpetrated by the Hutus upon the Tutsis resulted in 800,000 deaths After the Genocide the government get rid of ethnicity cards that would be able to ethnically identify them. In today’s Rwandan society the Hutus and the Tutsis get along, because they have realized that they are similar to each other when it comes to everyday
In 1994 the people of Rwanda went through a horrific experience when one of the major ethnic groups known as the Hutus, slaughtered hundreds and thousands of the second major ethnic groups known as the Tutsis over the course of 100 horrific days. The genocide resulted in the loss of almost one million lives, partly due to a lack of outside intervention, but also the surprising unification of the Hutus & Tutsis. At the same time, it influenced the way the world (more specifically the UN) handles situations like the Rwandan Genocide.
The genocide began because on April 6th 1994 a plane that was carrying President Habyarimana a Hutu native was hit and struck down violence between the two tribes began almost instantly. The Hutu people planned to kill all Tutsis. The struggle in this genocide was that the Hutu and the Tutsi tribes were so close. If one tribe tried to hurt the other tribe they may end up hurting themselves. This is a unique and complicated issue because in other genocides such as the Holocaust the groups of people that were fighting were very far apart usually. In the Rwandan Genocide however the two rivals were very close together. According to, (unitedhumanrights), “American officials h...
The Rwandan Genocide was a terrible event in history caused by a constantly weakening relationship between two groups of people. The country of Rwanda is located in Africa and consists of multiple groups of people. Majority of Rwanda is Hutu, while a smaller amount of people are Tutsis. The genocide started due to multiple events that really stretched the relationship between the two groups to its end. One of the starting factors was at the end of World War 1. Rwanda was a German colony but then was given to Belgium “who favored the minority Tutsis over the Hutus, exacerbated[exacerbating] the tendency of the few to oppress the many”(History.com). This created a feeling of anger towards the Tutsis, because they had much more power then Hutus.
To find the cause of the Rwandan genocide, many people had tried to follow the path of history from the colonialism of Rwanda to the Rwandan genocide. Belgium wanted to expand just like other powerful nations like Great Britain, Spain, and France due to the lack of space and resources provided to each nation in Europe. After the great discovery of Vasco de Gamma, many European ventured towards Africa to colonize territories. After the Berlin Conference of 1884, Belgium had colonized the territory of Rwanda. After colonization, they left the Tutsis in charge as opposed to Hutus because of the fact that the Belgians thought Tutsis had a Caucasian ancestry. After the Rwandan independence, power was given to the Hutus. After the power was given to the Hutus, the Hutus took revenge on the Tutsis which resulted in some killings. In the movie, Hotel Rwanda, President Habyarimana was killed. The killing was blamed on the Tutsis which caused the enraged Hutus to start the Rwandan Genocide. Although the initial cause of the genocide could be Belgian Imperialism, in the movie it was actually the killing...
Politics was one of the causes of the genocide. “Despite the opposition forces reaching a peace agreement in 1992, political negotiations continued in attempt to achieve harmony between the Tutsis and Hutu.” (Endgenocide) The government had a peace negotiation between the Tutsis and Hutu to settle the conflict that has been going for years. That good because they can settle their entire problems they had and be on the same page. “Hutu attackers burned down churches with hundreds or thousands of Tutsis inside. The violence was triggered by the death of
Although the Hutu and Tutsi people had been fighting before the Rwandan Civil War, that is the point in time fighting was the worst between these people. The most people died during this war. This feud began in the year of 1990. Before, the Hutu and Tutsi people actually lived together in harmony, though they had their fights every now and again. However, that all changed when independence came into the picture. The Belgian troops, who ruled and defended their area, were withdrawn from their positions. Then, in about 1962, Rwanda was formed. There was one leader who ruled the area. However, one day, he decided he could no longer rule and told the Tutsi people, who tended to be lighter-skinned to be in charge of Rwanda. This decision greatly upset the Hutu people, and war started. This genocide caused the death of about a million people.
In 1994 many people were murdered . From April to July of 1994, members of the Hutu ethnic majority in the east central African nation of Rwanda murdered as many as 800,000 people, mostly of the Tutsi minority .About 85% of the population was Hutu, the rest were Tutsi along with a small number of Twa. The Tutsis were favored and felt superior to the Hutu and Twa. This caused much tension and jealousy between the two groups.The greater half of Rwanda, known as the Hutu, are a big part of the social issues that took place in 1994 as they overthrew the Tutsi power. The Hutu were located in both Rwanda and Burundi and while they wanted to gain power in both countries, the Hutu of Rwanda forcefully took over the Tutsi ruler. The Rwandan Hutu were in command until 1994 when they were invaded by the Tutsi. Tutsi are people who live in Rwanda. The Tutsi people had dominance over the Hutu in
Watching the film, Hotel Rwanda, can make one wonder how cruel the humanity can be. The film is suitable as a focal point for discussing evil because the genocide that the film is based has been widely condemned as a result of its wicked aspects. The main protagonist, Paul Rusesabagina, has been viciously awakened by the level of evil that has possessed his ethnic community. During the entire genocide, he is the only Hutu who has sympathy toward the Tutsis. With the desire to do what is morally right in the society, Paul risks his life to hide close to 1000 Tutsis in his hotel. He has to bribe the local Hutu militia leaders to protect the Tutsis, including his wife and family. Although the society regards bribery as unethical, one can consider it as a lifesaver in the film. This is because giving bribes in form of cigars is the only way Paul can save hundreds of lives. The Hutu militia leaders are so inhuman that they value cigars more than the life of a human being. These events depict the rotten nature of the society, as even human life has to be saved through corruption.