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The Rwandan Revolution
The Rwandan Revolution was a period of ethnic violence in Rwanda from 1959 to 1961, between the Hutu and the Tutsi groups. The Rwandan Revolution lead to an extreme amount of genocide in Rwanda. 300,000 Tutsi fled from the Hutu who were attacking, which made for an even smaller minority of Tutsi. In 1961, the Hutu forced the Tutsi monarchy into exile, and declared a republic. This created a multitude of tension between the two groups. -
The Tutsi Monarchy abolished
Parmehutu initiated a Hutu uprising around the 1960 local election, which ended up with alot of assassinated tutsi and forcing the king and tens of thousands of people to flee Uganda and Burundi. The monarchy was abolished in 1961, which was when Rwanda gained independence. This event also led to the most serious eruption of violence when an incursion from Burundi of exiled tutsis resulted in 15,000 tutsi dead from hutu gang. -
Rwanda gains independence
Belgium granted independence to Rwanda on July 1st, 1962. Kayibanda was elected as the first president, under the constitution adoption. When Rwanda gained independence, this affected genocide because ethnically motivated violence followed the independence. -
Rwandese Patriotic Front invaded Rwanda
The Rwandese Patriotic Front, which was the armed wing of the RPF, was made up of predominantly Tutsi refugees. They invaded Rwanda from Uganda, by deserting their posts in the Ugandan army. This event is significant to the genocide not only because the RPF was aggressively invading Rwanda, but because it led to more Genocide. After this event, Habyarimana signed an agreement for transition government, including the RPF. This angered the Hutu extremists, and went to large measures to prevent it. -
Killing of Habyarimana
Juvenal Habyarimana was the third president of the Republic of Rwanda. On April 6th, 1994 a plane carrying Habyarimana, a co-partner who was also Hutu, and others was shot down and they were all killed. This was an extreme act of genocide in Rwanda, since it was an act of killing their leader. The Hutu extremists blamed the RPF and started a campaign of slaughter. So, not only was the act itself a large part of the genocide in Rwanda, but it lead to an outbreak of rage from the Hutu. -
The Rwandan Armed Forces & Hutu set roadblocks
On April 7th, the Rwandan Armed Forces and the Hutu military set up roadblocks and went house to house killing Tutsi and moderate hutu politicians. Thousands of people died on the first day, and the U.N. peacekeeping forces stand by and watch the killing happened. It was said that if they interfered with the slaughtering, this would breach their "monitoring" behavior. -
UNAMIR beligum soliders killed
On the same day that roadblocks were set up so that the Tutsi could be killed house to house, ten Beligum soilders who were with UNAMIR, were killled. These guards were assigned to guard the moderate Hutu prime minister, and were tricked. They were told tricked into giving up their weapons, and were tourtered for a long time and then killed. This was just one of the examples of genocide at the time, and how even though these soilders were tricked and killed, the outside world did not interfere. -
Operation Turquoise begins
Operation Turquoise was a French-led military operation in Rwanda in 1994 under the mandate of the UN. The UN sent 2,500 French troops to Rwanda to create a safe zone. Operation Turquoise was not successful because the Tutsi continued to kill in the safe zone. This operation was a mission to put a halt to some of the genocide, but did not work and the genocide continued from the Tutsi. -
RPF forces gain majority of control
By early July, the RPF forces gained a substantial amount of control in Rwanda. At this time, the RPF had resumed fighting and was in the civil war alongside the genocide. This control included the capital of Rwanda, kigali. In response to this power being gained, nearly 2 million Hutus fled Rwanda and crowded the refugee camps and other neighboring countries. This directly connected to the genocide in Rwanda, with the Hutus feeling the need to flee in order to avoid getting murdered. -
The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda created
The international Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda was created in 1994, and was established as an extension of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at the Hague, and was the first with the mandate to prosecute the crime of genocide. The next year, this tribunal worked to find people who were guilty of genocide, but it was hard because so many of them were missing. This was made to help the genocide in Rwanda, and put a stop to all of the mass murdering.
