Genocide

In April, 1994, civil war was taking place in Rwanda between the government, mainly the majority Hutu and the rebels, mainly minority Tutsi. The government, with French money, had begun to arm the population. The French supported the Hutu government because they were French speaking. A plane carrying the president of Rwanda (and the president of Burundi) crashed in Kigali. This started the armed Hutu to kill their Tutsi neighbors. Organized by Hutu leaders, enflamed by hate radio and facilitated by the identification cards which indicated group membership, Hutus massacred 1 million people in less than a month. Ironically, there is no ethnic, cultural, physical or language difference between the 2 groups. The main difference was that the Hutu were farmers and the Tutsis were cattle herders.
There was a small contingency of UN peacekeepers with a vocal leader who demanded an increase in peacekeepers, eventually characterizing the bloodshed as genocide. This should have activated a 1948 UN agreement to act. But the UN refused to act. With Bill Clinton and the US representative Madeline Albright refusing to authorize action (because of the deaths of US peacekeepers in Somalia), the UN not only did not act, they withdrew some of the UN peacekeepers who were there. They evacuated all embassy personnel, NGOs and even some Rwanda government leaders who had organized the slaughter.
Meanwhile the rebel army was having success, so Hutus, afraid of reprisals fled to neighboring countries. 2 million people ended up in refugee camps in countries bordering Rwanda.
Eventually, the UN allowed French "peacekeepers" to go. However, the French supported the French speaking Hutu government and did not protect the Tutsis, but instead the Hutus.
Eventually the world including the Clinton realized their failure and poured money into the refugee camps, thus benefiting mostly Hutus.
Today we went to the museum. Tragic.
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