Rwandan Genocide: What History Teaches Us

In eastern Africa, just below the equator lies Rwanda, a small, densely populated country. Within Rwanda lies a massive civil strife between Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups. From April 1994 to June 1994, genocide of some 800,000 Tutsi deaths struck Rwanda. The ones behind it were the Hutu-Dominated Rwandan government officials. Long before this and even before World War I, Rwanda was ruled by Germany and the Hutus were even then in power. However, after WWI, Germany was stripped of Rwanda as well as many other things, and Belgium took over control of Rwanda. Belgium thought all the Tutsi were destined to be great kings and the Hutu were meant to serve them. Belgium took the elite Hutus out of power and placed the Tutsi in control.

Later, the Tutsi began to feel the need for independence from Belgium. In response to this, Belgium stripped the Tutsi of their power and replaced the Hutu elite groups with them, thinking that the Hutu would be easily persuaded because they have not yet been dominated. The UN then became somewhat involved as the supported Rwandan independence, furthering the tensions between Belgians and the Tutsis. In 1959, ethnic strife broke out one again and Belgium allowed the Hutus to burn down the houses of Tutsis. As the UN further pushed for Rwandan independence, so the Hutu stated they had formed a democratic majority rule, but they were establishing a racialist state, seeking to maintain control over the weak Tutsi. Now under the Hutu control, many of the Tutsi population was killed and exiled from Rwanda. These exiled fled south to Burundi, which was similar to Rwanda’s ethnic feud, but Burundi was ruled by the Tutsi. A few months later, an estimated 100,000 Hutus were killed in Burundi for what had been occurring in Rwanda. U.S. officials called what was going on in Burundi and Rwanda, “selective genocide,” and they did not even use its leverage over the Burundian economy to force an end to the killing. In Rwanda, the Hutu leader tried to use the massacres in Burundi as an excuse for his discrimination upon the Tutsis.

Later, the Hutu elite split and in July 1973 Major-General Juvénal Habyarimana, a Hutu, took over in a bloodless takeover. Under Habyarimana rule, the Tutsi still suffered from Hutu discrimination, but the were typically left in peace as long as they did not get involved in politics as Habyarimana took out his political opposition. In 1975, Paris had signed a military cooperation and training agreement with Kigali, the capitol of Rwanda. Slowly overtime France took control of Rwanda from Belgium. In 1990, the French President François Mitterrand called for multiparty systems in Africa, and despite Habyarimana’s brutality, he agreed with Mitterrand’s position. Soon after Uganda formed a Tutsi raid group set out to raid Rwanda and try to seize control of their state back. It was thought that Habyarimana new about the planned invasion and was determined to use it to kill his internal opposition. Belgium and France sent in troops to save their official affiliates and after Belgium left, but France did not and France continued to supply armaments to the Rwandan Hutu elites. Later as Habyarimana was returning in a private airplane, a gift from Mitterrand, the plane was shot down and everyone onboard died.