On this day in history on 6 April 1994, the plane carrying presidents Juvénal Habyarimana of Rwanda and Cyprien Ntaryamira of Burundi was shot down just outside Kigali airport in the Rwandan capital.
It was the catalyst that started the Rwandan genocide and over the next 100 days between April and July 1994, between 800,000 and 1.2 million Rwandans of Tutsi and moderate Hutu origin were murdered.
The assassination of the president might have triggered the genocide but in truth, this was a carefully planned, organised and systematic attempt to wipe out the Tutsi race.
As early as December 1990, 3 years before the start of the genocide, a racist manifesto known as the The Hutu Ten Commandments appeared in the anti-Tutsi newspaper Kangura in which Hutus were reminded of their inherent superiority to Tutsis and their responsibility to maintain racial purity.
Over the years, hostilities escalated as Tutsi were scapegoated, targeted and increasingly dehumanised. It was a disturbingly familiar turn of events that Dr Gregory Stanton of Genocide Watch now refers to as the Ten Stages of Genocide.
In the months leading up to the genocide, it became ever more clear that something was amiss. In what has become notorious as the Genocide Fax, on 11 January 1994 Lieutenant General Roméo Dallaire of the UN sent a facsimile to his superiors explicitly warning of the major stockpiling of weapons and the mobilisation of forces to exterminate the Tutsis. His concerns and those of other key individuals were ignored.
Once it began, the genocide continued unabated until Paul Kagame's RPF forces gained control of the country in mid-July 1994.
The world did not respond during the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 and today, despite being discussed by the UN Security Council on more than one occasion, we've not responded in Syria. This is the reason why, on the 20th anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda, it is more important than ever to understand, educate and discuss genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and mass murder in order to prevent them from happening in the future.
Click to read more about Rwanda or Genocide on this blog.
Image credit: “Skull and Belongings of Genocide Victims - Genocide Memorial Center - Kigali – Rwanda” by Adam Jones (source)
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