The Hutu extremists set up a radio station, RTLM, and newspapers which circulated hate propaganda, urging people to "weed out the cockroaches" meaning kill the Tutsis. Rwabugiri expanded the kingdom west and north,[26][24] and initiated administrative reforms which caused a rift to grow between the Hutu and Tutsi populations. Get HISTORYs most fascinating stories delivered to your inbox three times a week. To this day, the Holocaust is still one of history's most devastating genocides. [103], In March 1993, Hutu Power began compiling lists of "traitors" whom they planned to kill, and it is possible that Habyarimana's name was on these lists;[92] the CDR were publicly accusing the president of treason. French forces in Rwanda were accused of not doing enough to stop the killing, Eastern DR Congo has suffered decades of unrest as a consequence of Rwanda's genocide, Prisons were overcrowded in the wake of the genocide, The gacaca hearings gave communities a chance to face the accused, Kigali has the reputation for being one of Africa's cleanest cities, Paul Kagame (C) won a landslide victory in 2017, Persuading the rebels to go home to Rwanda, International Criminal Court was set up in 2002, long after the Rwandan genocide, 12,000 gacaca courts met once a week in villages across the country, Genocide hunters: Fight for Rwandan justice. [59], In the 1980s, a group of 500 Rwandan refugees in Uganda, led by Fred Rwigyema, fought with the rebel National Resistance Army (NRA) in the Ugandan Bush War, which saw Yoweri Museveni overthrow Milton Obote. The RTLM went further than amplifying ethnic and political division; it also labeled the Tutsi as inyenzi, meaning non-human pests or cockroaches, which must be exterminated. In 1996, the RPF-led Rwandan government launched an offensive into Zaire, home to exiled leaders of the former Rwandan government and many Hutu refugees, starting the First Congo War and killing an estimated 200,000 people. [216] Kagame refused to talk to the interim government, believing that it was just a cover for Bagosora's rule and not committed to ending the genocide. The well-organised RPF, backed by Uganda's army, gradually seized more territory, until 4 July 1994, when its forces marched into the capital, Kigali. [43] Catholic missionaries increasingly viewed themselves as responsible for empowering the underprivileged Hutu rather than the Tutsi elite, leading rapidly to the formation of a sizeable Hutu clergy and educated elite that provided a new counterbalance to the established political order. [175] The interim government was sworn in on 9 April, but relocated from Kigali to Gitarama on 12 April, ostensibly fleeing RPF's advance on the capital. [201] The militia used machetes and rifles to kill every person who tried to escape. An agreement between the RPF and the government, signed in August 1993 at Arusha, Tanz., called for the creation of a broad-based transition government that would include the RPF. [315] The rebels quickly took control of the North and South Kivu provinces and later advanced west, gaining territory from the poorly organised and demotivated Zairian army with little fighting,[316] and controlling the whole country by 1997. Other opponents then fell silent or actively led the killing. According to the memo, Turatsinze suspected that a genocide against the Tutsis was being planned, and he said that "in 20 minutes his personnel could kill up to 1000 Tutsis". [215] The RPF then began an attack from the north on three fronts, seeking to link up quickly with the isolated troops in Kigali. [267], During President Habyarimana's years in power, France maintained close relations with him, as part of its Franafrique policy,[268] and assisted Rwanda militarily against the RPF during the Civil War;[269] France considered the RPF, along with Uganda, as part of a "plot" to increase Anglophone influence at the expense of French influence. [313], In addition to dismantling the refugee camps, Kagame began planning a war to remove long-time dictator Mobutu Sese Seko from power. [96] Prosecutors at the ICTR argued, but were unable to prove, that the defendants planned the genocide prior to Habariyama's assassination. The Organic Law established four categories for those who were involved in the genocide, specifying the limits of punishment for members of each category. There were about 400,000 orphans and nearly 85,000 of them were forced to become heads of families. [34] Belgian forces took control of Rwanda and Burundi in 1917 during World War I,[35] and from 1926 began a policy of more direct colonial rule. [248] According to an RPA officer, "There was not time to do proper screening. Maximo, Dady De (2012). [99] Tharcisse Renzaho, the prefect of Kigali-ville, played a leading role, touring the roadblocks to ensure their effectiveness and using his position at the top of the Kigali provincial government to disseminate orders and dismiss officials who were not sufficiently active in the killings. The sole leader of the Rwandan government for the next two decades, Habyarimana founded a new political party, the National Revolutionary Movement for Development (NRMD). The RPF denies this. Kigali, 2012. During the Holocaust, more than six million people lost their lives because of their religion, ethnicity, sexuality or other characteristics. Uganda genocide: A nightmare finally comes to an end [330] The least severe cases, according to the terms of Organic Law No. China has committed genocide against the Uyghur people in Xinjiang, an unofficial UK-based tribunal has found. In just 100 days in 1994, about 800,000 people were slaughtered in Rwanda by ethnic Hutu extremists. Armenian Genocide | History, Causes, & Facts | Britannica Armenians charge that the campaign was a deliberate attempt to destroy the Armenian people and, thus, an act of genocide. The first was a civil war that occurred between the Khartoum national governments and two rebel groups in Darfur: the Justice and Equality Movement and the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army. This is the central argument at the core of its prosecution strategy, borrowing from the contentions initially put forth by academics and human rights defenders. With meticulous organisation. The Hutu-controlled government and allied. The genocide is obviously still a hugely sensitive issue in Rwanda, and it is illegal to talk about ethnicity. [328] The country's 19 prisons were designed to hold about 18,000 inmates total, but at their peak in 1998 there were over 100,000 people in crowded detention facilities across the country. After a United Nations referendum that same year, Belgium officially granted independence to Rwanda in July 1962. Getty Images In August 2017, a deadly crackdown by Myanmar's army on Rohingya Muslims sent hundreds of thousands fleeing across the border into Bangladesh. [193], The succeeding RPF government claims that 1,074,017 people were killed in the genocide, 94% of whom were Tutsi. [214] The next day, Rwandan government forces attacked the national parliament building from several directions, but RPF troops stationed there successfully fought back. How was the genocide carried out? A testimonial by a woman of the name Marie Louise Niyobuhungiro recalled seeing local peoples, other generals and Hutu men watching her get raped about five times a day. To turn away, to close one's eyes and walk past is to insult the memory of those who have perished." Hutu extremists were strongly opposed to that plan. "[85] The new authorities categorically denied the allegations of Gersony,[247] details of which leaked to the press. [98] The new recruits were often poorly disciplined;[98] a divide grew between the elite Presidential Guard and Gendarmerie units, who were well trained and battle ready, and the ordinary rank and file, respectively. [348] However, the law does not explicitly define such terms, nor does it define that one's beliefs must be spoken. The most widely accepted scholarly estimates are around 500,000 to 662,000 Tutsi deaths.[3]. [341], Meanwhile, the UN established the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), based in Arusha, Tanzania. [307] The refugees fleeing further into Zaire were relentlessly pursued by the RPA under the cover of the AFDL rebellion[308] and 232,000 Hutu refugees were killed, according to one estimate. Some Hutu began to demand equality and found sympathy from Roman Catholic clergy and some Belgian administrative personnel, which led to the Hutu revolution. Amnesty International has led the way in reporting on Darfur, and a recent release speaks authoritatively of countless savage attacks on civilians by Khartoum's regular army, including its crude Antonov bombers, and especially by its Arab militia allies, called "Janjaweed.". That approach continued under Belgium, which took control of the colony after World War I and administered it indirectly, under the tutelage of the League of Nations. Republic of Rwanda: National Service of Gacaca Courts. [14][18] Under this theory, the Hutu and Tutsi distinction arose later and was not a racial one, but principally a class or caste distinction in which the Tutsi herded cattle while the Hutu farmed the land. [81] A group of military officers and government members founded a magazine called Kangura, which became popular throughout the country. [358] Dallaire's book was made into the movie Shake Hands with the Devil (2007). [213], On 7 April, as the genocide started, RPF commander Paul Kagame warned the crisis committee and UNAMIR that he would resume the civil war if the killing did not stop. With this thought and using methods of force and threat, the genocidaires forced others to stand by during rapes. [4] Before Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the intensity of the hostilities in the Donbas had been . Started by Hutu nationalists in the capital of Kigali, the genocide spread throughout the country with shocking speed and brutality, as ordinary citizens were incited by local officials and the Hutu Power government to take up arms against their neighbors. Unknown / vacant / partyless MRND MDR PSD PL Tutsi burgomaster Unclear / complicated. Rwanda's genocide what happened, why it happened, and how it - Vox Neighbours killed neighbours and some husbands even killed their Tutsi wives, saying they would be killed if they refused. Hutu gangs searched out victims hiding in churches and school buildings. [132] Bagosora sought to convince UNAMIR and the RPF[133] that the committee was acting to contain the Presidential Guard, which he described as "out of control",[134] and that it would abide by the Arusha agreement. Read about our approach to external linking. Using different methodologies, the scholars in the symposium estimated 500,000 to 600,000 deaths in the genocidearound two-thirds of the Tutsis in Rwanda at the time. [72] When the RPF resumed hostilities in February 1993, it cited these killings as the primary motive,[89] but its effect was to increase support for the extremists amongst the Hutu population. Compulsory identity cards were issued labeling (under the heading for "ethnicity and race") each individual as either Tutsi, Hutu, Twa, or Naturalised. ", "Safer to Stay Silent: The chilling effect of Rwanda's laws on "genocide ideology" and "sectarianism", "The Arrest of ICTR Defense Counsel Peter Erlinder in Rwanda", "Watchers of the Sky | Film Review | Slant Magazine", "Watchers of the Sky | Human Rights Watch Film Festival", "Part 1: Hate media in Rwanda Call to genocide: radio in Rwanda, 1994: International Development Research Centre", "Gnocide rwandais: vingt-cinq ans de chaos collatral en Rpublique dmocratique du Congo", "Rwanda's Genocide Victims Remembered 25 Years Later", "Rwanda accuses France directly over 1994 genocide", "Closing the U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda: Completion Strategy and Residual Issues", "French parliament inquiry into Rwandan genocide", Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda, "HIV/AIDS and the Changing Landscape of War in Africa", "The Levant versus the Horn of Africa: Evidence for Bidirectional Corridors of Human Migrations", "French accused of complicity in genocide that killed a million in Rwanda", "Rwanda's Gacaca Courts: Implications for International Criminal Law and Transitional Justice", "Twenty years after genocide France and Rwanda give different versions of history", "France and Rwanda agree to restore relations", "The Rwandan Conflict: Origin, Development, Exit Strategies", "After Arusha: Gacaca Justice in Post-Genocide Rwanda", "Human Rights Compliance and the Gacaca Jurisdictions in Rwanda", Boston College International and Comparative Law Review, United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations, "Panel Finds French Errors in Judgment on Rwanda", United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, ECOWAS military intervention in the Gambia, International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire, Decline of Buddhism in the Indian subcontinent, Muslim conquests in the Indian subcontinent, Persecution of Muslims during the Ottoman contraction, Persecution of Christians in the Eastern Bloc, Canadian Indian residential school system, Genocide of Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia, Violence against Hindus in independent India, Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries, Attacks by Islamic extremists in Bangladesh, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rwandan_genocide&oldid=1160730386, Wikipedia articles needing page number citations from March 2021, Articles with French-language sources (fr), Short description is different from Wikidata, Wikipedia indefinitely semi-protected pages, Articles with unsourced statements from March 2021, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 4.0, This page was last edited on 18 June 2023, at 11:51. Those people have been responsible for much of our trouble today. [111], In October 1993, the President of Burundi, Melchior Ndadaye, who had been elected in June as the country's first ever Hutu president, was assassinated by extremist Tutsi army officers. [143] Gatsinzi attempted to keep the army out of the genocide,[144] and to negotiate a ceasefire with the RPF,[145] but he had only limited control over his troops and was replaced by the hardline Bizimungu after just ten days.[144]. [336], In response to the overwhelming number of potentially culpable individuals and the slow pace of the traditional judicial system, the government of Rwanda passed Organic Law No. [6] Sexual violence was rife, with an estimated 250,000 to 500,000 women raped during the genocide. A United Nations Security Council vote in April 1994 led to the withdrawal of most of a U.N. peacekeeping operation (UNAMIR), created the previous fall to aid with governmental transition under the Arusha accord. [97], In 1990, the army began arming civilians with weapons such as machetes, and it began training the Hutu youth in combat, officially as a programme of "civil defence" against the RPF threat,[98] but these weapons were later used to carry out the genocide. [359] Former journalist and United States Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power is interviewed about the Rwandan genocide in Watchers of the Sky (2014), a documentary by Edet Belzberg about genocide throughout history and its eventual inclusion in international law. Omissions? [178][179] When Romo Dallaire visited the government's headquarters a week after its formation, he found most officials at leisure, describing their activities as "sorting out the seating plan for a meeting that was not about to convene any time soon". [332] This law initiated the prosecution of genocide crimes committed during the genocide and of crimes against humanity from October 1990. In 2004, the African Union Mission in Darfur (AMIS) was established to monitor the Humanitarian Ceasefire Agreement signed earlier that year. Cambodian genocide - Wikipedia [217] By 16 May, they had cut the road between Kigali and Gitarama, the temporary home of the interim government, and by 13 June, had taken Gitarama itself, following an unsuccessful attempt by the Rwandan government forces to reopen the road; the interim government was forced to relocate to Gisenyi in the far north west. President Kagame has been hailed for transforming the tiny, devastated country he took over through policies which encouraged rapid economic growth. [167], In rural areas, the local government hierarchy was also in most cases the chain of command for the execution of the genocide. Different figures between 150,000 and 309,368 have been offered. [71] In early 1993, several extremist Hutu groups formed and began campaigns of large scale violence against the Tutsi. [166] Many Hutu were also killed for a variety of reasons, including alleged sympathy for the moderate opposition parties, being a journalist or simply having a "Tutsi appearance". [254] UNAMIR commander Romo Dallaire learned of the Hutu Power movement during the mission's deployment,[255] as well as plans for the mass extermination of Tutsi. 40/2000 in 2001. .mw-parser-output .legend{page-break-inside:avoid;break-inside:avoid-column}.mw-parser-output .legend-color{display:inline-block;min-width:1.25em;height:1.25em;line-height:1.25;margin:1px 0;text-align:center;border:1px solid black;background-color:transparent;color:black}.mw-parser-output .legend-text{}0% Tutsi 45.5% Tutsi, Map showing the geographical strongholds of the Rwandan political parties at the beginning of April 1994. [54], Grgoire Kayibanda presided over a Hutu republic for the next decade, imposing an autocratic rule similar to the pre-revolution feudal monarchy. Rwanda became a republic, and an all-Hutu provisional national government came into being. We strive for accuracy and fairness. genocide, the deliberate and systematic destruction of a group of people because of their ethnicity, nationality, religion, or race. [138] Major Bernard Ntuyahaga, the commanding officer of the Presidential Guard unit which carried out the murders, was sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment by a court in Belgium in 2007. The format of the broadcasts mirrored Western-style radio talk shows that played popular music, hosted interviews, and encouraged audience participation. Corrections? Hutu genocidaires began to regroup in refugee camps along the border with Rwanda. Some two million Hutus - both civilians and some of those involved in the genocide - then fled across the border into the Democratic Republic of Congo, at the time called Zaire, fearing revenge attacks. In our program areas in Rwanda, there are 1 million people who still lack clean water. In 1990, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a rebel group composed mostly of Tutsi refugees, invaded northern Rwanda from their base in Uganda, initiating the Rwandan Civil War. [264] On 17 May 1994, the UN passed Resolution 918, which imposed an arms embargo and reinforced UNAMIR, which would be known as UNAMIR II. [291], Pope John Paul II expressed his deep concern about what was happening in April 1994. The scale and brutality of the genocide caused shock worldwide, but no country intervened to forcefully stop the killings. Others went to neighbouring Tanzania and Burundi. This violence created a political vacuum, into which an interim government of extremist Hutu Power leaders from the military high command stepped on April 9. [285], In her 2004 book, Linda Melvern documented that "in the three years from October 1990, Rwanda, one of the poorest countries in the world, became the third largest importer of weapons in Africa, spending an estimated $US 112 million." On 11 April, the Belgian soldiers withdrew, and Rwandan armed forces and militia killed all the Tutsi. Genocide Timeline | Holocaust Encyclopedia A total of 93 people were indicted and after lengthy and expensive trials, dozens of senior officials in the former regime were convicted of genocide - all of them Hutus. [339] After election, the judges received training, but there was concern that the training was not adequate for serious legal questions or complex proceedings. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. [351], Under the Rwandan constitution, "revisionism, negationism and trivialisation of genocide" are criminal offences. [132], UNAMIR sent an escort of ten Belgian soldiers to Prime Minister Uwilingiyimana, with the intention of transporting her to the Radio Rwanda offices to address the nation. In response, more than 2 million people, nearly all Hutus, fled Rwanda, crowding into refugee camps in the Congo (then called Zaire) and other neighboring countries. [228] After ICTR investigators reportedly discovered two layers of bodies in a mass grave in Kibuye in early 1996one of Tutsi victims of the genocide and another left by RPF killings of Hutu civiliansfurther forensic investigations were prohibited by the Rwandan government. "[107] By the time the violence began, the young Hutu population had absorbed months of racist propaganda that characterized all Tutsis as dangerous enemies that must be killed before they seized control of the country. By the early 1990s, Rwanda, a small country with an overwhelmingly agricultural economy, had one of the highest population densities in Africa. [256] He also became aware of secret weapons caches through an informant, but his request to raid them was turned down by the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO),[255] which felt that Dallaire was exceeding his mandate and had to be kept "on a leash". [26] These included uburetwa, a system of forced labour which Hutu had to perform to regain access to land seized from them,[27] and ubuhake, under which Tutsi patrons ceded cattle to Hutu or Tutsi clients in exchange for economic and personal service. For the killings of Tutsi in Burundi, see, Toggle Rwandan Patriotic Front's military campaign and victory subsection, Toggle International involvement subsection, Pre-independent Rwanda and the origins of Hutu, Tutsi and Twa groups, Revolution and HutuTutsi relations after independence, Rwandan Patriotic Front's military campaign and victory, Refugee crisis, insurgency, and two Congo Wars, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, THE PROSECUTOR VERSUS JEAN-PAUL AKAYESU Case No. [259] Following the death of Habyarimana, and the start of the genocide, Dallaire liaised repeatedly with both the Crisis Committee and the RPF, attempting to re-establish peace and prevent the resumption of the civil war. In the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide, many prominent figures in the international community lamented the outside worlds general obliviousness to the situation and its failure to act in order to prevent the atrocities from taking place. Inside Rwanda's Gacaca Courts: Searching Justice after Genocide. [29]:421, After World War II, a Hutu emancipation movement began to grow in Rwanda,[42] fuelled by increasing resentment of the inter-war social reforms, and also an increasing sympathy for the Hutu within the Catholic Church. The Vietnamese American Artists Searching for Identity A pogrom was organised on 11 October 1990 in a commune in Gisenyi Province, killing 383 Tutsi. [239] In early May, the UNHCR began hearing concrete accounts of atrocities and made this information public on 17 May. [280], In April 2021, the Rwandan government announced the study they had commissioned alleged France "did nothing" to prevent what they deemed the "foreseeable" April and May 1994 massacres in the genocide. The RPF pursued a policy of mass arrests for those responsible and for those persons who took part in the genocide, jailing over 100,000 people in the two years after the genocide. A group of Tutsi exiles formed a rebel group, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), which invaded Rwanda in 1990 and fighting continued until a 1993 peace deal was agreed. The same day, 1,000 heavily armed and well trained European troops arrived to escort European civilian personnel out of the country. [169], There were few killings in the prefectures of Gitarama and Butare during the early phase, as the prefects of those areas were moderates opposed to the violence.
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