Pictures from the Rwandan Genocide

Pictures from:

http://gentilea.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/genocide-1.jpg

http://patdollard.com/wp-content/uploads/rawanda.jpg

http://www.israaid.org.il/images/stories/short212.jpg

http://www.adventistas.com/abril2004/rwanda_massacre1.jpg

http://vjczar.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Rwandan-Genocide.jpg

http://scrapetv.com/News/News%20Pages/usa/images-3/child-rwanda-genocide.jpg

Hotel Rwanda: the Genocide in film

Hotel Rwanda is a 2004 historical drama film about the Rwandan genocide. It stars Don Cheadle and Sophie Okonedo and tells the story of one of the heroes of the Genocide, Paul Rusesabagina who acts to save the lives of his family and more than a thousand other refugees, by granting them shelter in the besieged Hôtel des Mille Collines. The video shows clips and gives a synopsis for the film. We recommend this film to all.

Key figures in the Rwandan Genocide

Juvénal Habyarimana

Juvénal Habyarimana (March 8, 1937 – April 6, 1994) was President of the Republic of Rwanda from 1973 until 1994. During his 20-year dictatorship he favored his own ethnic group, the Hutus, and supported the Hutu majority in neighboring Burundi against the Tutsi government. On April 6, 1994, he was killed when his airplane, also carrying the President of Burundi, Cyprien Ntaryamira, was shot down close to Kigali International Airport. His assassination ignited ethnic tensions in the region and helped spark the Rwandan Genocide.

Jean Kambanda

Jean Kambanda (born October 19, 1955) was the Prime Minister in the caretaker government of Rwanda from the start of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide. He is the only head of government to plead guilty to genocide, in the first group of such convictions since the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide came into effect in 1951.

Théoneste Bagosora

Colonel Théoneste Bagosora (born August 16, 1941) is a former Rwandan military officer. He is chiefly known for his role in the 1994 Rwandan Genocide.Bagosora was responsible for establishing paramilitary ‘self-defense’ units, the Interahamwe, that would operate in every commune in the country. These groups were to act in concert with the local police, militias, and military authorities. Bagosora was also responsible for distributing arms and machetes throughout Rwanda.

Augustin Bizimungu

Augustin Bizimungu (born 28 August 1952) is a former general in the Rwandan Armed Forces (FAR). In 1994, he briefly served as chief of staff of the army. During this time, he trained the soldiers and guerrillas who carried out the Rwandan Genocide.

Cyprien Ntaryamira

Cyprien Ntaryamira (6 March 1955 - 6 April 1994), was President of Burundi from 5 February 1994 until his death when his plane was shot down on 6 April 1994. The deaths touched off the Rwandan Genocide.

Faustin Twagiramungu

Faustin Twagiramungu (born 1945 in Cyangugu province) is an ethnic Hutu politician in Rwanda. He was prime minister from 1994 until his resignation in 1995, the first head of government appointed after the Rwandese Patriotic Front captured Kigali. He then exiled himself to Belgium for nearly a decade.

Bernard Ntuyahaga

Major Bernard Ntuyahaga, Rwandan Armed Forces, (probably born in 1952) was convicted by a Belgian court in the murders of ten United Nations peacekeepers at the start of the Rwandan Genocide.

Pierantonio Costa

Pierantonio Costa (1939 - living) is an Italian businessman, diplomat and a rescuer of many lives during the Rwandan genocide.During the Rwandan genocide, Pierantonio Costa was the Italian Consul in Kigali. From 6 April to 21 July 1994, Costa first saved Italians and Westerners, then he moved to his brother's property in Burundi and from there he travelled a lot across Rwanda in an unfaltering effort to rescue the people. For this purpose he used his diplomatic role, his network of frienships and acquaintances and his own money (more than 3 million dollars) to get exit permits for those who asked him for help.By the end of the genocide he had rescued 2,000 people, including 375 children. He was awarded a gold medal for civil value by the Italian government and received a similar decoration from the Belgian authorities. This is how he described his deeds: “In the midst of so much violence and suffering, I just did what I had to do. That’s all”.

Antonia Locatelli

Antonia Locatelli (1938-1992) had been an Italian volunteer in Rwanda since 1972. In 1992 she eyewitnessed the massacres of the Tutsis taking place in the Bugesera region, South of Kigali, soon after a radio had incited to manhunting. She tried to save 300-400 Tutsis, and thus phoned up the Belgian embassy, RF1 Radio and the BBC. She was murdered the day afterwards by a group of interahamwe militians who had arrived from Kigali specifically for the purpose. She nonetheless had managed to inform the world.

Jacqueline Mukansonera

Jacqueline Mukansonera (born 1963) is an ethnic Hutu from Rwanda who didn't hesitate to save Tutsi Yolande Mukagasana from genocide in 1994. Yolande turned to her at the hospital where she worked as a nurse. She was one of the first targets of the Hutu violence because she was seen as a member of the Tutsi intelligentsia. Jacqueline Mukansonera concealed her in her kitchen for 11 days. The two women didn't speak to each other during those days out of fear of discovery. Jacqueline meanwhile bribed a policeman and provided her guest with false Hutu documents. Jacqueline risked her life to save Yolande, thus proving that there is room for personal responsibility even in the midst of the most awful and extreme violence.

Paul Rusesabagina

Paul Rusesabagina (born June 15, 1954) is a Rwandan who has been internationally honoured for saving 1,268 refugees during the Rwandan Genocide. He was the assistant manager of the Sabena Hôtel des Mille Collines before he became the manager of the Hôtel des Diplomates, both in Kigali, Rwanda. During the 1994 Rwandan genocide, Rusesabagina used his influence and connections as temporary manager of the 'Mille Collines' to shelter 1,268 Tutsis and moderate Hutus from being slaughtered by the Interahamwe militia.Rusesabagina's efforts were the basis of the Academy Award nominated film Hotel Rwanda (2004).

Carl Wilkens

Carl Wilkens (1957—) is the Director of World Outside My Shoes. He is the former head of the Adventist Development and Relief Agency International in Rwanda. In 1994, he was the only one out of 257 Americans who chose to remain in the country after the genocide began.The first three weeks were spent in his house, but when there was a possibility to go out and do anything to people, who were slaughtered every day, sometimes just meters away, he gave his all to help them. It was Wilkens who saved about 400 people from Gisimba Orphanage.Vatier Orphanage and Nyamirambo Adventist Church was run by a Frenchman, Mark Vatier, and before April 1994 its main goal was to take care of 16 HIV-positive orphans. But during the genocide it was a hiding place for about 100 children. They did not have drinking water and were running out of food and it was just then that Wilkens appeared, bringing most needed supplies. None of the children spoke English nor did Carl speak Kinyarwanda, so at first children who did not know his name called him: ADRA SOS (it was written on his car). When the situation became critical (there was fighting going on between RPF and Hutu army in the area where orphanage was situated), again Wilkens tried to relocate survivors to Saint Michel Cathedral. His obstinacy allowed him to do it once again. People from the orphanage were safe. He did the same for 12 survivors from Adventist Church in Nyamirambo. They were transported to the safe haven in Hôtel des Mille Collines. When the units of Rwandan Patriotic Front took over Kigali on June 4, 1994, it was not still the end of service for Wilkens. Asked by RPF's officials, he helped distributing water, food and supplies for Kiaglis inhabitants.

Information taken from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faustin_Twagiramungu

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Ntuyahaga

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierantonio_Costa

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonia_Locatelli

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacqueline_Mukansonera

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Rusesabagina

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Wilkens

About the Rwandan Genocide

The Rwandan Genocide was the 1994 mass killing of hundreds of thousands of Rwanda's Tutsis and Hutu political moderates by the Hutu dominated government under the Hutu Power ideology. Over the course of approximately 100 days, from the assassination of Juvénal Habyarimana on April 6 through to mid-July, at least 800,000 people were killed, according to the estimate of Human Rights Watch. Other estimates of the death toll have ranged between 500,000 and 1,000,000, or as much as 20% of the total population of the country. As an ideology, Hutu Power asserted that the Tutsi intended to enslave Hutus and thus must be resisted at all costs. The assassination of Habyarimana in April 1994 was the proximate cause of the mass killings of Tutsis and pro-peace Hutus. They were carried out primarily by two Hutu militias associated with political parties: the Interahamwe and the Impuzamugambi. The genocide was directed by a Hutu power group known as the Akazu. The killing also marked the end of the peace agreement meant to end the war and the Tutsi RPF restarted their offensive, eventually defeating the army and seizing control of the country.

Numerous elite Hutu politicians have been found guilty for the organization of the genocide. The Rwandan Military and Hutu militia groups, notably the Interahamwe, systematically set out to murder all the Tutsis they could capture, irrespective of their age or sex, as well as the political moderates. Hutu civilians were forced to participate in the killings or be shot, and were instructed to kill their Tutsi neighbours. Most nations evacuated their nationals from Kigali and abandoned their embassies in the initial stages of the violence.

National radio, with the exacerbation of the situation, advised people to stay in their homes, and the Hutu power station RTLM broadcast vitriolic propaganda against Tutsis and Hutu moderates. Hundreds of roadblocks were put up by the militia around the country. Lieutenant-General Dallaire and UNAMIR were in Kigali, escorting Tutsis, and were unable to stop the Hutus from escalating their attacks.

On April 9, UN observers witnessed the massacre of children at a Polish church in Gikondo. The same day 1000 heavily armed and trained European troops arrived to escort European civilian personnel out of the country. The troops did not stay to assist UNAMIR. Media coverage picked up on the 9th as the Washington Post reported the execution of Rwandan employees of relief agencies in front of their horrified expatriate colleagues. On April 9–10, US Ambassador Rawson and 250 Americans were evacuated.

Most of the victims were killed in their villages or in towns, often by their neighbors and fellow villagers. Militia members typically murdered their victims by hacking them with machetes, although some army units used rifles. Victims were often found hiding in churches and school buildings, where Hutu gangs massacred them. Ordinary citizens were called on by local officials and government-sponsored radio to kill their neighbors, and those who refused to kill were often murdered themselves. "Either you took part in the massacres or you were massacred yourself."

Several individuals were active in attempting to halt the Rwandan genocide, or to shelter vulnerable Tutsis, as the genocide was being carried out. Among them there are Pierantonio Costa, Antonia Locatelli, Jacqueline Mukansonera, Paul Rusesabagina, Carl Wilkens, and André Sibomana. You can read about these great people in our post on the Key Figures, due out one hour after this post.

In 1998, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda made the landmark decisions that war rape in Rwanda was an element of the crime of genocide. The Trial Chamber held that "sexual assault formed an integral part of the process of destroying the Tutsi ethnic group and that the rape was systematic and had been perpetrated against Tutsi women only, manifesting the specific intent required for those acts to constitute genocide." Although no explicit written orders to rape or commit sexual violence have been found, evidence suggests that military leaders encouraged or ordered their men to rape Tutsi as well as condoned the acts taking place, without making efforts to stop them. The Special Rapporteur estimated that between 250,000 and 500,000 Rwandese women and girls had been raped.

The UN and its member states appeared largely detached from the realities on the ground. In the midst of the crisis, Lt. General Roméo Dallaire was instructed to focus UNAMIR on only evacuating foreign nationals from Rwanda. The change in orders led Belgian peacekeepers to abandon a technical school filled with 2,000 refugees, while Hutu militants waited outside, drinking beer and chanting "Hutu Power." After the Belgians left, the militants entered the school and massacred those inside, including hundreds of children. Four days later the Security Council voted to reduce UNAMIR to 260 men. The U.S. government was reluctant to involve itself in the "local conflict" in Rwanda and refused to label the killings as "genocide", a decision which then-president Bill Clinton later came to regret in a Frontline television interview. In the interview, five years after the genocide, Clinton stated that he believes if he had sent 5,000 U.S. peacekeepers, more than 500,000 lives could have been saved. The UN conceded that "acts of genocide may have been committed" on May 17, 1994. By that time, the Red Cross estimated that 500,000 Rwandans had been killed. The UN agreed to send 5,500 troops, mostly from African countries, to Rwanda. This was the original number of troops requested by General Dallaire before the killing escalated. The UN also requested 50 armoured personnel carriers from the United States, but for the transport alone they were charged $6.5 million (U.S.) by the U.S. Army. Deployment of these forces was delayed due to arguments over their cost and other factors.

Following an investigation of the plane crash of 6 April 1994 that killed both the Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira and precipitated the genocide, and in which three French crew had also died, the French judge Jean-Louis Bruguière indicted eight associates of Rwandan president Paul Kagame on November 17, 2006. President Kagame himself was not indicted, as he had immunity under French law as a head of state. Kagame denied the allegations, decrying them as politically motivated, and broke diplomatic relationships with France in November 2006. He then ordered the formation of a commission of his own Rwandan Justice Ministry's employees that was officially "charged with assembling proof of the involvement of France in the genocide" The political character of that investigation was in turn further averred when the commission issued its report solely to Kagame - symbolically on November 17, 2007, exactly one year after Bruguière's announcement - and the head of the Rwandan commission, Jean de Dieu Mucyo, stated that the commission would now "wait for President Kagame to declare whether the inquiry was valid." In July 2008, Kagame threatened to indict French nationals over the genocide if European courts did not withdraw arrest warrants issued against Rwandan officials, which by then included broader indictments against 40 Rwandan army officers by Spanish judge Fernando Andreu. Findings of the commission were released at Kagame's order on August 5, 2008 and accused the French government of knowing of preparations for the genocide and helping to train the ethnic Hutu militia members; named 33 senior French military and political officials of involvement in the genocide, including then-President Mitterrand and his then general secretary Hubert Védrine, then-Prime Minister Edouard Balladur, then-Foreign Minister Alain Juppe, and his chief aide at the time, Dominique de Villepin. A statement accompanying the release claimed that "French soldiers themselves directly were involved in assassinations of Tutsis and Hutus accused of hiding Tutsis... French forces committed several rapes on Tutsi survivors", though the latter was not documented in the report. A BBC report commented that French Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner, denied French responsibility in connection with the genocide but said that political errors had been made.

The suspicions about United Nations and French policies in Rwanda between 1990 and 1994 and allegations that France supported the Hutus led to the creation of a French Parliamentary Commission on Rwanda, which published its report on December 15, 1998. In particular, François-Xavier Verschave, former president of the French NGO Survie, which accused the French army of protecting the Hutus during the genocide, was instrumental in establishing this Parliamentary commission. The commission released its final report on December 15, 1998. It documented ambiguities and confusion in both the French and UN responses. Regarding Operation Turquoise, it regretted that the intervention took place too late, though it noted that this was better than the non-response from the UN and the opposition by the U.S. and U.K. governments to such a response. The Parliamentary Commission did not find any evidence of French participation in the genocide, of collaboration with the militias, or of willful disengagement from endangered populations, to the contrary. It documented multiple French operations, all at least partly successful, to disable genocide-inciting radio broadcasts, tasks which the UN and the United States had rejected calls for assistance with. The report concluded that there had been errors of judgment pertaining to the Rwanda Armed Forces, but before the genocide only; further errors of judgment about the scale of the threat, at the onset of the genocide; over-reliance on the UNIMAR mission without awareness that it would be undercut by the United States and other parties; and ineffective diplomacy. Ultimately, it concluded that France had been the foreign power most involved in limiting the scale of the genocide once it got started, though it regretted that more had not been done. In 2010, French President Nicolas Sarkozy acknowledged that France made "mistakes" during the genocide, but did not offer an apology.

Approximately two million Hutus, participants in the genocide, and the bystanders, with anticipation of Tutsi retaliation, fled from Rwanda, to Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda, and for the most part Zaire. Thousands of them died in epidemics of diseases common to the squalor of refugee camps, such as cholera and dysentery. The United States staged the Operation Support Hope airlift from July to September 1994 to stabilize the situation in the camps.

After the victory of the RPF, the size of UNAMIR (henceforth called UNAMIR 2) was increased to its full strength, remaining in Rwanda until March 8, 1996.

In October 1996, an uprising by the ethnic Tutsi Banyamulenge people in eastern Zaire marked the beginning of the First Congo War, and led to a return of more than 600,000 to Rwanda during the last two weeks of November. This massive repatriation was followed at the end of December 1996 by the return of 500,000 more from Tanzania after they were ejected by the Tanzanian government. Various successor organizations to the Hutu militants operated in eastern DR Congo until May 22, 2009.

Today's Celebrations April 7th!

Today is...

Day of Beauty & Mother's in Armenia

National Mourning Day (Genocide Remembrance Day) in Rwanda

Toussaint L'Ouverture Day in Haiti

Women's Day in Mozambique

World Health Day All Over the World

Memorial Day of the Rwandan Genocide

Today is the Memorial Day for the Rwandan Genocide, an event which we at Breaking perceptions consider to be of enormous significance and so have decided to dedicate today's posts to educating our perceivers on why this day is so important.