Human occupation of Rwanda is thought to have begun shortly after the last ice age. By the 11th century,the inhabitants had organized into a number of kingdoms. In the 19th century,Mwami (king) Rwabugiri of the Kingdom of Rwanda conducted a decades-long process of military conquest and administrative consolidation that resulted in the kingdom coming to control most of what is now Rwanda. The colonial powers,Germany and Belgium,allied with the Rwandan court.
The Tutsi,also called Watusi,Watutsi or Abatutsi,are an ethnic group of the African Great Lakes region. They are a Bantu-speaking ethnic group and the second largest of three main ethnic groups in Rwanda and Burundi.
Roméo Antonius Dallaire is a retired Canadian politician and military officer who was a senator from Quebec from 2005 to 2014,and a lieutenant-general in the Canadian Armed Forces. He notably was the force commander of UNAMIR,the ill-fated United Nations peacekeeping force for Rwanda between 1993 and 1994,and for trying to stop the genocide that was being waged by Hutu extremists against Tutsis. Dallaire is a Senior Fellow at the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (MIGS) and co-director of the MIGS Will to Intervene Project.
The Rwandan genocide,also known as the genocide against the Tutsi,occurred between 7 April and 19 July 1994 during the Rwandan Civil War. During this period of around 100 days,members of the Tutsi minority ethnic group,as well as some moderate Hutu and Twa,were killed by armed Hutu militias. Although the Constitution of Rwanda states that more than 1 million people perished in the genocide,the demographic evidence suggests that the real number killed was likely lower. The most widely accepted scholarly estimates are around 500,000 to 662,000 Tutsi deaths.
Théoneste Bagosora was a Rwandan military officer. He was chiefly known for his key role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide for which he was sentenced to life imprisonment by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). In 2011,the sentence was reduced to 35 years' imprisonment on appeal. He was due to be imprisoned until he was 89. According to RenéLemarchand,Bagosora was "the chief organizer of the killings". On 25 September 2021,he died in a prison hospital in Mali,where he was being treated for heart issues.
The assassination of presidents Juvénal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira in the evening of April 6,1994 was the proximate trigger for the Rwandan genocide,which resulted in the murder of approximately 800,000 Tutsi and a smaller number of moderate Hutu. The first few days following the assassinations included a number of key events that shaped the subsequent course of the genocide. These included:the seizing of power by an interim government directed by the hard-line Akazu clique;the liquidation of opposition Hutu politicians;the implementation of plans to carry out a genocide throughout the country;and the murder of United Nations peacekeepers,contributing to the impulse of the international community to refrain from intervention.
The failure of the international community to effectively respond to the Rwandan genocide of 1994 has been the subject of significant criticism. During a period of around 100 days,between 7 April and 15 July,an estimated 500,000-1,100,000 Rwandans,mostly Tutsi and moderate Hutu,were murdered by Interahamwe militias.
Pauline Nyiramasuhuko is a Rwandan politician who was the Minister for Family Welfare and the Advancement of Women. She was convicted of having incited troops and militia to carry out rape during the Rwandan genocide of 1994. She was tried for genocide and incitement to rape as part of the "Butare Group" at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha,Tanzania. In June 2011,she was convicted of seven charges and sentenced to life imprisonment. Nyiramasuhuko is the first woman to be convicted of genocide by the ICTR,and the first woman to be convicted of genocidal rape.
The Rwandan Civil War was a large-scale civil war in Rwanda which was fought between the Rwandan Armed Forces,representing the country's government,and the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) from 1 October 1990 to 18 July 1994. The war arose from the long-running dispute between the Hutu and Tutsi groups within the Rwandan population. A 1959–1962 revolution had replaced the Tutsi monarchy with a Hutu-led republic,forcing more than 336,000 Tutsi to seek refuge in neighbouring countries. A group of these refugees in Uganda founded the RPF which,under the leadership of Fred Rwigyema and Paul Kagame,became a battle-ready army by the late 1980s.
Sometimes in April is a 2005 American made-for-television historical drama film about the 1994 Rwandan Genocide,written and directed by the Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck. The ensemble cast includes Idris Elba,Oris Erhuero,Carole Karemera,and Debra Winger.
Kangura was a Kinyarwanda and French-language magazine in Rwanda that served to stoke ethnic hatred in the run-up to the Rwandan genocide. The magazine was established in 1990,following the invasion of the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF),and continued publishing up to the genocide. Edited by Hassan Ngeze,the magazine was a response to the RPF-sponsored Kanguka,adopting a similar informal style. "Kangura" was a Rwandan word meaning "wake others up",as opposed to "Kanguka",which meant "wake up". The journal was based in Gisenyi.
On the evening of 6 April 1994,the aircraft carrying Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira,both Hutu,was shot down with surface-to-air missiles as their jet prepared to land in Kigali,Rwanda;both were killed. The assassination set in motion the Rwandan genocide,one of the bloodiest events of the late 20th century.
Seth Sendashonga was the Minister of the Interior in the government of national unity in Rwanda,following the military victory of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) after the 1994 genocide. One of the politically moderate Hutus in the National Unity Cabinet,he became increasingly disenchanted with the RPF and was eventually forced from office in 1995 after criticizing government policies. After surviving a 1996 assassination attempt while in exile in Kenya,he launched a new opposition movement,the Forces de Résistance pour la Démocratie (FRD). Sendashonga was killed by unidentified gunmen in May 1998. The Rwandan government is widely believed to be responsible for the assassination.
These are some of the articles related to Rwanda on the English Wikipedia pages:
The 1996 Burundian coup d'état was a military coup d'état that took place in Burundi on 25 July 1996. In the midst of the Burundi Civil War,former president Pierre Buyoya deposed Hutu President Sylvestre Ntibantunganya. According to Amnesty International,in the weeks following the coup,more than 6,000 people were killed in the country. This was Buyoya's second successful coup,having overthrown Jean-Baptiste Bagaza in 1987.
Rosemary Museminali is a Rwandan politician and diplomat,currently working for the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS),as its representative at the African Union and United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. Museminali is best known for her role as the Rwandan Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation from 2005 until 2009. She has also served as the country's Minister of State for International Cooperation and as ambassador to the United Kingdom.
The role of France in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi has been a source of controversy and debate both within and beyond France and Rwanda. France actively supported the Hutu-led government of Juvénal Habyarimana against the Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front,which since 1990 had been engaged in a conflict intended to restore the rights of Rwandan Tutsis both within Rwanda and exiled in neighboring countries following over four decades of anti-Tutsi violence. France provided arms and military training to Habyarimana's militias,the Interahamwe and Impuzamugambi,which were among the government's primary means of operationalizing the genocide following the assassination of Juvénal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira on April 6,1994.
Arlene Render is an American former diplomat. An officer of the United States Foreign Service,she served as the United States Ambassador to the Gambia,Zambia,and Ivory Coast. She was also noted for her role amidst the initial onset of the Rwandan genocide.
The Ikiza,or the Ubwicanyi (Killings),was a series of mass killings—often characterised as a genocide—which were committed in Burundi in 1972 by the Tutsi-dominated army and government,primarily against educated and elite Hutus who lived in the country. Conservative estimates place the death toll of the event between 100,000 and 150,000 killed,while some estimates of the death toll go as high as 300,000.
Rwanda–Turkey relations are the foreign relations between Rwanda and Turkey. Turkey has an embassy in Kigali since December 2014. Rwanda's embassy in Ankara opened in August 2013.
