How long did rwanda genocide last

Meanwhile, the RPF resumed fighting, and civil war raged alongside the genocide. In response, more than 2 million people, nearly all Hutus, fled Rwanda, crowding into refugee camps in the Congo then called Zaire and other neighboring countries. After its victory, the RPF established a coalition government similar to that agreed upon at Arusha, with Pasteur Bizimungu, a Hutu, as president and Paul Kagame, a Tutsi, as vice president and defense minister.

As in the case of atrocities committed in the former Yugoslavia around the same time, the international community largely remained on the sidelines during the Rwandan genocide.

As reports of the genocide spread, the Security Council voted in mid-May to supply a more robust force, including more than 5, troops. By the time that force arrived in full, however, the genocide had been over for months.

In a separate French intervention approved by the U. As former U. Because in Yugoslavia the international community was interested, was involved.

In Rwanda nobody was interested. Attempts were later made to rectify this passivity. In , the ICTR began indicting and trying a number of higher-ranking people for their role in the Rwandan genocide; the process was made more difficult because the whereabouts of many suspects were unknown.

The trials continued over the next decade and a half, including the conviction of three former senior Rwandan defense and military officials for organizing the genocide.

But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! 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. The word came into general usage only after World War II, when the full extent of the atrocities committed by the Nazi In April , the government of the Yugoslav republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina declared its independence from Yugoslavia.

Over the next several years, Bosnian Serb forces, with the backing of the Serb-dominated Yugoslav army, perpetrated atrocious crimes against Bosniak Bosnian The Armenian genocide was the systematic killing and deportation of Armenians by the Turks of the Ottoman Empire. In , during World War I, leaders of the Turkish government set in motion a plan to expel and massacre Armenians.

By the early s, when the massacres and Gold from the American River! 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.

As of , the population of Rwanda was estimated at 7 million, with 85 percent of the population in the Hutu ethnic group, 14 percent Tutsi, and 1 percent Twa. Hutu nationalist group Parmehutu led a social revolution in , which overthrew the Tutsi ruling class, resulting in the death of around 20, Tutsis and the exile of another , to neighboring countries. During the genocide, thousands of Tutsi were killed, along with moderate Hutus who sympathized with their Tutsi neighbors and resisted by defending, hiding, or providing aid to their Tutsi neighbors.

Most of the killing was carried out by two Hutu radical militant groups: the Interahamwe and the Impuzamugambi. These forces were fewer in number than those of the Interahamwe. The genocide was obviously supported by the Hutu-led government MRND and members of the Rwandan army: they armed and directed militias, dispatched killing orders, and even participated in the rounding up of victims themselves.

The most unsettling co-perpetrators of the genocide, however, were those Rwandan civilians who collaborated with and supported the genocide. Unlike other genocides of the 20th century, the Rwandan genocide unfolded before the eyes of the national media.

Journalists, radio broadcasters, and TV news reporters covered the events live from Rwanda, until the violence escalated to fanatical levels and all foreigners were encouraged to evacuate.