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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 International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda was an international court established in November 1994 by the United Nations Security Council in Resolution 955 in order to adjudicate people charged for the Rwandan genocide and other serious violations of international law in Rwanda, or by Rwandan citizens in nearby states, between 1 January and 31 December 1994. The court eventually convicted 61 individuals and acquitted 14.
The Interahamwe is a Hutu paramilitary organization active in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda. The Interahamwe was formed around 1990 as the youth wing of the National Republican Movement for Democracy and Development, the then-ruling party of Rwanda, and enjoyed the backing of the Hutu Power government. The Interahamwe, led by Robert Kajuga, were the main perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide, during which an estimated 500,000 to 1,000,000 Tutsi, Twa, and moderate Hutus were killed from April to July 1994, and the term "Interahamwe" was widened to mean any civilian militias or bands killing Tutsi.
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 actual number of fatalities is unclear, and some estimates suggest that the real number killed was likely lower. The most widely accepted scholarly estimates are around 500,000 to 800,000 Tutsi deaths.
Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM) was a Rwandan radio station which broadcast from July 8, 1993, to July 31, 1994. It played a significant role in inciting the Rwandan genocide that took place from April to July 1994, and has been described by some scholars as having been a de facto arm of the Hutu government.
Joseph Kavaruganda was a Rwandan jurist who served as president of Rwanda's Constitutional Court. He was killed at the beginning of the Rwandan genocide.
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 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.
Simon Bikindi was a Rwandan musician and singer who was formerly very popular in Rwanda. His patriotic and nationalist songs were playlist staples on the national radio station Radio Rwanda during the Rwandan Civil War. For his actions during the Rwandan genocide, he was tried and convicted for incitement to genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in 2008. He died of diabetes at a Beninese hospital in December 2018.
Georges Henri Yvon Joseph Ruggiu is a Belgian radio presenter who worked for Rwandan radio station Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines, which played a significant role in promoting the genocide against the Tutsi. Like the station's other broadcasters, Ruggiu incited violence against Tutsi and moderate Hutu over the air. He had become involved in Rwandan politics just two years before the genocide.
Hassan Ngeze is a Rwandan journalist and convicted war criminal best known for spreading anti-Tutsi propaganda and Hutu superiority through his newspaper, Kangura, which he founded in 1990. Ngeze was a founding member and leadership figure in the Coalition for the Defence of the Republic (CDR), a Rwandan Hutu Power political party that is known for helping to incite the genocide.
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.
Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza was a convicted génocidaire and politician associated with the Hutu Power movement. A high-ranking civil servant, Barayagwiza served as policy director within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the time of the Rwandan genocide. He has been described as one of the "masterminds" of the genocide.
Ferdinand Nahimana is a Rwandan historian, who was convicted of incitement to genocide for his role in the Rwandan genocide.
Radio Muhabura was a radio station of RPF during the Rwandan Civil War from 1990 to 1994. It was created in 1991 and broadcast from Uganda. It was the first alternative to Radio Rwanda, reaching all but the south of Rwanda by mid-1992. It was recorded by the BBC starting in 1992. It promoted armed resistance to the "extremist" Rwandan government. In an October 1992 broadcast it claimed that militia forces of the government's party had "devised traps aimed at exterminating the youth." As early as January 1993, months before the RTLM went on-air, Radio Muhabura accused the Rwandan government of genocide. It routinely denied RPF involvement in civilian killings, and promoted resistance to "Hutu power", to the Habyarimana government, and desertion by the military.
Hutu Power is a ethnic supremacist ideology that asserts the ethnic superiority of Hutu, often in the context of being superior to Tutsi and Twa, and that therefore they are entitled to dominate and murder these two groups and other minorities. Espoused by Hutu extremists, widespread support for the ideology led to the 1994 Rwandan genocide against Tutsi and their family members, the moderate Hutu who opposed the killings, and Twa who were deemed traitors. Hutu Power political parties and movements included the Akazu, Parmehutu, the Coalition for the Defence of the Republic and its Impuzamugambi paramilitary militia, and the governing National Republican Movement for Democracy and Development and its Interahamwe paramilitary militia. The theory of Hutu people being superior is most common in Rwanda and Burundi, where they make up the majority of the population. Due to its sheer destructiveness, the ideology has been compared to historical Nazism in the Western world.
Alexis Sinduhije is a Burundian journalist and politician. After founding Radio Publique Africaine during the Burundi Civil War, Sinduhije received a CPJ International Press Freedom Award and was named to the Time 100 list of most influential people. In 2007, he left journalism to run for president, but was arrested in 2008 on a charge of "insulting the president," Pierre Nkurunziza, drawing protests on his behalf from the U.S., U.K., and Amnesty International. He was found not guilty and released in 2009. The film "Kamenge, Northern Quarters" follows Sinduhije before, during, and after his incarceration.
Froduald Karamira was a Rwandan politician who was found guilty of crimes in organising the implementation of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. He was sentenced to death by a Rwandan court and was one of the last 22 individuals executed by Rwanda, in April 1998. He was an ethnic Tutsi.
Jean-Baptiste Habyalimana was a Rwandan academic and politician who served as the Prefect of Butare and was killed during the Rwandan genocide in 1994. He was the only Tutsi prefect at the time of the genocide, and also the only prefect belonging to the Liberal Party. He had resisted the genocide.
References
- ↑ "Rwanda". Africa South of the Sahara 2004. Regional Surveys of the World. Europa Publications. 2004. ISBN 1857431839.
- ↑ "Three Media Leaders convicted for Genocide | United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda".
- ↑ "Public broadcaster to streamline operations". New Times . 5 September 2013.
- ↑ Court orders Orinfor, Isango star pay Rwf 8.6M to Kayirebwa, February 2013, GreatLakesVoice, Retrieved 4 March 2016