Kerry Read

Theology: Web Assignment-Special Topics

4-27-06

 

 

I read Chris de Bettencourt’s project on the Genocide in Rwanda because I knew almost nothing about what happened in Rwanda more than ten years ago. I haven’t even seen the movie Hotel Rwanda yet.

Rwanda is an East-Central African country and is primarily divided up into two groups, the Hutu and the Tutsi, based on wealth, social status, and governmental power. For centuries the Tutsi had been the upper class of the society and held most of the power, despite only being 14% of the population. The Hutu in return were left to servitude position to the Tutsi. In 1885 Germany claimed Rwanda as a colony and further increased the social discord between the two groups by claiming the Tutsi were ordained by God to rule. Then after WWI when Belgium gained control of Rwanda, they completely stripped the Hutu of power by limiting all government positions and education to Tutsi.

  After WWII in 1959, urged by European Catholic missionaries, the Hutu rebelled and overthrew the Tutsi government. They killed 20,000 Tutsi though and forced 300,000 more into exile. Because of this great revolt, tension grew even more between the two groups and each used propaganda to turn on the other and trained military.

Hutu President Habyarimana signed the Arusha Accords, a peace treaty with the Tutsi, in 1994. This greatly upset many Hutu, claiming Habyarimana was a traitor, and when he was assassinated later in the year, it was believed to be the work of radical Hutu. However, the blame fell on the Tutsi and the Hutu radio stations urged all people to take up arms and kill the Tutsi with any means possible. The great genocide of Rwanda followed. Tutsi people were murdered all over the country, shot down in the streets was common, but even more gruesome were the mass executions in places such as churches using only machetes and clubs to save money on bullets. In the 100 days, an estimated 800,000 Tutsi were murdered.

One awful thing about the whole incident was that the whole world knew about it, but still did practically nothing to stop it; in fact, France supplied the Hutu regime with money, supplies, and weapons. The UN did send a task force called UNAMIR led by Lieutenant-General Romeo Dallaire down, and he even got reliable reports of the planned genocide and uprising before it happened. The UN did not heed his warning though. UNAMIR and the Belgian troops in support were very few in number and supplies so they could only reduce the violence, could not stop it all together. The genocide finally stopped when a resist group led by Paul Kagame defeated the Hutu.

Chris did a great job of supplying a lot of information with this paper. I had no idea how serious this genocide was: 800,000 people or more in 100 days. The Nazi’s did 6 million Jews but that was over about six years. What’s even more astonishing, I think, is that the world just stood by and let it happen even though they vowed to never let something this serious to happen again after the Holocaust.