Rwandan genocide

Rwandan genocide
Rwandan genocide
Part of the Rwandan Civil War
	Human skulls at the Nyamata Genocide Memorial Centre
Location	Rwanda
Date	7 April – 19 July 1994
Target	Tutsi population and moderate Hutus
Attack type	Genocide, mass murder, genocidal rape
Deaths	Estimated: 491,000–800,000 Tutsis &; 10,000 Twa
Victims	250,000 to 500,000 Tutsi women raped during the genocide.
Perpetrators	Hutu-led government (led by Théoneste Bagosora); Interahamwe (led by Robert Kajuga); Impuzamugambi (led by Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza and Hassan Ngeze); Other militias and gangs financed by Félicien Kabuga; local Hutu extremists;
Motive	Anti-Tutsi sentiment, Hutu Power

The Rwandan genocide, also known as the genocide against the Tutsi, occurred between 7 April and 19 July 1994 during the Rwandan Civil War.^[4]^[5] During this period of around 100 days, members of the Tutsi minority ethnic group, as well as some moderate Hutu and Twa, were killed by armed Hutu militias. Although the Constitution of Rwanda states that more than 1 million people perished in the genocide, the actual number of fatalities is unclear, and some estimates suggest that the real number killed was likely lower.^[6]^[5]^[7] The most widely accepted scholarly estimates are around 500,000 to 800,000 Tutsi deaths.^[8]

In 1990, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a rebel group composed mostly of Tutsi refugees, invaded northern Rwanda from their base in Uganda, initiating the Rwandan Civil War. Over the course of the next three years, neither side was able to gain a decisive advantage. In an effort to bring the war to a peaceful end, the Rwandan government led by Hutu president, Juvénal Habyarimana^[9] signed the Arusha Accords with the RPF on 4 August 1993. The catalyst became Habyarimana's assassination on 6 April 1994, creating a power vacuum and ending peace accords. Genocidal killings began the following day when majority Hutu soldiers, police, and militia murdered key Tutsi and moderate Hutu military and political leaders.

The scale and brutality of the genocide caused shock worldwide, but no country intervened to forcefully stop the killings.^[10] Most of the victims were killed in their own villages or towns, many by their neighbors and fellow villagers. Hutu gangs searched out victims hiding in churches and school buildings. The militia murdered victims with machetes and rifles.^[11] Sexual violence was rife, with an estimated 250,000 to 500,000 women raped during the genocide.^[3] The RPF quickly resumed the civil war once the genocide started and captured all government territory, ending the genocide and forcing the government and génocidaires into Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo).

The genocide had lasting and profound effects. In 1996, the RPF-led Rwandan government launched an offensive into Zaire, home to exiled leaders of the former Rwandan government and many Hutu refugees, starting the First Congo War and killing an estimated 200,000 people. Today, Rwanda has two public holidays to mourn the genocide, and "genocide ideology" and "divisionism" are criminal offences.^[12]^[13]

^ Meierhenrich, Jens (2020). "How Many Victims Were There in the Rwandan Genocide? A Statistical Debate". Journal of Genocide Research. 22 (1): 72–82. doi:10.1080/14623528.2019.1709611. S2CID 213046710. The lower bound for Tutsi deaths is 491,000 (McDoom), see page 75 mention
^ Cite error: The named reference AmericanUniversity was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ ^a ^b Nowrojee 1996.
^ Barnett, Michael (2015). Eyewitness to a Genocide: The United Nations and Rwanda (Afterword ed.). Cornell University Press. pp. 1, 15, 131–132. ISBN 978-0-8014-3883-7.
^ ^a ^b Meierhenrich, Jens (2020). "How Many Victims Were There in the Rwandan Genocide? A Statistical Debate". Journal of Genocide Research. 22 (1): 72–82. doi:10.1080/14623528.2019.1709611. S2CID 213046710. Despite the various methodological disagreements among them, none of the scholars who participated in this forum gives credence to the official figure of 1,074,107 victims... Given the rigour of the various quantitative methodologies involved, this forum's overarching finding that the death toll of 1994 is nowhere near the one-million-mark is – scientifically speaking – incontrovertible.
^ Cite error: The named reference McDoom was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^ Reydams, Luc (2020). "'More than a million': the politics of accounting for the dead of the Rwandan genocide". Review of African Political Economy. 48 (168): 235–256. doi:10.1080/03056244.2020.1796320. S2CID 225356374. The government eventually settled on 'more than a million', a claim which few outside Rwanda have taken seriously.
^ Guichaoua, André (2 January 2020). "Counting the Rwandan Victims of War and Genocide: Concluding Reflections". Journal of Genocide Research. 22 (1): 125–141. doi:10.1080/14623528.2019.1703329. ISSN 1462-3528. S2CID 213471539. Archived from the original on 17 February 2022. Retrieved 27 May 2021.
^ Sullivan, Ronald (7 April 1994). "Juvenal Habyarimana, 57, Ruled Rwanda for 21 Years". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 13 June 2023. Retrieved 19 February 2020.
^ "Ignoring Genocide (HRW Report – Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda, March 1999)". www.hrw.org. Archived from the original on 28 October 2023. Retrieved 16 June 2019.
^ Prunier 1995, p. 247.
^ Sullo, Pietro (2018). "Writing History Through Criminal Law: State-Sponsored Memory in Rwanda". The Palgrave Handbook of State-Sponsored History After 1945. Palgrave Macmillan UK. pp. 69–85. ISBN 978-1-349-95306-6.
^ Yakaré-Oulé, Jansen (11 April 2014). "Denying Genocide or Denying Free Speech? A Case Study of the Application of Rwanda's Genocide Denial Laws". Northwestern Journal of Human Rights. 12 (2): 192. Archived from the original on 16 June 2019. Retrieved 16 June 2019.

[1] Meierhenrich, Jens (2020). "How Many Victims Were There in the Rwandan Genocide? A Statistical Debate". Journal of Genocide Research. 22 (1): 72–82. doi:10.1080/14623528.2019.1709611. S2CID 213046710. The lower bound for Tutsi deaths is 491,000 (McDoom), see page 75 mention

[AmericanUniversity-2] Cite error: The named reference AmericanUniversity was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[FOOTNOTENowrojee1996-3] Nowrojee 1996.

[4] Barnett, Michael (2015). Eyewitness to a Genocide: The United Nations and Rwanda (Afterword ed.). Cornell University Press. pp. 1, 15, 131–132. ISBN 978-0-8014-3883-7.

[Meierhenrich-5] Meierhenrich, Jens (2020). "How Many Victims Were There in the Rwandan Genocide? A Statistical Debate". Journal of Genocide Research. 22 (1): 72–82. doi:10.1080/14623528.2019.1709611. S2CID 213046710. Despite the various methodological disagreements among them, none of the scholars who participated in this forum gives credence to the official figure of 1,074,107 victims... Given the rigour of the various quantitative methodologies involved, this forum's overarching finding that the death toll of 1994 is nowhere near the one-million-mark is – scientifically speaking – incontrovertible.

[McDoom-6] Cite error: The named reference McDoom was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

[Reydams-7] Reydams, Luc (2020). "'More than a million': the politics of accounting for the dead of the Rwandan genocide". Review of African Political Economy. 48 (168): 235–256. doi:10.1080/03056244.2020.1796320. S2CID 225356374. The government eventually settled on 'more than a million', a claim which few outside Rwanda have taken seriously.

[:2-8] Guichaoua, André (2 January 2020). "Counting the Rwandan Victims of War and Genocide: Concluding Reflections". Journal of Genocide Research. 22 (1): 125–141. doi:10.1080/14623528.2019.1703329. ISSN 1462-3528. S2CID 213471539. Archived from the original on 17 February 2022. Retrieved 27 May 2021.

[9] Sullivan, Ronald (7 April 1994). "Juvenal Habyarimana, 57, Ruled Rwanda for 21 Years". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 13 June 2023. Retrieved 19 February 2020.

[10] "Ignoring Genocide (HRW Report – Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda, March 1999)". www.hrw.org. Archived from the original on 28 October 2023. Retrieved 16 June 2019.

[FOOTNOTEPrunier1995247-11] Prunier 1995, p. 247.

[12] Sullo, Pietro (2018). "Writing History Through Criminal Law: State-Sponsored Memory in Rwanda". The Palgrave Handbook of State-Sponsored History After 1945. Palgrave Macmillan UK. pp. 69–85. ISBN 978-1-349-95306-6.

[:4-13] Yakaré-Oulé, Jansen (11 April 2014). "Denying Genocide or Denying Free Speech? A Case Study of the Application of Rwanda's Genocide Denial Laws". Northwestern Journal of Human Rights. 12 (2): 192. Archived from the original on 16 June 2019. Retrieved 16 June 2019.

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