Class: 307
Name: Zhang Yang Fan 33
Date: 18-6-07
Answer the following question.
“The Rwandan Genocide was caused by the actions of Hutu extremists.”
Using sources A-F, examine how far the evidence supports this view.
Some of the sources do show that the Rwandan Genocide was caused by the actions of Hutu extremist.
One of the sources clearly shows that Hutu extremist planed the genocide intentionally.
Source F tells us that before the 1994 genocide began, the United Nations peacekeeping department was warned about the impending bloodbath. It was told that “Hutu extremists had drawn up death lists. The slaughter was about to begin.” This shows that the Rwandan Genocide was planed beforehand by the Hutu extremist. They caused it on purpose and wished to kill Tutsis as many as possible. This is supported by my contextual knowledge as Hutu extremists used propaganda to urge Hutus to kill their Tutsi neighbors across the country.
Moreover, Hutu militia members and civil authorities coerced and, in many cases, threatened Hutus to take part in the killing of Tutsis who had been longtime friends or neighbors. This can be seen in source C as the Hutu who saved a Tutsi friend or a colleague in one place, only to go and join the killings in another. This ambivalent story does hint us that the Hutu extremists may play a threatening role to the other Hutus here. According to my contextual knowledge, there were at least 500,000 Tutsis and Hutu moderates killed in the genocide. This shows that the Rwandan Genocide was caused by the actions of Hutu extremists but it was not the general Hutus’ will.
In addition, Hutu extremists convinced people of the correctness of killing Tutsis and they were quite successful in doing so. Source E states that most of the Hutus still do not recognize that what happened to the Tutsis was a crime of enormous proportions. The Hutus viewed the incident as the fault of the Tutsis and the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). They thought that it was right and justifiable to kill the Tutsis. As a result, more and more Hutus participated in the killing and worsen the situation. A point to note is that source E is a view expressed by a journalist and the quotation in the source is said by a Hutu woman so that this argument may not be strong enough as the minority’s view cannot represent the major generation’s view.
Moreover, the Tutsis lived in terror and suffered tortures throughout the genocide. A Tutsi boy who survived the genocide said his family members were terrified in source B. They hid in a poor situation and were afraid of being found and killed by the Hutu militia. When they were rescued by RPF, the boy thought that “these were good people”. From these, we can see that the Hutus were merciless and almost killed every Tutsi in the genocide. According to my contextual knowledge, the killing targeted men, women, and children. Children were traumatized by the torture and killings they witnessed. The genocide did bring incurable pain to the Tutsis. And this was what the Hutu extremists wanted to see.
On the other hand, some sources do show that the Rwandan Genocide was not caused by the actions of Hutu extremist.
The Hutus might not be treated equally to the Tutsis politically. A historian described the colonial rule in Rwanda as Hutu were excluded from higher education and a Tutsi monopoly of public life was imposed even for the next generation. Hence Hutu were related to the laboring masses and hardly escaped. The idea of Hutu were treated as inferior to Tutsis is also reinforced by source E. A Hutu woman said,”We are not doing well because of the Tutsis and the cockroaches of the RPF who want to rule over us”. The Hutus’ unsatisfactory towards Tutsis was showed here. As a result, the genocide was not caused by the Hutu extremists but caused by the unfair treating of the Hutus in daily life.
Furthermore, whether the participation of the RPF is justifiable is still a question. In source D, twenty-seven priests presented their protesting view against RPF in a letter to the Pope. They believed that the genocide was caused by the provocation and harassment of the Rwandese people by the RPF. The number of Hutu civilians killed by the army of the RPF “exceeds by far” the Tutsi victims of the ethnic troubles. This is quite believable as the twenty-seven priests were quite a large number of people and they should be sincere to the Pope so that the point of view could represented the real situation of large proportion. Hence the actions of the Hutu extremists were not the only cause of the genocide.
In addition, it seems that the genocide could be avoided but failed because of the neglect of the world body in source F. The slow reaction of the upper department was also the cause of the genocide otherwise this tragedy might not happen.
Looking at all the sources, I believe that they largely point to the fact that the Rwandan Genocide was caused by the actions of Hutu extremist.
Although sources A, D and F do provide evidence to support the alternative view, they may not be strong enough. For example, source A does point out the unfair treatment of the Hutu but it does not specify the reaction of the Hutu extremists. The details such as reason and specific examples of the provocation and harassment of the RPF were also not provided in source D. Moreover, although the main point in source F is to blame the world body for not succeeding protecting the Rwandan people, it still clearly points out that the genocide was planed intentionally beforehand by the Hutu extremists. This clearly highlights the problems with administrative implementation, and that in reality the Rwandan Genocide was caused by the actions of Hutu extremist.
Thus, it can be seen that the Hutu extremist should take the major responsibility for causing the Rwanda Genocide. The cruelness and mercilessness that represented by their actions and the witness of the survivors should be a powerful testimony.
