Rwanda Genocide Causes

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Genocide is and was a terrible thing, but sadly it still exists today. What is genocide? It is a specific killing of a large group of people. One of the worst genocides happened in the continent of Africa in Rwanda. There were many causes and people involved in the genocide that happened and the outcome was horrific.
One of the causes of this horrifying event was World War 1 when the country was taken over by the Belgians. The Belgians sided with the Tutsi population and gave them the preferential status. That caused a lot of hate from the Hutu’s on the Tutsi’s. At that time the Tutsi’s were only about 8 to 14 percent of the population. Towards the beginning of World War 2 the better educated and better off Tutsi’s fought for independence. …show more content…
After President Habyarimana’s plane was shot down the killing began. Hutu’s formed road blocks and demanded that everyone who was a Tutsi be killed. Tutsi’s that had money and could afford to pay often choose to die from a bullet. If the Tutsi’s did not have any money to bribe the Hutu’s they were hacked to death with machetes. The genocide moved rapidly down from Kigali to the countryside. Government radios told the Tutsi’s to assemble at churches, schools, and stadiums promising them there would be safety there for them. They assembled and made easy targets for their killers. The Hutu’s not only killed Tutsi men they also killed Tutsi children and women. The Hutu’s targeted the Tutsi children to wipe out the next Tutsi population. Tutsi women were not usually killed, instead they were raped. The bodies were left out in the street to warn people that the Hutu’s were powerful and if you did not join them or were a Tutsi that would happen to you. Finally after an estimated one-seventh of the population was killed; the Tutsi’s represented 94 percent of the victims, the genocide ended. More than 120,000 people were sent to jail for participation in the genocide. Thousands died in jail because of the brutal and dirty conditions. After April 2000, 2,500 people had been on trial for their participation in the genocide. 300 of those people tried were given death
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