Génocide: le cas du Rwanda (document en anglais)

Genocide : the case of Rwanda

Population : 2 groups : Hutu (majority) and Tutsi (minority)

Have both lived in the country for hundreds of years

Speak the same language : Kinyarwanda

Follow the same religion : catholicism

Are intermarried in great numbers

« although the Tutsis are described as generally being taller than the Hutus, with more aquiline noses and longer jawbones, there has been so much mixing trough the years that ethnographers and historians question whether the Hutus and the Tutsis are technically two distinct ethnic groups. »

« major difference between the two groups was the economic path they followed : the Hutus were generally cultivators, while the Tutsis were herdsmen – a more prosperous vocation. Consequently, the minority Tutsi eventually emerged as the country’s political and economis elite. »

the Germans were the first Europeans to arrive in Rwanda

the Belgians took control of Rwanda after Germany’s defeat in the first world war

1933 identity cards wich labelled every Rwandan as a Hutu or a Tutsi. This identification system based on the concept of Tutsi superiority

1962 independance

Tutsis fled to neighboring countries in the face of waves of mass killings

1970’s – 1980’s state ruled by President Habyarimana, single political party : National Republican Movement for Democracy (MRND)

« During President Habyarimana’s reign, Rwanda was brought into France’s neocolonial sphere of influence in Francophone Africa »

maintain the colonial policy of requiring every Rwandan citizen to carry an identity card indicating his or her ethnic designation »

the exiled Tutsis tried to invade Rwanda from neighboring countries and overthrow its government on several occasions

october 1990 : the 7000 troops of the Tutsi army, known as the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) attacked Rwanda from their bases located in Uganda. During the hostilities, France sent arms to Rwanda and provided 300 troops to fight alongside the Rwandan Army

the Rwandan governement and the RPF began negociating a series of agreements in Arusha, Tanzania, culminating in the signing of a comprehensive accord in august 1993

october 1993 : the security council adopted Resolution 872, which established the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR)

Radio des Milles Collines began a campaign of hatred against the Tutsis

« on the evening of 6 april 1994, the plane carrying President Habyarimana of Rwanda and the President of Burundi was shot down by a surface-to-air missile, killing everyone on board »

the mass killings were fomented by the Radio des Milles Collines broadcasts that encourage dits listeners to kill

the slaughter quickly spread throughout the country and hundreds of thousands of Tutsis were murdered

The Convention on the Prevention and

Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was

adopted by the United Nations General Assembly

on 9 December 1948 as General Assembly

Resolution 260. The Convention entered into

force on 12 January 1951. [1] It defines genocide in

legal terms, and is the culmination of years of

campaigning by lawyer Raphael Lemkin. Yaur

Auron writes "When Raphael Lemkin coined the

word genocide in 1944 he cited the 1915

annihilation of Armenians as a seminal example

of genocide." [2] All participating countries are

advised to prevent and punish actions of genocide

in war and in peacetime. The number of states that

have ratified the convention is currently 140.

Article 2 of the Convention defines genocide as

...any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a

national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring

about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

As we can see, there is the qualification of genocide no concept of number or degree in violence committed against a particular group. Sits at the base of the definition of genocide intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a social group. This is the case of the Rwandan genocide. If we take the above actions and noting that the Convention states that "genocide means as any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part. A national , ethnical, racial or religious group as such ", it therefore applies to several massacres of Tutsis in 1994.

Let us point by point the acts that constitute genocide under the Convention:

"Killing members of the group" hard to deny that fact.

More than one million deaths estimated the most serious, including one established by the Rwandan Ministry of Higher Education, Scientific Research and Culture in 1996. The list of casualties, district by district, is based on an official census and not on speculation, as is often the case. Thus, the death toll would be $ 1,364,020, a figure to be handled with caution since the number of victims in several towns could be established and in other figures

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