Human Rights List
One human right violated in Rwanda was article 2, freedom from discrimination. It started with the Europeans on all Hutus and Tutsis. Then, Europeans using Tutsis to maintain control of the majority of the population, the Hutus. Next, after the Europeans left, the Hutus took power and extracted revenge on the Tutsis. I will be focusing on the Hutus vs. Tutsis, because that was the most horrific case of discrimination.
Hutu Malitia
The discrimination of Hutus against Tutsis began in 1959, when a Hutu revolt forced 300,000 Tutsis to flee the country. This made the Tutsis an even smaller minority. By 1961, Hutus had forced Rwanda's Tutsi monarchy into exile and declared the country a republic. Forcing the Tutsis into exile broke two additional human rights; article 9, freedom from arbitrary arrest and exile, and article 13, right to free movement in and out of the country.
Tutsi mass grave
In 1973, the Hutu military placed General Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, in power. In 1988, the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) is created, a resistance militia made up mostly of Tutsi refugees. In 1990, the Rwanda Patriotic Front invaded Rwanda from Uganda, causing a civil war. In 1993, Habyarimana signed an agreement with the RPF, resulting in a ceasefire. This agreement also called for a transition government that would include the RPF. This enraged many Hutu extremists. On April 6th, 1994, a plane carrying Habyarimana was shot down, killing everyone on the plane. Within an hour of the plane crash the Presidential Guard together with members of the Rwandan armed forces and Hutu militia groups set up roadblocks and barricades and began slaughtering Tutsis and moderate Hutus. "Among the first victims of the genocide were the Hutu Prime Minister and her 10 Belgian bodyguards." This violence created a political system, into which an interim government of extremist Hutu leaders from the military high command lead. The mass killings in Rwanda quickly spread to the rest of the country with some 800,000 Tutsis and Hutu moderates slaughtered over the next three months. By July, 1994, RPF had gained control of the country.
Tutsis fleeing their country