Rwanda

The 1994 Genocide

In 1994, extremist Hutu militia systematically murdered Tutsi and moderate Hutu in Rwanda.

Approximately 800,000 people were killed.

The western world failed to prevent the genocide, even though it swore never to let it happen again after the Holocaust.

                                                 

                                                            

                

Rwanda

Capital: Kigali

Size: 26,338 km2

(almost half the size of Nova Scotia)

Languages: Kinyarwanda, French, English, Swahili

Religions: Christianity, indigenous beliefs

Rwanda

Population: 8,4 million (UN, 2003)

Hutu 84%Tutsi 15%Twa 1%

Life expectancy: 39 years (men),

40 years (women)

Age structure: 0-14: 42.5%15-64: 54.8%65+ : 2.7%

Rwanda

Main exports: Coffee, tea, hides, tin ore

Average annual income: US $220 (World Bank, 2001)

• 90% of the population engaged in agriculture

• Diversification attempts (flowers, vegetables) are hindered by lack of adequate infrastructure

• 60% lives below poverty line (2001 est.)

Germany 17.7%

Pakistan 7.4%

Netherlands 6.7%

Belgium 5.6%

United States 5.1%

Main export partners (2000)

History

1885 - Berlin ConferenceEuropean powers divide AfricaGermany ‘gets’ Rwanda

1923 - After World War I Rwanda and Burundi are given to Belgium under a

League of Nations mandate

1933 - Teams of Belgian bureaucrats classify

the whole population as Hutu, Tutsi or Twa

1946 - Rwanda becomes UN trusteeship territory

1959 - Tutsi king Mutara III died in suspicious circumstances. Political tensions increase

New king Kigeri V has to flee the country, along with tens of thousands

Tutsi’s

1961 - Monarchy abolished, first elections. Parmehatu (Parti du Mouvement de l’Emancipation Hutu) wins massively.

Tutsi party UNAR (Union National Rwandaise) fight election results.

New wave of violence against Tutsi

1962 - Rwanda becomes independent with Hutu Gregoire Kayibanda as president. The number of refugees that have fled to neighbouring states is estimated 135,000

1963 - Monarchist rebels invade Rwanda from Burundi

President Kayibanda reacts by eliminating the opposition and an organized slaughter of Tusti

Some 20,000 Tusti are killed

1973 - President Kayibanda ousted by Juvenal Habyarimana, who becomes the new president

Gregoire Kayibanda

Juvenal Habyarimana

1990 - Rebels –mainly Tusti– in Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) invade Rwanda from Uganda, causing international uproar.

France’s President Mitterand, whowas considered by Habyarimana as a

close friend, sends over 900 troops to

aid Habyarimana

Egypt minister of Foreign Affairs, Boutros-Ghali, sells weapons to Rwanda government

1993 - Arusha accordsHabyarimana signs a peace agreement with the Tutsi.

The United Nations send 2,500 troops

to Rwanda, led by Canadian Roméo Dallaire

The mission is called UNAMIR: United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda

1994: Genocide

February 3 - General Dallaire sends cable to UN New York warning the situation in Rwanda is getting worse

February 25 - Belgian Foreign minister Claessends telex to UN New York warning UNAMIR was in serious trouble

Dallaire sends weekly reports to New York, each one giving considerable detail about violence and the problems of creating the transitional institutions. Some sentences he repeats week after week. The phrase, ‘The situation is deteriorating significantly and all our resources are used to the full’, is used seven times between

24 February and 5 April.

Dallaire’s cables leave no doubt

that a serious crisis threatened.

Genocide is looming.

Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire

April 6 - Habyarimana’s plane is shot down. He

and Burundi president Ntaryamira are

killed.

Tutsi refugee military-political organization RPF is suspected

April 7 - Ten Belgium peacekeepers are captured, tortured and murdered

There is outrage in Belgium

Colonel Luc Marchal: “We had no armament, no equipment to face such

a situation.”

The Rwandan Armed Forces (FAR) and Hutu militia set up roadblocks and go from house to house killing Tutsis and moderate Hutu politicians.

Thousands die on the first day.

Some U.N. camps shelter civilians, but most of UNAMIR stand by while the slaughter goes on.

They are forbidden to intervene, as this would breach their ‘monitoring’mandate.

Government Radio Rwanda and the extremists’ radio RTLM urge Hutu to take revenge against Tutsi.Led by militias, Hutu begin to attack the homes of neighbouring Tutsi, attempting to rob, rape, and murder them

The attacks by civilian Hutu weren’t the cause for the death of a high proportion of Tutsi. Hutu were usually poorly armed.

The vast majority of Tutsi flee their homes and seek refuge in the central gathering places of their communes: churches, schools, etc.

April 8 - The Tutsi RPF launches a major offensive to end the killings and rescue 600 of its troops surrounded in

Kigali. April 9 - France and Belgium send troops to

rescue their citizens.

American civilians are also airlifted out.

No Rwandans are rescued, not even Rwandans employed by Western governments in their embassies, consulates, etc.

April 11 - Tens of thousands of Rwandans have been murdered (Red Cross est.)

At the Don Bosco school, protected by

Belgian UNAMIR soldiers, the number of civilians seeking refuge reaches 2,000.

That afternoon, the U.N. soldiers are ordered to withdraw to the airport.

Most of the civilians they abandon are killed.

April 13 - Hutu reinforcements (regular army, reservists, the Presidential Guard, national police) arrive at Tutsi gathering sites

April 14 - A week after the murder of ten Belgium peacekeepers, the remaining

Belgian troops are withdrawn from UNAMIR

April 21 - The U.N. Security Council votes unanimously to withdraw most of the UNAMIR troops, cutting the force from 2,500 to 270.

April 30 - The U.N. Security Council passes a resolution condemning the killing, but doesn’t use the word "genocide.“

Had the term been used, the U.N. would have been legally obliged to act

to ‘prevent and punish’ the perpetrators.

Tens of thousands of refugeesflee into Tanzania, Burundi and Zaire.

In one day, 250,000 Rwandans, mainly Hutus fleeing the advance of the Tutsi RPF, cross the border into Tanzania

May 3 - US President Clinton signs a Presidential Decision Directive that aims to limit US involvement in international peacekeeping operations

May 17 - As the slaughter of the Tutsis continues, the U.N. finally agrees to send 5,500 troops to Rwanda.

The Security Council resolution says, ‘acts of genocide may have been committed’.

However, the deployment of the mainly African U.N. forces is delayed because of arguments over who will pay the bill and provide the equipment.

Mid May - The Tutsi RPF is in control of almost half the country

The International Red Cross estimates so far 500,000 Rwandans have been killed

June 22 - France wants to send an intervention force to Rwanda. The Security Council authorizes ‘Operation Turquoise.’

They create a ‘safe area’ in territory controlled by the government.

However, killings of Tutsis continue in the safe area.

July 4 - The Tutsi RPF forces capture Kigali.

The Hutu government flees to Zaire, followed by a tide of refugees.

Mid-July The French end their mission and are replaced by Ethiopian U.N. troops.

The RPF sets up an interim government

of national unity in Kigali.

Although disease and more killings claim additional lives in the refugee camps, the genocide is over.

An estimated 800,000 Rwandans have been

killed in 100 days.

November 4th 2003

Article about Lieutenant-General Dallaire, who wrote the book Shake Hands With The Devil

The mission to uphold the Arusha Peace Agreement was a logistical nightmare from the first day, and Lt.-Gen. Dallaire describes pleading with UN officials in New York for everything from extra ground forces to paper and pencils.

November 4th 2003

He is also scathing about some of the troops in the multilateral force under his command. He describes the racism and lack of discipline of the Belgian soldiers, and the cowardice of the Bangladeshi contingent. According to his account, the Bangladeshi soldiers would only take their orders from Dhaka, and as thousands of people were being slaughtered in Kigali, they refused to put themselves in harm's way. Some 2,000 Rwandans died because of their inaction, the General writes.

November 4th 2003

Still, he stayed on in Rwanda, even as the UN, and particularly the United States, turned away. At the time, the crisis in the former Yugoslavia occupied the world's attention. The United States had just emerged from its catastrophic mission in Somalia, and pressured the UN's then secretary-general, Boutros Boutros Gali, not to send reinforcements to Rwanda.

November 4th 2003

The failures of that mission, brought about by (…) his own inexperience coupled with the international community's (…) inability to react to the biggest genocide since the Holocaust, replays itself in his head at the slightest provocation.

Blood-soaked children hacked to death, their bodies thrown like rubbish on roadsides; pregnant women who had been murdered, their fetuses ripped from their stomachs; the dismembered bodies of 10 of his own soldiers.

November 4th 2003

"The real crime is not to learn from Rwanda," he said. "It's like raping a person once and coming back and doing it again and again and again."

November 6th 2003

Key Rwandan genocide trial begins

Four former Rwandan ministers have gone on trial, charged with masterminding the killing of some 800,000 people in the 1994 genocide.

Prosecutor Paul Ng'Arua told the court the ministers blazed a "path to hell" for the minority Tutsi population. The four men are accused of being in charge of militia that systematically slaughtered ethnic Tutsis.

November 6th 2003

Rwanda has expressed its anger at the tribunal's lack of results in prosecuting the chief perpetrators of genocide, given the resources at their disposal. "It has had no impact in our country. Few people know about it, let alone care“, Rwanda's Attorney General Gerald Gahima told BBC News Online.

After spending over half a billion dollars and with more than 800 staff, the tribunal has achieved only 12 convictions in eight years.

• Has the United Nations as an institution failed after the Rwanda genocide?

• When should the UN intervene and what gives it legitimacy to do so?

• Should the United Nations be reformed?