Essential Questions & Responses

1.       Why is there poverty and how can it be alleviated?

2.     Why do people dominate others? How does it affect both groups?

3. Why do humans kill humans? Are people masters or products of circumstances?  

Who is responsible for genocide?

Read the article below. Then, posted as a comment to the blog post: (1) Write a summary of the article IN YOUR OWN WORDS and (2) Respond to the question: Are individual people responsible for genocide or ethnic groups? 

During the horrific genocide in Rwanda, 1994, the Rwandan media played a major part in supporting, or creating an atmosphere to sanction the terrible human suffering that ensued. A detailed report from Human Rights Watch in 1999, looked into how the killing campaign was executed, using oral testimony and documentation from a wide variety of sources. It explained how this was planned for a long time and how the international community was aware of what was going on yet ignored it, and were even present during the systematic killings.

“At least half a million people perished in the Rwandan genocide,” the report notes. “Perhaps as many as three quarters of the Tutsi population. At the same time, thousands of Hutu were slain because they opposed the killing campaign and the forces directing it.”

But one issue about the whole tragedy was how it was portrayed in some of the mainstream media of some western countries. The genocide was often attributed to ancient tribal hatreds. However as Human Rights Watch notes, “this genocide was not an uncontrollable outburst of rage by a people consumed by ‘ancient tribal hatreds.’” Instead:

"This genocide resulted from the deliberate choice of a modern elite to foster hatred and fear to keep itself in power. This small, privileged group first set the majority against the minority to counter a growing political opposition within Rwanda. Then, faced with RPF success on the battlefield and at the negotiating table, these few powerholders transformed the strategy of ethnic division into genocide. They believed that the extermination campaign would restore the solidarity of the Hutu under their leadership and help them win the war, or at least improve their chances of negotiating a favorable peace. They seized control of the state and used its machinery and its authority to carry out the slaughter." - — Leave None to Tell the Story; Genocide in Rwanda, Human Rights Watch, March 1999

SOURCE: http://www.globalissues.org/article/429/rwanda