Rwanda

History/ Background: When the Belgians took control of Rwanda from Germany after World War I, they found a centrally organized, highly stratified society divided into two main groups, the Hutu and the Tutsi. The Tutsi are a minority group of predominantly upper-class cattle owners and the Hutu are the predominantly lower-class, farming majority. The Belgians decided to utilize the ruling structure which was already in place, giving Tutsis power, education and wealth. To distinguish between the groups, the Belgians issued identity cards for the first time. Hutu resentment began to boil in the 1950s as they issued a manifesto calling for a change in the power structure and formed political parties. In 1959, inter-ethnic violence exploded forcing thousands of Tutsis, including the king, into exile in Uganda where they formed the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). Rwanda became independent in 1962 with a Hutu as president which caused more Tutsis to leave the country. After Tutsi rebels entered the country in 1963, 20,000 Tutsis were killed in the start of a string of anti-Tutsi violence. Juvenal Habyarimana took over Rwanda in a 1973 coup. In 1990, the RPF invaded from Uganda, sparking a six month civil war which was settled by a 1991 ceasefire, the Arusha Accords. Despite the accords, animosities grew deeper between the ethnic groups. A power-sharing agreement was signed between the government and the RPF in 1993 and the UN deployed a small mission, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR) to supervise it. The mission, under a Chapter VI mandate, was not allowed to use force. Hutu extremists within and outside the government had nothing to gain from sharing power with the RPF and feared that, once in power, the Tutsis might retaliate as the Hutu had in the 1960s. In late 1993 and early 1994, two Hutu radical political parties—the National Republican Movement for Democracy (MRND) and the Coalition for Defense of the Republic (CRD)—aggressively recruited unemployed young men to fill the ranks of their militias. The militias imported arms from South Africa, Egypt and solicited advice from the French military mission. An estimated 581,000 machetes were sent to Rwanda, enough for every third Hutu male. In January 1994, a Hutu informant came to the commander of UNAMIR, Romeo Dallaire, with information about the arming and training of Hutu militias, their orders to register all Tutsis in Kigali, the Rwandan capital, and a plan to force Belgian troops in UNAMIR to withdraw. The informant also said the militias could kill up to 1,000 Tutsis in 20 minutes. Dallaire sent this information to UN Headquarters in what became known as the “Genocide Fax” calling for immediate action based on the informant’s information, but Headquarters, fearing for the lives of UN troops, told him not to do anything.

 

Dynamics of the Genocide: On April 6, 1994, the plane carrying the Hutu President Habyarimana and his Burundian counterpart was shot down by a rocket. The assassination was the spark the militias had been waiting for. The military took over the government and extremist Hutu militias called the interhamewe took to the radios, calling for Hutus to start killing the Tutsi “cockroaches”. With assistance from the Presidential Guard, an elite army unit, roadblocks were set up all around Kigali where those carrying a Tutsi identity card were systematically slaughtered as they attempted to flee. The prime minister of the unity government agreed to in the 1993 power-sharing accord along with all other moderate politicians were hunted down and killed during the first few hours of the genocide. The 12 Belgian UN soldiers sent to guard the prime minister were also killed, prompting Belgium to withdraw its 400-man peacekeeping force, the backbone of UNAMIR. Militias soon took to the countryside and, with the help of local Hutu officials and radio broadcasters, were directed to homes, schools or churches where Tutsis had sought refuge. Rape was widely used to torment female victims before they were murdered. In late June, French troops arrived and set themselves up in the southwest of the country. During the first days of the genocide, the Hutu military restarted the civil war with the RPF who, under the command of Paul Kagame, began to make major advances. By July 4, 1994, Kigali was under RPF control, causing almost 2 million Hutu soldiers and civilians alike to flee to the neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi, and Tanzania under cover from the French, old allies of the Hutu regime. On July 18, 1994 the RPF, who had now taken control of the entire country, declared the war to be over. A day later they inaugurated their own government of national unity. Between 800,000 and 1 million Tutsis and moderate Hutus had been slaughtered in just 100 days.

 

In November 1994, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda was created in Arusha, Tanzania. Justice has been painfully slow, but has determined that rape is both an act of torture and genocide. Rwandan authorities have arrested thousands of suspected individuals, but lacking the capacity to try them all, have resorted to either gacaca courts (group courts) or releasing prisoners.