100 days of blood and death in Rwanda: 27 years after the genocide of a million Tutsis

the Rwandan genocide it was an attempt to exterminate the Tutsi population by the hegemonic Hutu government of Rwanda between April 7 and July 15, 1994, during which approximately 70% of the Tutsi were killed. It is calculated that, in 100 days, between 800,000 and 1,000,000 people were killed in the African country.

The massacres began following the attack on April 6 of the same year, when the plane carrying Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana and his Burundian counterpart Cyprien Ntaryamira, both Hutus, was shot down by a missile during the landing at Kigali airport., Capital of Rwanda.

The Tutsis were immediately blamed and the radio was called to start the reprisals against this population.

That night, the first deaths occurred.

The next day, April 7, Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana and Belgian UN soldiers were killed by government forces. As a result, Belgium and other countries withdrew all their troops. This decision led to murders and other crimes between Tutsis and Hutus across the country. The Hutu militias mainly possessed machetes and other primitive weapons.

Not only did the dead strike the African country, but sexual violence was also widespread; between 250,000 and 500,000 women were reportedly raped during the genocide.

Here emerges the definition of genocide and this word was uttered for the first time on May 4, 1994 by the Secretary General of the United Nations, Boutros Ghali. According to the RAE, Genocide is “the systematic extermination or elimination of a social group for reasons of race, ethnicity, religion, politics or nationality”.

Currently, Rwanda is inhabited by: 84% of the Hutu ethnic group, 15% of Tutsis and 1% of Twa.

In 2003, following a referendum, political parties were prohibited from “identifying with a race, ethnicity, tribe, clan, religion, sex or any other criterion of discrimination”. In this way, Rwandans seek to prevent further genocides.

27TH ANNIVERSARY COMMEMORATION

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Wednesday commemorated the International Day of Genocide in Rwanda in 1994, and urged to take into account “the lessons of 27 years ago”, especially when “extremist movements represent the main security threat ”in many countries.

“We saw what happened in Rwanda in 1994, and we know the horrible consequences when we allow hatred to prevail”, so to prevent history from repeating itself “it is necessary to counter these hate movements which are become a transnational threat ”.

“These 1994 days remain in our collective consciousness as one of the most horrific in recent human history,” Guterres lamented in a statement referring to the genocide.

In the context of the health crisis, the growing divisions have become even more evident, as they have deeply affected the full spectrum of human rights in all regions, further fueling discrimination, social polarization and inequalities., All of which can lead to violence and inequality. conflict.

DECLASSIFICATION OF DOCUMENTS

The French government announced on Wednesday that it would facilitate public access to the large number of documents on the years leading up to and leading to the genocide in Rwanda. Among them are telegrams, confidential notes and other documents kept until now at the National Archives of France on the situation in Rwanda between 1990 and 1994.

This decision coincides with the publication of a recent report which exonerates the “genocide” committed in Rwanda against the France of socialist Mitterrand, but which noted “overwhelming” failures of French foreign policy in this regard.

In the nearly thousand pages of the report commissioned by the French presidency, a series of serious failures, deficiencies and lack of foresight on the part of the French government of the time, unable to perceive the obvious preparations for what is being forged in Rwanda, were found.

Since 1994, Rwanda, a former Belgian colony, has repeatedly accused France of complicity in the genocide, alleging that it provided training, weapons or technical expertise to the Interahamwe Hutu militias who carried out the genocide that ended their lives, in many cases cold. blood and machetes, by people of the Tutsi ethnic group and a few moderate Hutus.

In his quest to heal the wounds of the country’s colonial past, French President Emmanuel Macron in March ordered the declassification of Defense Ministry documents until 1971, which included tumultuous periods of French decolonization in Africa, such as the Algerian War (1954-1962). ).

KEEP READING: