Analysis Of Rwandan Genocide In Rwanda

“Tutsi in Rwanda, much like Jews in Nazi Germany, were ‘socially dead’ people, whose murder was as acceptable as it became common” (Hintjens, 241). Starting April 1994, the country of Rwanda began to witness the mass slaughter directed towards the Tutsi minority killing around a million people. This genocide is defined as a genocide because it was planned before it actually occurred. The main purpose of this literature review is to figure out some of the main causes of the genocide through Rwanda’s history as a colony and the role of social constructivism, and the drive of Hutu elites to maintain their sovereignty supported by two journals by scholars Peter Uvin and Helen Hintjens. Each scholar explains the main influences of a nation that …show more content…
After Rwanda’s independence from Belgium, many events have jeopardized the Hutu’s right to rule from the late 1980s economic crisis, the invasion of the Rwandan patriotic front (FPR), a Tutsi rebel group, and the civil war of the early 1990s. The Hutu elite also had to protect their power would not be taken away by the FPR. In guaranteeing stability, the Hutu president Juvenal Habyarimana along with a group of powerful Hutu politicians and closest friends in “administration and the army” used discrimination and crime towards the Tutsi to maintain absolute power (Uvin, 79). The fact that politicians in power were committing crimes against humanity does not assume a genocide was in the making against Tutsi. However, Uvin gives reasonable historical information that would have seen discrimination and hatred towards the minority Tutsi a step on that …show more content…
Hintjens compares the Rwandan genocide of the Jews in Nazi Germany since it was a planned out mass killing of a hated minority. The genocide organized by both private and public sectors, which ensure “its subsequent implementation through the participation of most Rwandan people” that preceded the mistreatment of Tutsi (Hintjens, 244). The mass killing was throughout in a “strong sense of secrecy and false air of normality served to disarm many victims of this genocide (Hintjens, 245) making it hard for the victims to actually see what awaited. When the genocide began many Rwandans were taken by surprise, including the international community. Tutsi denies the fact that their Hutu acquaintance would one day turn against them due to their tribal history. Hintjens give many factors that led to the genocide against the Tutsi leading back to colonial