Rwanda Warm-Up What’s your most favorite thing in the world? Now how would you feel if someone took it away from you? What would you do to get it back? Write your response in 5 sentences.

Vocabulary Terms for Rwanda Arusha Accords : Intended to end a three year civil war between Rwanda’s Hutu government and Tutsi-led RPF rebels, the August 1993 peace agreement called a democratically elected government with a broad based transitional government leading to the elections. Hutu extremists feeling marginalized by the agreement orchestrated the genocide.

Vocabulary Terms for Rwanda Genocide: The deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group. Interahamwe: Youth militia of the Hutu extremists trained by organizers to carry out the genocide.

Vocabulary Terms for Rwanda Hutu: Main ethnic group in Rwanda. Make up 85% of the population. The majority community in Rwanda, which during the colonial period had suffered as second-class citizens. With independence, Hutu gained and privilege through the patronage of presidents Gregiore Kayibanda and Major General Juenal Habyarimana.

Vocabulary Terms for Rwanda International Committee of the Red Cross: Also known as ICRC. A global humanitarian aid organization, the ICRC estimates it saved as many as 70,000 Rwandans targeted by the genocide without the use of force or weapons.

Vocabulary Terms for Rwanda Rwandan Armed Forces (FAR): Army of the Hutu government led by President Habyarimana. After the president’s plane was shot down, the FAR joined the Presidential Guard and the interahamwe in carrying out the genocide.

Vocabulary Terms for Rwanda Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF): Tutsi-led rebels who fought the Hutu leadership during the Rwandan civil war. They ended the genocide in While the international community refused to intervene and 800,000 Tutsis were killed, the RPF was finally successful in putting down the Hutu extremists and ending the genocide.

Vocabulary Terms for Rwanda Tutsi: Minority ethnic group in Rwanda. Make up 15% of the population. Rwanda’s largest minority community, which Belgian colonials had favored as the privileged class until Hutu revolutionaries took over political leadership in the early 1960s

Vocabulary Terms for Rwanda Transitional Government: Ruling political body shared Hutu and Tutsi leadership negotiated by the Arusha Accords. Extremists: Someone who is willing to use violence to bring about change.

Vocabulary Terms for Rwanda UNAMIR: The United Nations peacekeeping force brought in to support the Arusha Accords’ transition process. Two weeks into the genocide, the U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to withdraw most of the UMAMIR troops, cutting the force from 2,500 to 270.

Vocabulary Terms for Rwanda Belgium: European country that held Rwanda as a colony. Put the Tutsis in charge. RTML: Extremist Hutu radio station used to spread propaganda during the Rwandan genocide.

Vocabulary Terms for Rwanda Population density: 760 people per square mile; one of the causes of the genocide April 6, 1994: The Rwandan president’s plane was shot down and the systematic murder of the Tutsis begins.

History of Belgian Colonization Belgium created two colonies in Africa: the entities now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly the Republic of Zaire) and the Republic of Rwanda, previously Ruanda- Urundi, a former German African colony that was given to Belgium to administer after the defeat of Germany in World War I. The scramble for colonies was the brainchild of Leopold II, king of Belgium.

History of Belgian Colonization Belgium itself had gained independence in 1831 when it broke away from the Netherlands and became a new nation. The second king of Belgium, Leopold II, was a very ambitious man who wanted to personally enrich himself and enhance his country’s prestige by annexing and colonizing lands in Africa. In 1865 he succeeded his father, Leopold I, to the Belgian throne.

History of Belgian Colonization Belgium’s other colony, Rwanda, was an independent monarchy until the Germans annexed it in 1899 and made it part of German East Africa. Belgium seized Rwanda and Burundi from Germany in 1916; two years later, after the defeat of Germany in World War I, Ruanda-Urundi was formally given to Belgium as a League of Nations (later United Nations) trust territory.

Race and Ethnicity in Precolonial Rwanda Before the European incursion into Rwanda and the Belgian colonization, Rwanda was united under the central leadership of an absolute Tutsi monarchy. The people, although classified as Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa, essentially spoke the same language. They also shared the same culture, ate the same or similar foods, and practiced the same religion.

Race and Ethnicity in Precolonial Rwanda Precolonial Rwanda under the monarchy was highly stratified. The aristocracy, who were essentially the Tutsi, owned all the land and earned tributes from the farmers, who were mainly Hutu. Whereas the Hutus were farmers, the Tutsis were cattle herders. The Twa or the “pygmies,” who were the original inhabitants of Rwanda, were outcasts and despised by both the Hutus and the Tutsis. There was social mobility (both upward and downward) in this stratified Rwandese society.

Race and Ethnicity in Precolonial Rwanda A rich Hutu who purchased a large herd of cattle could become a Tutsi, while a Tutsi who became poor would drop into the Hutu caste. Intermarriage was not prohibited in this caste system. Both Hutus and Tutsis served in the king’s military. All the members of the castes seemed to be living in harmony until the Belgians came and brought ethnic conflict with them. These conflicts resulted in many wars and episodes of genocide.