Analyse the causes of the Rwandan genocide
Genocide has been seen as one of the worst moral crimes in the world. In this essay I will be analysing the causes of the Rwandan genocide by taking into account factors such as the history of Rwanda, the environmental, cultural, political and the role of the media and how they contributed to the mass killings of the Rwandan population.
Raphael Lemkin has defined genocide as the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group. Moreover the United ...view middle of the document...
In 1994 Rwanda witnessed the unleashing of the genocide of the Tutsi by the ruling Hutu led government. It had been stated that Rwanda erupted into one of the most appalling cases of mass murder the world has witnessed since the Second World War. From 1894 until the end of World War 1, Rwanda was part of German East Africa. An estimation of half a million people was killed. The killings in Rwanda fell into three categories; combatants killing combatants, Hutu citizens, parliamentary and military forces killing Hutu citizens because the victims were either moderate or were willing to live and work with Tutsi and the Hutu killing Tutsi because they were Tutsi.
The population of Rwanda is made up of three ethnic groups. One percent of the population are Twa (pigmy hunters), fourteen percent are Tutsi (Ethiopian pastoralists) and eighty five percent are Hutu (Bantu farmers).
The Belgians and Germans arrived in Rwanda in the 1900’s and wanted to control and rule Rwanda. The Belgian colonisers viewed the Hutu as ignorant, vile, slaves by nature with no ambition. Hutu features were ugly and indicative of the inferior Negro. A 1925 Colonial report described the Hutu as generally short and thick-set with a big head, a jovial expression, a wide nose and...