The Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups in Rwanda have continued to flare up since independence from Belgium and the dissolution of the monarchic government led by the Tutsi king. On April 7, 1994, the turmoil culminated in genocide.
Hutu extremists who are the major ethnic ethnic groups in the country slaughtered Tutsis and moderate Hutus. Ethnic minority Tutsis are targets and targets of violence.
About 85 percent of Rwandans are ethnic Hutus and the rest are Tutsi and other smaller ethnic groups. Although a minority, Tutsi has long been known to occupy many sectors of leadership and government.
Reported by History, the direct roots of the 1994 genocide began in the early 1990s, when Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, began using anti-Tutsi rhetoric to consolidate his power among the Hutus. In early October 1990 there was already a massacre of Tutsi.
Although the two ethnic groups have been very similar in sharing the same language and culture for centuries, the law requires registration based on ethnicity. The Rwandan government and army began to gather the Interahamwe (which means those who attacked together) and prepared to eliminate Tutsi by arming the Hutus with weapons and machetes. In January 1994, UN peacekeeping forces in Rwanda warned that a major massacre was imminent.
On the day before the massacre began, President Habyarimana was killed when his plane was shot down. That added fire to the Hutu extremists to Tutsi, because they thought the plane was shot by the Tutsi military organization or the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF).
The Hutu extremists in the military, led by Colonel Theoneste Bagosora, immediately acted to kill Tutsis and moderate Hutus within hours of the accident. The following day the Belgian peacekeepers were killed so the United Nations withdrew troops from Rwanda.
After that, radio stations in Rwanda broadcast hate propaganda to kill all Tutsis in the country. National army and police directed the massacre and threatened Hutu civilians. Thousands of Tutsis were tortured to death with machetes by their own neighbors and even some husbands killed their Tutsi wives because the militias threatened to kill if they refused.
Despite the terrible crimes, the international community including the United States is hesitant to take any action. They mistakenly regard genocide as chaos in the middle of a tribal war. President Bill Clinton later called America's failure to do anything to stop genocide as the biggest regret of his administration.
That was left to the RPF, led by Paul Kagame to start a military campaign that finally succeeded in controlling Rwanda. In the summer, the RPF defeated the Hutu forces and drove them out of the country and into several neighboring countries. However, at that time, an estimated 75 percent of Tutsi living in Rwanda had been killed.
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