RWANDAN GENOCIDE. Activities Preceding the 1994 Rwandan Genocide (Essay Sample)

Introduction
Rwanda is a small hilly country in East-central Africa and is a home for more than 12 million people. These people are grouped into three main social groupings; the Hutu (84%) who are the majority, the Tutsi (15%) the minority, and the Twa (1%) who comprise the much smaller group. Inter-ethnic conflict in Rwanda originates from the two main ethnic groups, the majority Hutus and the minority Tutsis. The conflict has a long history and said to exist since the independence of the Rwanda where following the First World War, the Belgians left the Tutsis to occupy positions of influence and power. A situation that was reinforced and codified. Then after independence in 1962, the Rwandan government through majority rule and also a military coup put the Hutus in control of the country for the next three decades. 120,000 people mostly Tutsis sought refuge in neighboring states to escape the violence after independence (Dallaire & Poulin, 1995).
After the exiling of the Tutsis in 1988, the Hutus founded the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a political and military group whose main function was to help return exiled citizens to Rwanda and establish a national government based on power-sharing between the two main ethnic groups. Armed conflict between the RPF and the Hutu-dominated Rwandan Government Army ensued. Then on the 6th April 1994, the Rwandan President Habyarimana’s airplane was shot down using a rocket. This sparked a full scale war between the two communities which started in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali. The spread of the war was so intense that within a hundred days about 800.000 people, mainly Tutsi, were killed by Hutu militia. The perpetrators of the genocide are said to be high ranking government officials who had made meticulous plans and used a radio station “Radio Mille Collines” known in full as “Radio-Television Libre des Mille Collines," under their control to propagate hate and spread anti-Tutsi hysteria.
Activities Preceding the 1994 Rwandan Genocide