How did nationalism manifested itself in the Rwandan Genocide of 1994?

Answer 1

Genocides are one of the most difficult things to prevent. By the time the outside world knows about one, it has gone for weeks, months or years. More than six decades after the Holocaust, the horrors of Bosnia, Rwanda, and Darfur are sobering reminders that preventing future genocides and mass atrocities remains an enormous challenge. Some persons think that genocide is not the inevitable result of ancient hatreds or irrational leaders. Perpetrators of genocide and mass atrocities cannot succeed without the support of other governments and corporations; so preventing mass atrocities requires political will.

The genocide was planned by members of the core political elite known as the akazu, many of whom occupied positions at top levels of the national government. Perpetrators came from the ranks of the Rwandan army, the National Police (gendarmerie), government-backed militias including the Interahamwe and Impuzamugambi, and the Hutu civilian population.

The genocide took place in the context of the Rwandan Civil War, an ongoing conflict beginning in 1990 between the Hutu-led government and the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), which was largely composed of Tutsi refugees whose families had fled to Uganda following earlier waves of Hutu violence against the Tutsi. Most of the dead were Tutsis and most of those who perpetrated the violence were Hutus. The genocide was sparked by the death of the Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, when his plane was shot down above Kigali airport on 6 April 1994.