Warning: Contains graphic images. In , the Hutus overthrew the Tutsi monarchy and tens of thousands of Tutsis fled to neighbouring countries, including Uganda. A group of Tutsi exiles formed a rebel group, the Rwandan Patriotic Front RPF , which invaded Rwanda in and fighting continued until a peace deal was agreed.
On the night of 6 April a plane carrying then-President Juvenal Habyarimana, and his counterpart Cyprien Ntaryamira of Burundi - both Hutus - was shot down, killing everyone on board. Hutu extremists blamed the RPF and immediately started a well-organised campaign of slaughter. The RPF said the plane had been shot down by Hutus to provide an excuse for the genocide. With meticulous organisation.
Lists of government opponents were handed out to militias who went and killed them, along with all of their families. Neighbours killed neighbours and some husbands even killed their Tutsi wives, saying they would be killed if they refused. At the time, ID cards had people's ethnic group on them, so militias set up roadblocks where Tutsis were slaughtered, often with machetes which most Rwandans kept around the house.
Thousands of Tutsi women were taken away and kept as sex slaves. 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. New York, Palgrave and Macmillan. United Nations. Country presentation by the government of Rwanda. Third United Nations conference on the least developed countries, Brussels. From Classroom to Conflict in Rwanda.
New York, Cambridge University Press. Weinstein, K. Murphy, and T. Page Never Again: Educational Reconstruction in Rwanda. Survivors Fund needs your financial support now to enable survivors of the genocide in Rwanda to reclaim and rebuild their lives. 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. More than five million people have died in the violence.
Its mission was to bring to justice those accused of high level crimes. On September 2, , the ICTR delivered the first conviction for genocide by an international court. It ruled that Jean-Paul Akayesu was guilty of inciting and leading acts of violence against Tutsi civilians in the town where he served as mayor. This judgment was also the first by an international court to define rape as a crime in international law and to recognize rape as a means of committing genocide.
In another landmark case, the ICTR convicted a newspaper publisher and a radio station owner of the crime of incitement to genocide a third defendant was found guilty as well, but was acquitted on appeal.
It was the first time since the Nuremberg trial of the major German war criminals that an international court examined the responsibility of the media for mass atrocities. In all, the ICTR indicted 93 persons and convicted 62 for crimes in connection with the genocide. Those prosecuted included high-level military and government officials, politicians and businessmen, and religious, media, and militia leaders.
Within Rwanda, the national courts tried more than 10, persons for planning the genocide or committing atrocities. In , the government also implemented the traditional community court system known as gacaca pronounced ga-CHA-cha. These courts heard the cases of the additional hundreds of thousands of Rwandans accused of participating in the genocide. In communities throughout the country, locally elected judges heard victims and witnesses testify. The judges also gave the defendants the opportunity to confess and ask for forgiveness.
The gacaca courts tried more than 1.
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