last week i saw Hotel Rwanda. the scenes are still in my mind and won't leave. just like the two questions that are there, raised by the scenes, yet left unanswered by the film
- why did this genocide happen?
- why did the world watch and didn't intervene?
maybe the answer lies in the history, i figured. and so i took some time yesterday to read about Rwanda. through google, i found an online archive of current history, run by a German university.
the section about Rwanda includes 12 pages, starting in the colonial past. the first surprise there: Germany was involved in this region in the 19th century. Rwanda was first a German colony. then, after the first world war, it went to Belgium. and it was in these colonial times already that the social conflict was set, for the colonial government addressed the Tutsi in taking governmental / organizational functions. and so the 10% minority with time became the ruling group, while the gap between Hutu and Tutsi widened in all respects.
when the Hutu reached for democracy, the ruling group tried to save their power (nothing new here). the first violent conflicts happened 1959, when a Hutu-leader who fought for the rights of the Hutu was killed by a group of young members of the Tutsi-party. there were a violent wave against Tutsis, and they fled, some to Kongo.
1961 there were first democratic votes. the Hutu reached the majority. the Tutsi in and outside the land feared a change of power, and tried to disturb the process - with acts of terror (and nothing new here either). a Tutsi army crossed the border from Kongo, headed towards Kigali. that was the first time the Tutsi were named Inyenzi - cockroaches.
and on and on and on...
(here is the link, i thought i add it even though it's in German:
The history of Rwanda / Die Geschichte Ruandas
so it wasn't sudden violence. it built through years and years.
when i read the historic roots, i thought, it should have been part of the film somehow, for they are the keys that make the conflict understandable. in the film, it feels just like a sudden brutal uprising of violence, out of the off. maybe the film makers thought everyone knew the past, but then it's not like Ruanda was the centre of attention until 1994. and. and now it gets a bit cross. when you think of the film, the picture it paints is rather black and white. the Tutsi are the haunted ones, the Hutu are the cruel one - there is just one positive Hutu figure. Paul.
some more facts, from another page that says there was a famine among the Hutu in the time of the second world war, under the colonial / Tutsi reign. it also points out that there are Tutsi soldiers gathering in Zaire, planning a counterstrike of revenge and return (and again, nothing new here)
i also came across two English pages:
the first is from PBS in the US, that concentrates on the ethnics, and the present situation, pointing out the interconnectedness of Rwanda-Burundi-Uganda-Zaire. It doesn't mention the middle part of the story, though, the move of the Hutus for democracy in Rwanda, and the peace agreement that was reached, then undermined by the Tutsi
The Hutu-Tutsi-Conflict
the other page belongs to BBC News, it dates back to August 2004, when Hutu massacred Tutsi in a refugee camp, of all places. the most interesting part of it are reader comments that try to answer the question that also is the title of the article:
How can Tutsi and Hutu divisions be resolved?
here are two comments that i think point to the keys of the answer - the past, and the future:
"It is very sad that the blight of colonialism is still killing the people of the Great Lakes Region. The German and Belgian invaders shrewdly manipulated the Tutsi and Hutu with the age-old, highly effective "divide and rule" strategy. Before the invasion, Tutsi and Hutu lived side by side quite peacefully for centuries. It is too bad that people's memories do not go back that far, and all those alive today know no better. Tutsi and Hutu need to stop allowing colonialism to harm them even now 40 years after independence. It is high time they get themselves out from under that cloud, and work toward a new era of peace, stability, equality, and consequent prosperity for all."
Marianne, Victoria, BC, Canada
"My mother is from Burundi - her father was half Hutu, half Tutsi and her mother Tutsi. Every time there's genocide I have lost on both of my sides. In 1993 my family lost about 23 members. They'll never have peace in Burundi until we really know what's going on there, and until Hutus and Tutsis and any other ethnic population understand the meaning of this war. No one knows anymore why they fighting. It'll be a sort of Palestinian-Israel never-ending war. And my generation - born in eighties - what do we expect for the future? War, genocide then what's next? Did we ever think! I hate that war, I only find peace in my dreams."
Ricky, 23 years old, North America
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so that's what i found so far to answer the question why it happened. the other question, why the world watched and didn't intervene, was not a topic of any of the reports. but then, it porbably would have been too easy, to find the answer to that one with a simple mouseclick.