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Welcome to sairomi's site. This is my political issue class project and i chose Rwanda. I am a senior
at Milwaukie High School. Do you want to learn about Rwanda?
Background
In 1894-1916, Rwanda occupied and colonized by the Germans, during World War 1 the country was taken over by the Belgians,
who ruled Rwanda until 1962. Tutsis and the Hutus considered them as a different "tribes". As Gerard Prunier notes,
the Tutsi were generally thin, tall, and more European looking that the Hutus. The colonizers decied that the Tutsi and the
Hutu were two different races. It was also the Belgians who instituted the identity-card system that designated every Rwandan
as Hutu, Tutsi, or Twa.
Accordingly, the Belgians switched their allegiance to the Hutus. Hutu murdered about 15,000 Tutsis between 1959 and 1962,
and more than 100,000 Tutsis fled to another countried like Uganda and Burundi. After 1986, Tutsis in Uganda formed a guerrilla
organization, the Rwandan Patrioric Front(RPF), which aimed to invade Rwanda and overthrow the Habyarimana(president of Rwanda)
regime.
In 1990, the RPF launched its invasion, occupying zones in the northeast of Rwanda. In August 1993, president of Rwanda
Habyarimana accepted an internationally-mediated peace treaty.
In early 1992, Some of Hutu extremists had begun devising their own solution to the Tutsi problem.
Many of those who involved in genocide saw themselves as defending their country.
On April 6, 1994, president Habyarimana's plane was shot down by Hutu's air missile.
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What Happened?
Within 24 hours of the president's plane exploded , manned by the so-called interahamwe militia
blocked the roads around Kigali. Tutsis were separated from Hutus and killed by Hutus. Also, a lot of tall Hutus were presumed
to be Tutsis and were killed by their people.
Hutus murdered not only Tutsis but some Hutus, including the prime
minister, Agathe Uwilingiyimana. The prime minister was guarded by Belgian soldiers, but they were arrested, disarmed, tortured,
and murdered by Hutus.
By April 21, about a quarter of a million Tutsis and moderated Hutus had been slaughtered. And
by the end of April, according to Human Rights Watch, half of the Tutsi population of Rwanda had been killed by Hutus. A lot
of children like boys and girls were killed by Hutus, too. Also, a lot of women lost their lives, but before they killed or
even if someone survived from being killed, been raped by Hutus.
Human Rights Watch noted that thousands of women were raped, gang-raped, raped with objects such
as sharpened sticks or gun barrels, held in sexual slavery. Also, according to witnesses, many women were killed immediately
after being raped. On July 4, 1994, Kigali fell to the RPF, and the genocide finally came to the end on July 18.
After the war the members of the Widows of Genocide Organization showed that two-thirds of 25,000
Tutsi women were found to be HIV-positive after they've been raped.
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