Rwanda has always been a tightly controlled society, organised like a pyramid from each district up to the top of government. The then-governing party, MRND, had a youth wing called the Interahamwe, which was turned into a militia to carry out the slaughter.
Weapons and hit-lists were handed out to local groups, who knew exactly where to find their targets. The Hutu extremists set up a radio station, RTLM, and newspapers which circulated hate propaganda, urging people to "weed out the cockroaches" meaning kill the Tutsis. The names of prominent people to be killed were read out on radio.
Even priests and nuns have been convicted of killing people, including some who sought shelter in churches. By the end of the day killing spree, around , Tutsis and moderate Hutus had been killed. The Belgians and most UN peacekeepers pulled out after 10 Belgian soldiers were killed.
The French, who were allies of the Hutu government, sent a special force to evacuate their citizens and later set up a supposedly safe zone but were accused of not doing enough to stop the slaughter in that area. Paul Kagame, Rwanda's current president, has accused France of backing those who carried out the massacres - a charge denied by Paris. The well-organised RPF, backed by Uganda's army, gradually seized more territory, until 4 July , when its forces marched into the capital, Kigali.
Some two million Hutus - both civilians and some of those involved in the genocide - then fled across the border into the Democratic Republic of Congo, at the time called Zaire, fearing revenge attacks. Others went to neighbouring Tanzania and Burundi. Human rights groups say RPF fighters killed thousands of Hutu civilians as they took power - and more after they went into DR Congo to pursue the Interahamwe.
The RPF denies this. In DR Congo, thousands died from cholera, while aid groups were accused of letting much of their assistance fall into the hands of the Hutu militias. The RPF, now in power in Rwanda, embraced militias fighting both the Hutu militias and the Congolese army, which was aligned with the Hutus. But the new president's reluctance to tackle Hutu militias led to a new war that dragged in six countries and led to the creation of numerous armed groups fighting for control of this mineral-rich country.
An estimated five million people died as a result of the conflict which lasted until , with some armed groups active until now in the areas near Rwanda's border.
The International Criminal Court was set up in , long after the Rwandan genocide so could not put on trial those responsible. A total of 93 people were indicted and after lengthy and expensive trials, dozens of senior officials in the former regime were convicted of genocide - all of them Hutus. Within Rwanda, community courts, known as gacaca, were created to speed up the prosecution of hundreds of thousands of genocide suspects awaiting trial. Correspondents say up to 10, people died in prison before they could be brought to justice.
For a decade until , 12, gacaca courts met once a week in villages across the country , often outdoors in a marketplace or under a tree, trying more than 1. Their aim was to achieve truth, justice and reconciliation among Rwandans as "gacaca" means to sit down and discuss an issue.
President Kagame has been hailed for transforming the tiny, devastated country he took over through policies which encouraged rapid economic growth. Hard-line Hutu politicians accused Rwandan Tutsis of supporting the rebels.
After the war reached a stalemate, Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana signed a peace agreement. The terms enabled Rwanda to transition to a government in which Hutus and Tutsis would share power. The agreement angered Hutu extremists. In response, they armed Hutu paramilitary forces and waged a vicious propaganda campaign against the Tutsis. On the evening of April 6, , President Habyarimana was killed.
A surface-to-air missile shot down his plane as it was landing in Kigali, the Rwandan capital. Who fired the missile remains in dispute. They also targeted moderate Hutu leaders who might have opposed this program of genocide. Political and other high profile leaders who might have been able to prevent the genocide were killed immediately. Violence spread through the capital and into the rest of the country.
The genocide continued for roughly three months. As the level of violence escalated, groups of Tutsis fled to places that in previous times of turmoil had provided safety: churches, schools, and government buildings. Many of these refuges became the sites of major massacres. The Rwandan military and Hutu paramilitary forces carried out the massacres using guns and explosives.
In addition to mass killings, thousands and thousands of Tutsis and people suspected of being Tutsis were killed in their homes and fields and on the road. Militias set up roadblocks across the country to prevent the victims from escaping. In cities, towns, and even the tiniest villages, Hutus answered the call of their local leaders to murder their Tutsi neighbors. Entire families were killed at a time, often hacked to death with machetes.
Women were systematically and brutally raped. Hundreds of thousands of Rwandan Hutus participated in the genocide. As many as one million people, mostly Tutsis, were slaughtered in days. The RPF overthrew the Hutu government and seized power. More than one million Hutus, including many of the genocidaires, fled to neighboring countries. Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. Genocide is a term used to describe violence against members of a national, ethnic, racial or religious group with the intent to destroy the entire group.
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