Rwandan Civil War

purpose of Jonestown and what influences did Jim Jones have on his followers? As the People's Temple grew during the 1960s, Jones became obsessed with the idea of Marxism and he started to preach about an imminent nuclear apocalypse during the Cold War. He gave a date on which the 'apocalypse' would occur, July 15th 1967, and implied that after this apocalypse, a socialist utopia would exist on Earth. This utopia would be situated in what would become Jonestown. Jones wanted to create a…

There have been many tragedies in the world, unfortunately the Rwandan Genocide fits into this category. After Rwanda’s colonial period the ruling Belgians of Rwanda favored the Tutsi minority over the Hutu majority, it caused increasing tension between the two ethnic groups that made up the Rwandan population. Hutu made up about 85% of the population and Tutsi made up the rest. Tension between the two groups later turned into great violence spread throughout the country. In July of 1962…

Rwanda: A Melting Pot of Issues The Rwandan genocide was an atrocity that marked an age of unrest and violence in Central Africa. A nation unbalanced for years had finally imploded, leading to the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of Tutsis. This genocide was the result of multiple things, creating instability, and unbalancing the relationship between the Tutsis and the Hutus. Tensions built up for decades were finally released. While many would blame Belgium, Germany, and colonization for…

physical process of degrading the targeted group, making them seem less than human and hence not worthy of humane treatment. Dehumanization can lead to increased violence, human rights violations, war crimes, and genocide. Dehumanization is prevalent in almost every case of genocide, the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide are two very good examples. Jews in the Holocaust were treated as subhuman and murder so germans would benefit. The Hutus were dehumanized and killed so Tutsis could prove…

In addition, the government’s rejection of ethnic identifiers for genocide identifiers brought about a disregard of victimized Hutus who suffered at the hands of the Interhamwe and blamed them for the genocide, isolating Hutu survivors from Tutsi survivors and splitting the victims left alive in society. The Rwanda government changed the way it identified people, from an ethnic identifier to a genocidal identifier. According to Zorbas, “Dropping the ethnic labels in favor of a ‘genocide…

untraditional brutality that average citizens and soldiers perform on enemies. The novels We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families, by Philip Gourevitch, and A Long Way Gone, by Ishmael Beah, not only give insight into the war violence committed in Africa, but plunge the reader into a personal recall of the dangerous day to day life. In the book, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families, Philip writes about the tragic experiences of…

hundred days between 800,000 to 1 million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were butchered by their Hutu neighbours between April and July, 1994. While the exact reasons behind what initiated the genocide are debated, a greater discussion is occurring for Rwandan genocide perpetrators, survivors and the new youth generation is on how ethnic-based identities were crafted.…

Ilibagiza, one of the survivors of Rwanda genocide, whenever is necessary. One of the main causes of the genocide in Rwanda can be traced back to the period of colonial rule over Rwanda where numerous policies of the imperialists left the Rwandan society divided with tensions searing among its population. Rwanda had been a Belgian colony and Belgians divided the people in to various ethnic groups –the Hutu, Tutsi and Twa- on the basis of the physical appearance like height and…

toll on one’s body. No one can recover going through something as horrible as genocide or politicide. “I don’t feel that comfortable with life. I cannot think beyond the present anymore” (Hatzfeld 26). This quote comes from a woman who survived the Rwandan genocide. Her life will never be the same. She can never trust a stranger ever again, she has nightmares of what she has seen almost every night, unless she speaks about what happened with someone on that day, and she doesn’t feel safe, even…

Carl Wilkens is the director of World Outside My Shoes and upstander in the Rwandan genocide in 1994. He was the only American that stayed throughout the 100-day massacre of 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus and tries to protect his friend in Rwanda and the kids that lived there and help the people living in Kigali during the brutal times of war. The genocide was the result of Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana’s death in a plane crash in 1994, according to the United Nations. A Hutu himself…