Rwanda And Cambodian Genocide Similarities

The Rwandan and Cambodian genocides may have been very different but they still shared many similarities. The first notable similarity is the final number of deaths. In Rwanda there was over one million dead after a three month genocide ("Rwanda Civil War”). In Cambodia it has been estimated that anywhere between one and a half and three million people were killed during the four year period (“Cambodian Genocide”). Also both genocides were products of the government. In the case of Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge took control following the civil war and then turned the murderous tactics they used previously to take power, against the general population. In Rwanda, following the death of the president, the militiamen that formerly reported to him, …show more content…
In Rwanda, stages one and three through nine are blatantly clear when examining the timeline of events. There was a clear distinction made between the Hutu and Tutsi people. The Tutsi people were then targeted by the dominant group, the Hutu, and were made powerless. In this case, many of them were exiled for being a part of the Tutsi group. Propaganda was spread throughout Rwanda against the Tutsi people, made to dehumanize that group and encourage Hutu civilians to also want to exterminate these people. And also there were many willing participants within the government to carry out the genocide, in fact it was Hutu militiamen, previously members of the government and supporters of the president who was killed in the plane crash caused by the RPF, and also outside paramilitaries that carried out the start of the …show more content…
Other genocides have gone in the world, such as the Holocaust, but that was not preceded by a civil war. In the cases of Cambodia and Rwanda, the government faced off against rebel groups in civil wars that last five and three years, respectively. As each civil war wrapped up, genocide followed killing millions of people in each country. These two cases share more differences than similarities in the way in which their civil wars began. They also share several similarities and differences in the way in which their genocides occurred following civil war. Ultimately though, these cases can be used in creating a set of conditions that are required of a civil war for it to become a genocide. A civil war needs to feature either long term ethnic hatred, or an attempt at implementing a repressive ideology, such as communism. A civil war also needs actors that are willing to commit the mass atrocities in the first place. Despite the fact that there are several differences in the way in which they occurred, these cases can still provide some sort of understanding of the different ways in which a genocide can be formed out of a civil