Genocide In The Rwandan Genocide

Genocide is a word not to be taken lightly. Just the mention of it conjures up thoughts of death, destruction, pain, and suffering. Genocide is much more than just mass killing of a people, rather it 's about the destruction of the very tendons that bind a people together, the targeting of a society for complete annihilation and obliteration, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such group.(Watenplec 1/11/16, Axis Rule) The two techniques that I am going to focus on, however, are the cultural and physical in both the Rwandan genocide and that of the Armenians at the hand of the Ottoman empire. The physical debilitation and even annihilation of national groups in occupied countries are carried out mainly in the following ways:

Caravans walked all day and camped at night often in fear of being attacked, something which the gendarmes seemed to be in on in some cases. Single blankets were used for many people and rocks became pillows to rest your head on. The conditions they faced were those akin to animals, “deportees were reduced to almost subhuman conditions. Many had been stripped of their clothes, and their hair and bodies were infested with lice. Their skin was not only filthy but burned from exposure as well.”(Miller and Miller: 83) Bodies of other deportees littered their paths, some dead and some still hanging on to the little life they had left. Dying of starvation and dehydration, they were abandoned on the side of the road amongst other bodies swollen with death and covered in worms. In other instances deportees faced more brutal acts, many were burned alive in caves, women 's breast and nipples were cut off, “pregnant women had their stomachs sliced open, and people were decapitated with pruning