Rwanda genocide Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Rwanda genocide - Essay Example Concerned countries of the world have often refused to act in time to stop these events even though ample signs of trouble were apparent. Racial superiority has traditionally been an issue for various countries, at one point or another in their history, but none worse than that displayed by the Tutsis over the Hutus in Rwanda Feelings of hatred have been translated into outright acts of violence against those viewed as inferior, and this, at times, prompted retaliation against their oppressors as in the case of Rwanda. â€Å"Rwandan genocide took place between April and June 1994. During this tragic period of 3 months, some 800,000 Rwandans died, the majority was ethnically Tutsis, murdered by their rival countrymen, the Hutus† (Le, 2004). The Rwanda genocide was spread out over the span of three months. Hutu uprising against their fellow citizens was triggered when Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu and the then Rwandan president, was killed in a rocket attack at his plane near Kigali airport, on 6 April 1994 (Le, 2004). Tutsi leader, Paul Kagame (the current Rwandan President, but then, the leader of the Rwandan Patriotic Front) was blamed for the attack and death of the president (Le, 2004). This was denied by Kagame, who blamed the attack on Hutu extremists. Nevertheless, within a few hours of the at tack, violence broke out all over the country; and such violence would not wane for three months after the assassination of Habyarimana (Martin, 2003). By then, nearly one million Rwandans had lost their lives. Media is one of the strong tools and starting point of the progression that led to genocide. â€Å"Radio was extensively utilized as the support medium for sowing the seeds of deep hatred against the Hutus in the penultimate stage, by projecting them indiscriminately as liars, thieves and killers† (Assah, 1994). Hutus, as a race, was thus subjected to intense stigmatization; their eventual annihilation as the only