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THE ESSCALATION OF THE GENOCIDE - Coggle Diagram
THE ESSCALATION OF THE GENOCIDE
A long term plan for eliminating opposition to extermination, and for strict organization of it at national and local levels p.72-75
The Hutu extremists gained the upper hand. Bagosora was in the midst of key events or absent when he was needed. 9 April the Hutu leadership came up with an interim government led by Theodore Sindikubwabo and Jean Kambanda. People were fed wrong and hateful information through the RTLM and the Hutus were urged to kill the opposition.
The planned killing of opposition (moderate Hutu, Tutsi, and the UN peacekeepers) put pressure on the international community to refrain from taking actions in Rwanda. Soldiers from the Presidential guard killed the opposition figures, and Tutsi opponents. The UN peacekeepers were sent to the Prime Minister's house and they found members of the Presidential guard surrounding her house. Agathe Uwilingiyimana was a moderate Hutu and she was a target for the radicals. Madame Agathe and her husband were killed by the Presidential guard but her children escaped.
The UN peacekeepers who were outnumbered surrendered their weapons to the soldiers of the presidential guard. They were taken to a military camp and the Belgian soldiers were tortured and their bodies were dismembered by soldiers who were told that the Belgians shot down the president's plane.
Interahamwe and Impuzamugambi began to coordinate their actions and began killing more systematically.
The shooting down of the plane rekindle a civil war between the RGF and the RPF. The Hutu leaders expected the killing of the Hutu to give them the chance of victory in Rwanda.
The RTLM was used as a hate radio and it incited the conditions for the genocide. The radio urged Hutu to kill.
The peace accords was shattered and the international community did nothing. Members of the presidential guard and small bands of extremists committed the first killings.
The military initiated and directed the slaughter of the Tutsi. The highest authorities ordered and approved their actions. Political representatives supported the genocide.
The local councils mobilized the militia, provided weapons and urged the people on. In the first few days the Tutsi gathered at Kabgayi. 60,000 people were killed, the clergy let it happen.
At Nyange, on 12 April, the local priest invited the Interhamwe and they killed 1,500 Tutsi with machetes. The job of the killers was easy because people were encouraged to seek refuge in churches and public buildings.
From 11 April until the beginning of May, the genocidaires carried out most brutal massacres.
The role of the media and failure of the international community to control it p.83-85
The Kangura and the RTLM were used to spread hate and propaganda as the genocide began in April. The RTLM appealed to the young, unemployed and delinquents in the Hutu militia. The radio was accessible and gave information in support of the killers.
The RTLM was used both positively and negatively. Romeo Dallaire urged for the RTLM to be taken off the air. The RPF shelled the radio station in the first week of the genocide. The station was transferred to a mobile unit and was used throughout the 100 days.
The impact of the radio made the war immediate for its listeners. The radio played out names of the "enemies" who were tracked and killed.
The US did not stop the radio because it would have been expensive, in the aftermath of Somalia, intervention in any African country would have been politically unpopular and the issues relating to international law prevented it.
The lack of media certainly enabled those in the international community to not take action. General Romeo Dallaire commented later that the real crisis was not in Rwanda, it was in Yugoslavia, the OJ Simpson case and Nelson Mandela's election in South Africa.
Ngeze, the owner and editor of Kangura, and Nahimana, the founder of the RTLM, were charged with responsibility for the systematic killing of the Tutsi people in Rwanda and each sentenced to 30 years in prison.
Specific examples of massacres and ultimate responsibility for failure to prevent them p.75 (halfway down page)-80
As the peace accord was shattered, the international community did nothing. Members of the presidential guard and small bands of extremists committed the first killings. The Interhamwe and Impuzamugambi coordinated their actions and began killing systematically.
The local councils mobilized the militia, provided weapons and urged the people on. In the first few days the Tutsi gathered at Kabgayi. 60,000 people were killed, the clergy let it happen.
From 11 April until the beginning of May, the genocidaires carried out most brutal massacres.
At Nyange, on 12 April, the local priest invited the Interhamwe and they killed 1,500 Tutsi with machetes. The job of the killers was easy because people were encouraged to seek refuge in churches and public buildings.
The military initiated and directed the slaughter of the Tutsi. The highest authorities ordered and approved their actions. Political representatives supported the genocide.
At Nyarbuye, Sylvestre Gacumbitsi gave orders to the police and the militia to move in and start the killing. Thousands were dead. Gacumbitsi was sentenced to 30 years in prison for organizing and participating in the killing of 20,000 people in Nyabuye
THE NTARAMA MASSACRE, 15-16 APRIL 5,000 Tutsi gathered in the days before 15 April. On 11 April, a Monday morning the Interhamwe militia attacked townspeople with clubs and machetes.
The nature of the genocide including ‘war rape’ p.81-82
The radio broadcasts encouraged the Hutu Hutus to kill their Tutsi neighbours. An estimated 200,000 Hutu participated in the genocide.
Tens of thousands of women and girls were raped and sexually humiliated. The aggressors used rape to exterminate the Tutsi. Many were influenced by the propaganda about Tutsi women.
4 of the Hutu Ten Commandments portrayed Tutsi women as sexual weapons which could be used to weaken and destroy men. Hutu rapists were willing to abuse, humiliate and denigrate the women they took.
Some women were kept as sex slaves. In one town young women and girls were raped in the communal office, with the full knowledge of the mayor. Gacumbitsi a friend of the Uwimana family, raped the daughter, Pendo Uwimana at Nyarubuye and then handed her over to other men.
Tutsi men were sexually assaulted and abused, their genitals mutilated and sometimes displayed in public. Attackers often mutilated women during the course of rape or before killing them. The cut off breasts and punctured vaginas with spears on pointed sticks.
The women were forced to watch their husbands killed and they were stripped and made to walk , "naked like a group of cattle", to Kabgayi, 10 miles away. Some of the women were raped repeatedly.
The Minister of Women and Family, Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, deliberately picked girls to be taken and raped by the militia. Thousands of young women were infected by AIDS.
In 1998 the ICTR prosecuted Jean-Paul Akayesu for rape and sexual violence against Tutsi women. Rape as a a weapon in the time of the war was a notorious feature of the genocide.