Sociology

Overview of Rwanda
Rwanda is a small country (smaller than state of Maryland, USA) in East Africa bordering Uganda, Tanzania, DRC and Burundi. Most of the countrys terrain is covered by mountains and valleys. Rwanda was originally inhabited by the Twa pigmies who constitutes about one percent of the country population today. Other ethnic groups living in Rwanda are the Tutsi and Hutu who have common cultural values although they are considered as different ethnic communities. Traditionally, the only difference between the Hutu and the Tutsi is their economic occupation where the Hutu were farmers and the Tutsi were pastoralists. The two groups have similar traditions and cultural values, have similar languages and intermarried freely. The Tutsi are however physically taller than the Hutu although it is not easy to differentiate them.

Between 1890 and the end of the First World War, Rwanda was part of the larger German East Africa. After the First World War, it became part of the Belgium colony under the League of Nations agreement. The country however attained independent in 1962. The Hutu form the larger part of Rwanda population while the Tutsi are believed to have migrated from North Africa. The country has received a lot of attention globally since the last decade of the 20th century as a result of 1994 genocide where over eight hundred thousand people died. However, the country moved forward and significantly recovered. The case of Rwanda has been considered the biggest success in reestablishment of political and economic stability as well as international integration. The country has moved from a misery torn country into a model developing country within a period of less that two decades (Infoplease, 2009).              
Statement of the Problem
The Tutsi were farmers, the land owners in Rwanda while the Hutu were workers in the lands. This led to the high increase of the Hutus population and resulted in population imbalance. This imbalance created some sought of polarity between the two ethnic groups who had lived peacefully together for many years. The polarity was made worse by the arrival of the European colonialist in the country. This was a common policy among the colonialist who employed the divide and rule mechanism to introduce their administration in the African community. They gave privilege to one group at the expense of the other increasing polarity between the two ethnic groups. Belgium colonialists favored the Tutsi who were the landowners and considered to have European eyes and authority. The privileges given to the Tutsis unintentionally created social classes which triggered instability in Rwanda. The Tutsi started behaving live nobles while the Hutus felt oppressed creating ethnic tension. The colonialist had also introduced weapons and modern war techniques among the ethnic groups

The role of the catholic missionaries in the already polarized society turned the situation from bad to worse. They introduced new ethnic twists where they educated the Hutus and showed them how they were oppressed by the Tutsi and the colonial administrators. They therefore inspired the Hutus to participate in the revolution which resulted into genocide. Since they were backed by the European missionaries, they started armed resistance movements. The revolutions started in the mid 20th century where they stripped of the Tutsis their lands and forced most of them to flee to neighboring countries. When Rwanda attained independence in 1962, a Hutu government was established which was run by inexperienced individuals leading to internal conflicts. The Tutsis on the other hand had started reorganizing themselves into militia groups such as the Rwandan Patriotic Front. The Hutu government continued to frustrate the Tutsi resistance in 1970s and 1980s where they were denied equal education opportunities. In 1990, the tension was too high and the Rwandan Patriotic Front militia seized the opportunity and attacked which marked the beginning of civil war in Rwanda (PPU, n d).

The Genocide
After the civil war started in 1990, the United Nations and regional and international organization backed efforts to reestablish stability in the country. The involvement of Tutsi in the multiparty government proposed by the United Nations was opposed by the Hutus and extremists although the civil war ended in 1993. However, this was not the end of the hostility between the two ethnic groups. In April 1994, the Hutus final solution was triggered by the shooting down of the presidential plane which led to the death of the president. They accused the Tutsi of assassination of the president. It was then announced through the media or directly that it was the responsibility of all the Hutus to eliminate the Tutsi. This marked the beginning of the genocide.

By the time the RPF took over the countrys control, about one million people had died from the massacre. Unlike other genocides such as the holocaust and the Armenian, nothing in the genocide was kept as a secret. Local and international media reported what was happening on the ground after the end of the genocide. Moreover, there was a United Nations force, UNAMIR who watched as people were killed but claimed that there mandate was to protect the foreigners and therefore could not intervene.  Most of the killings were done by use of machete and clubs but the army provided back up where the killers were faced with resistance. The genocide was supported and funded by prominent people in the country such as the politicians and rich government officials and intellectuals (Romeo, 2004).

Types of Solutions
There are arguments that the international community through the United Nations could have prevented the genocide. The United Nations had received more than ten warnings about the planned final solution by the Hutu power. One of these warnings was through a telegram about three months before the start of the genocide which was sent to the United Nations Secretary General by UNAMIR commander. The United Nations Security Council however met after the violence had started and their meeting was a secret. In the meeting, the British government proposed that the United Nations force in Rwanda should pull out immediately went against the United States proposal who later send a mission to find the details of the genocide when the number of deaths reached hundreds of thousands. The UN Security Council was not convinced that the killings in Rwanda amounted to genocide and therefore did not take any action. By the time it was clear without reasonable doubts that genocide was going on in Rwanda, the international community was too late to take action.

After the United States Secretary of State, Warren Christopher declared that what was happening in Rwanda was in facts genocide, the United States government offered to send armoured vehicles to assist the UNAMIR forces in the life saving missions before they left the country. However, the US government did not accept the request to use their technology to disrupt the transmission of radio messages that incited the people to kill each other. The US government claimed that it was committed to the principle of freedom of speech and could not take such measures. Surprisingly, France supported the inhumane government in some aspect. France had been known to be a strong supporter of French speaking states. It is believed that one of the French general advised the killers to take care of their international image by covering the corpses with banana leaves to keep them out of view of aerial cameras by international media (Spalding, 2008).  

The United Nations Security Council also acknowledged the event in Rwanda as acts of genocide and offered to come up with a solution. Many nations in the world including the United States, France and neighboring African countries offered humanitarian aids to the country which led to the stoppage of the violence. Although the UNAMIR initially claimed to have no mandate to intervene in finding a solution to the violence, they later participated in life saving mission where they saved up to twenty thousand Tutsis from the killers. French forces were also deployed in Rwanda by the United Nations security councils to assist in humanitarian missions. Although in most incidences they arrived at the scene after the killers had massacred the civilians, they were able to reduce violence in southwest regions. However, there is no doubt that the international community through the United Nations could have prevented the mass death in Rwanda. The international community took time when the situation was already beyond control. If the international community had taken the necessary measures at the right time the magnitude of inhumane acts would have been less.    

Finally, the RPF took control over the country when they capture Kigali which led to the collapse of the Hutu government and the end of genocide. After the fall of the Hutu government, over 2 million Hutus moved out of Rwanda into refugee camps in Zaire. Most of the refugees in the camps admitted involvement in the massacre although with time they realized the risk of testifying their illegal acts. Although there are militia groups from both the Hutu and the Tutsi community in Rwanda or in Congo, the country has continued to enjoy political and social stability over the last decade. However, the presence of refugees from Rwanda in Congo has resulted into a volatile situation in Congo which has caused over five millions deaths (Barnett, 2002).

Conclusion
The genocide in Rwanda is special in its own way. The most amazing aspect of the genocide is that nothing was kept as a secret. The perpetrators proudly admitted their involvement in the massacre before they realized the risk of conviction by the international criminal court. The mass murder was organized and led by prominent Hutu personalities and government officials. One of these government officials was Bagosora who was a retired colonel and a Hutu extremist. He served as the defense minister at the time the violence erupted. Other prominent personalities included the countries first lady Mme who played a major role in the organization of the genocide after the murder of his husband.

It is indisputable that the Hutu interim government offered incentives such as food supply, drugs and even military uniform to the youths who participated in the genocide. The incentives attracted a large number of jobless youths where up to 60 percent of the youths in the country were recruited as killers. Social aspects such as poverty, unemployment and hopelessness contributed to the large number of youths willing to participate in the genocide. Genocide was therefore the best thing to do as revenge against the social elite given that they had the backing of the authority. Women also involved themselves in mass killing where they exhibited unexpected cruelty against children, women and even men from the rival community. Despite the international community denying that the event in Rwanda was acts of genocide at the start and the accusation that the international community through the United Nations allowed inhumane acts to continue in Rwanda, six years after the genocide, Belgium government apologized on the behalf of the international community for their delayed intervention. The United Nations also instituted the international criminal tribunal for Rwanda to try suspected perpetrators of the genocide. Some prominent personalities have been put in prison for organizing and funding the genocide and over one hundred thousand people have been jailed for involvement in the genocide (Jones, 2002).

In conclusion, the Rwanda genocide will remain in the books of history for many generations. It was well organized where people were killed by their neighbors, workmates, friends or even relatives through marriage. However, Rwanda has been able to recover from the aftermath of the genocide, politically and socially and has developed to be a model developing country in the 21st century.