The Rwandan genocide was a one hundred day slaughter of the Tutsi population. There were a number of factors leading up to this event and why nobody stopped the killings include worldly indifference, lack of information, fear of intervention, and the absence of resources and knowledge for help.
In April 6th, 1994, an airplane holding President Habyarimana was shot down killing him and the rest of it’s passengers. Habyarimana was of the Hutu population and the Hutus believed that a member of the Tutsi population had to do with this killing. This caused a mass killing in the country of Rwanda ran by the Interahamwe, a Hutu ran organization whose mission was to eliminate all Tutsi that was trained by the French (5). Attacks persisted for one hundred days and by mid-July, the massacre ended and over eighty thousand Tutsis were murdered …show more content…
In October of 1993, eighteen soldiers were killed during combat in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia. The US was there because they was assisting the United Nations during the Somalian civil war (3). After this tragic event, America did not want to intervene with any more civil wars to avoid “needlessly dying” (4). Belgium, the former colonizers of Rwanda, also did not offer much help to Rwanda during the genocide. Belgian peacekeepers were already stationed Rwanda but their small amount resulted in the death of a number of members. Their deaths were previously planned by the Hutu militias to insure that Belgium would pulled their forces in fear (4). This was proved successful as Belgium ended up pulling their troops as several of them were murdered. Without America or Belgium involved with the genocide, this basically left Rwanda to the Hutu. It is believed that if America had intervened at all, over thirty thousand lives could have been saved (2). This is just about a third of the Tutsi deaths from the
In April 6th, 1994, an airplane holding President Habyarimana was shot down killing him and the rest of it’s passengers. Habyarimana was of the Hutu population and the Hutus believed that a member of the Tutsi population had to do with this killing. This caused a mass killing in the country of Rwanda ran by the Interahamwe, a Hutu ran organization whose mission was to eliminate all Tutsi that was trained by the French (5). Attacks persisted for one hundred days and by mid-July, the massacre ended and over eighty thousand Tutsis were murdered …show more content…
In October of 1993, eighteen soldiers were killed during combat in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia. The US was there because they was assisting the United Nations during the Somalian civil war (3). After this tragic event, America did not want to intervene with any more civil wars to avoid “needlessly dying” (4). Belgium, the former colonizers of Rwanda, also did not offer much help to Rwanda during the genocide. Belgian peacekeepers were already stationed Rwanda but their small amount resulted in the death of a number of members. Their deaths were previously planned by the Hutu militias to insure that Belgium would pulled their forces in fear (4). This was proved successful as Belgium ended up pulling their troops as several of them were murdered. Without America or Belgium involved with the genocide, this basically left Rwanda to the Hutu. It is believed that if America had intervened at all, over thirty thousand lives could have been saved (2). This is just about a third of the Tutsi deaths from the