What was the biggest massacre in Africa history? In 1990, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a rebel group composed mostly of Tutsi refugees
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What was the biggest massacre in Africa history?
In
1990, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a rebel group composed mostly
of Tutsi refugees, invaded northern Rwanda from their base in Uganda,
initiating the Rwandan Civil War. Over the course of the next three
years, neither side was able to gain a decisive advantage. In an effort
to bring the war to a peaceful end, the Rwandan government led by Hutu
president, Juvénal Habyarimana signed the Arusha Accords with the RPF on
4 August 1993.
The catalyst became Habyarimana's assassination on 6 April 1994,
creating a power vacuum and ending peace accords. Genocidal killings
began the following day when majority Hutu soldiers, police, and militia
murdered key Tutsi and moderate Hutu military and political leaders.
The scale and brutality of the genocide caused shock worldwide, but no country intervened to forcefully stop the killings.
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Most of the victims were killed in their own villages or towns, many by their neighbors and fellow villagers. Hutu gangs searched out victims hiding in churches and school buildings. The militia murdered victims with machetes and rifles. Sexual violence was rife, with an estimated 250,000 to 500,000 women raped during the genocide. The RPF quickly resumed the civil war once the genocide started and captured all government territory, ending the genocide and forcing the government and génocidaires into Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo).
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The
genocide had lasting and profound effects. In 1996, the RPF-led Rwandan
government launched an offensive into Zaire, home to exiled leaders of
the former Rwandan government and many Hutu refugees, starting the First
Congo War and killing an estimated 200,000 people. Today, Rwanda has
two public holidays to mourn the genocide, and "genocide ideology" and
"divisionism" are criminal offences.
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Genocidal
killings began the following day. Soldiers, police, and militia quickly
executed key Tutsi and moderate Hutu military and political leaders who
could have assumed control in the ensuing power vacuum. Checkpoints and
barricades were erected to screen all holders of the national ID card
of Rwanda, which contained ethnic classifications. This enabled
government forces to systematically identify and kill Tutsi.
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They
also recruited and pressured Hutu civilians to arm themselves with
machetes, clubs, blunt objects, and other weapons and encouraged them to
rape, maim, and kill their Tutsi neighbors and to destroy or steal
their property. The RPF restarted its offensive soon after Habyarimana's
assassination. It rapidly seized control of the northern part of the
country and captured Kigali about 100 days later in mid-July, bringing
an end to the genocide.
During these events and in the aftermath, the United Nations (UN)
and countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, and
Belgium were criticized for their inaction and failure to strengthen the
force and mandate of the UN Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR)
peacekeepers.
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