Beginning
on April 6, 1994, and for the next hundred days, up to 800,000
Tutsis were killed by Hutu militia using clubs and machetes,
with as many as 10,000 killed each day.
Rwanda
is one of the smallest countries in Central Africa, with just
7 million people, and is comprised of two main ethnic groups,
the Hutu and the Tutsi. Although the Hutus account for 90
percent of the population, in the past, the Tutsi minority
was considered the aristocracy of Rwanda and dominated Hutu
peasants for decades, especially while Rwanda was under Belgian
colonial rule.
Following independence from Belgium in 1962, the Hutu majority
seized power and reversed the roles, oppressing the Tutsis
through systematic discrimination and acts of violence. As
a result, over 200,000 Tutsis fled to neighboring countries
and formed a rebel guerrilla army, the Rwandan Patriotic Front.
In
1990, this rebel army invaded Rwanda and forced Hutu President
Juvenal Habyalimana into signing an accord that mandated that
the Hutus and Tutsis would share power.
Ethnic
tensions in Rwanda were significantly heightened in October
1993 upon the assassination of Melchior Ndadaye, the first
popularly elected Hutu president of neighboring Burundi.
A
United Nations peacekeeping force of 2,500 multinational soldiers
was then dispatched to Rwanda to preserve the fragile cease-fire
between the Hutu government and the Tutsi rebels. Peace was
threatened by Hutu extremists who were violently opposed to
sharing any power with the Tutsis. Among these extremists
were those who desired nothing less than the actual extermination
of the Tutsis. It was later revealed they had even drawn up
lists of prominent Tutsis and moderate Hutu politicians to
kill, should the opportunity arise.
In
April 1994, amid ever-increasing prospects of violence, Rwandan
President Habyalimana and Burundi's new President, Cyprien
Ntaryamira, held several peace meetings with Tutsi rebels.
On April 6, while returning from a meeting in Tanzania, a
small jet carrying the two presidents was shot down by ground-fired
missiles as it approached Rwanda's airport at Kigali. Immediately
after their deaths, Rwanda plunged into political violence
as Hutu extremists began targeting prominent opposition figures
that were on their death-lists, including moderate Hutu politicians
and Tutsi leaders.
The
killings then spread throughout the countryside as Hutu militia,
armed with machetes, clubs, guns and grenades, began indiscriminately
killing Tutsi civilians. All individuals in Rwanda carried
identification cards specifying their ethnic background, a
practice left over from colonial days. These 'tribal cards'
now meant the difference between life and death.
Amid
the onslaught, the small U.N. peacekeeping force was overwhelmed
as terrified Tutsi families and moderate politicians sought
protection.
Among
the peacekeepers were ten soldiers from Belgium who were captured
by the Hutus, tortured and murdered. As a result, the United
States, France, Belgium, and Italy all began evacuating their
own personnel from Rwanda.
However,
no effort was made to evacuate Tutsi civilians or Hutu moderates.
Instead, they were left behind entirely at the mercy of the
avenging Hutu.
Back
at U.N headquarters in New York, the killings were initially
categorized as a breakdown in the cease-fire between the Tutsi
and Hutu. Throughout the massacre, both the U.N. and the U.S.
carefully refrained from labeling the killings as genocide,
which would have necessitated some kind of emergency intervention.
On
April 21, the Red Cross estimated that hundreds of thousands
of Tutsi had already been massacred since April 6 - an extraordinary
rate of killing.
The
U.N. Security Council responded to the worsening crisis by
voting unanimously to abandon Rwanda. The remainders of U.N.
peacekeeping troops were pulled out, leaving behind an only
tiny force of about 200 soldiers for the entire country.
The
Hutu, now without opposition from the world community, engaged
in genocidal mania, clubbing and hacking to death defenseless
Tutsi families with machetes everywhere they were found. The
Rwandan state radio, controlled by Hutu extremists, further
encouraged the killings by broadcasting non-stop hate propaganda
and even pinpointed the locations of Tutsis in hiding. The
killers were aided by members of the Hutu professional class
including journalists, doctors and educators, along with unemployed
Hutu youths and peasants who killed Tutsis just to steal their
property.
Many
Tutsis took refuge in churches and mission compounds. These
places became the scenes of some of the worst massacres. In
one case, at Musha, 1,200 Tutsis who had sought refuge were
killed beginning at 8 a.m. lasting until the evening. Hospitals
also became prime targets as wounded survivors were sought
out then killed.
In
some local villages, militiamen forced Hutus to kill their
Tutsi neighbors or face a death sentence for themselves and
their entire families. They also forced Tutsis to kill members
of their own families.
By
mid May, an estimated 500,000 Tutsis had been slaughtered.
Bodies were now commonly seen floating down the Kigara River
into Lake Victoria.
Confronted
with international TV news reports depicting genocide, the
U.N. Security Council voted to send up to 5,000 soldiers to
Rwanda. However, the Security Council failed to establish
any timetable and thus never sent the troops in time to stop
the massacre.
The
killings only ended after armed Tutsi rebels, invading from
neighboring countries, managed to defeat the Hutus and halt
the genocide in July 1994. By then, over one-tenth of the
population, an estimated 800,000 persons, had been killed.
