Responsibility to Protect

Rwanda is a small country located in East Africa. According to the United Nations, approximately 800,000 people (out of a population of seven million) were killed over a period of three months during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. The genocide was perpetrated by Hutu extremists against the Tutsi population. It was carried out by militia groups and everyday Rwandans.

Hutus and Tutsis make up nearly the entire Rwandan population, comprising about 99 percent. Before the genocide, Hutus were a majority of the population. Both groups shared the same language, traditions, and culture. Prior to colonization, “Hutu” and “Tutsi” were social categories that distinguished peasant farmers (Hutu) from aristocratic cattle herders (Tutsi). People could move between Hutu and Tutsi categories as their social conditions changed. When Europeans colonized Rwanda, they turned these social labels into rigid ethnic categories that were based on alleged “racial traits.”

Germany was the first country to colonize Rwanda in the 1890s and ruled indirectly for nearly 20 years. Belgians took control of the colony during World War I. The colonizers believed that the Tutsi were racially superior to the Hutu because they tended to be taller, thinner, and lighter-skinned. As a result, the Belgians favored the Tutsi and gave them preferential treatment. Additionally, the colonizers created a system of ethnic identity cards categorizing people as “Hutu” or “Tutsi.” These identity cards maintained the ethnic hierarchy in Rwanda that later contributed to the genocide.

In 1962, Rwanda won its independence from Belgium and Hutus gained formal political control of the country. In the decades that followed, more than 450,000 Tutsi fled the country to escape violence. Most went to Uganda and other neighboring countries. Many of these refugees later tried to return to Rwanda, but were turned away.

In 1990, a group of armed Tutsi refugees called the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) attacked Rwanda from Uganda and began a civil war. Hutu extremists began the preparation for genocide. They stockpiled weapons and trained militias. Hutus also began producing and spreading propaganda that incited hate and violence against the Tutsi. Radio broadcasts referred to Tutsis as traitors, cockroaches, and snakes. This dehumanization of Tutsis helped to create the conditions for mass violence and genocide.

The Rwandan government and the RPF reached a peace agreement in August 1993, three years after the war began. This treaty, the Arusha Accords, was intended to set up a power-sharing system between Hutu and Tutsi. In October 1993, the United Nations established the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR). Its purpose was to ensure the Arusha Accords were implemented. The UN sent 2,500 peacekeepers to Rwanda for this purpose.

Less than a year later on April 6, 1994, the Hutu president of Rwanda was assassinated when his plane was shot down. Both Hutu extremists and the RPF blamed each other for the attack. The actual identity of the perpetrator(s) of the attack is still disputed. The assassination was the spark that started the genocide against the Tutsi.

The day of the crash, members of the Hutu Interahamwe militia put up roadblocks all over the country to begin targeting their enemies. Anyone who showed a Tutsi identity card was harmed or killed. That same day, the prime minister and other moderate Hutu leaders–those Hutus who did not want to harm Tutsis–were assassinated. Hutu extremists also killed ten Belgian peacekeepers. This caused Belgium to withdraw the rest of its peacekeeping forces. On April 21, two weeks after the start of the genocide, the United Nations removed nearly 90 percent of UNAMIR troops–leaving only 270 peacekeepers in the country.

The genocide lasted nearly 100 days. During that time, groups of Hutus searched homes, churches, and villages looking for Tutsis. The media continued to spread anti-Tutsi propaganda. Perpetrators killed men, women, and children, mostly with machetes and clubs. In many cases Tutsis were killed by people they knew: their neighbors, colleagues, and other close relations. Some Hutus attempted to help Tutsis by hiding them or helping them escape, but the majority participated or remained indifferent. Approximately 70 percent of Rwanda’s Tutsi population was murdered during the genocide. Genocide experts estimate that at least 175,000 Hutus participated in the violence.

The genocide ended when the RPF defeated the government and won the civil war in July 1994. Rwanda was nearly destroyed by the genocide and Rwandans still face many difficulties and hardships today. A generation of children lost their parents; people lost their spouses and their children; many women and their children were raped and infected with HIV; and many survivors now live in poverty, as Hutu extremists destroyed their homes and land during the violence. Genocide denial is illegal in Rwanda, but outside of the country, perpetrators and their supporters still claim that the Tutsi deaths were not part of a genocidal campaign.

Since 1994, the country has made remarkable social and economic progress. The government, civil society, and everyday Rwandans continue to work together to build peace, accountability, and reconciliation.

autocratic: relating to a ruler who has absolute power

feudal: any of various political or social systems similar to medieval feudalism (in which peasants were forced to work on nobles’ land)

Habyarimana, Juvénal: Hutu president of Rwanda (1973-1994). His plane was shot down on April 6, 1994, sparking the genocide in Rwanda.

Interahamwe: Hutu paramilitary group that participated in the 1994 genocide. In Kinyarwanda, the language of Rwanda, Interahamwe means “those who work together.”

Kigali: the capital city of Rwanda

MRND (Mouvement républicain national pour la démocratie et le développement): National Republican Movement for Democracy and Development, the ruling party of Rwanda from 1975-1994

NSC: National Security Council, the US President’s foreign policy advisors

RGF: Rwandese Government Forces, the armed forces of Rwanda

RPF: Rwandan Patriotic Front. The current ruling party of Rwanda (since 1994). Prior to and during the genocide, the RPF was the armed group–mostly Tutsi–opposing the government’s forces.

UNAMIR: United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda, the UN peacekeeping mission tasked with implementing the Arusha Accords

yoke: joined or linked together