The 1994 Rwanda Genocide

In Rwanda there was a genocide that took place from April 7 1994, to July 1994, just 100 days. This was able to occur because of a series of events that transformed the everlasting tension between the Hutus and Tutsis. Civil war broke out in Rwanda in 1990, exacerbating existing tensions between the Tutsi minority and Hutu majority All Tutsis in the country were characterized as accomplices of the Rwandan Patriotic Front and all Hutu members of the opposition parties were deemed traitors. On April 6th 1994, as Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana returned from a round of talks in neighboring Tanzania, he was killed when his plane was shot down outside of the country’s capital, Kigali. The president’s death provided a spark for an organized campaign of violence against Tutsi and moderate Hutu civilians across the country. In this 100 day period an estimated 800,000 people died. The country of Rwanda is still recovering from the horrific acts in 1994. Genocides usually include eight stages, Rwanda’s very clearly has all eight further proving it was a genocide, therefore, it has been proven to be a genocide.
The genocide started right after the president’s plane was shot down. In just a matter of hours, Hutu rebels surrounded the capital and took over the streets of Kigali. Within a day, the …show more content…
They accomplished this by having good uses of propaganda telling Hutus what they were doing was right, and telling Tutsi they deserved to die. They then had timely shipments of weapons when they needed them and had coordinated well planned out attacks against the Tutsi. The Interahamwe used all forms of media available to spread the Hutu power ideology. The message was clear: the Hutus were better than the Tutsis. When the President’s plane crashed, propaganda and media were used effectively and efficiently to blame the Tutsis. The radio was used to say where Tutsis were and to justify the