Rwanda: Fifty Years of Ethnic Conflict on Steroids

The 1994 genocide in the central African Republic of Rwanda was the inevitable result of a long history of ethnic tension in an overpopulated, impoverished nation. The colonial experience under European rule destabilized what was a historic symbiotic relationship between the majority Hutu and minority Tutsi ethnic populations. The challenges of independence and self-government deepened ethnic polarization, creating refugees in neighboring countries and repression internally. The civil war of 1990-1994 resulted in the genocidal murders of 800,000 innocent civilians. When it ended, the minority Tutsis were in power. But there were repercussions in the neighboring eastern Congo where perpetrators of genocide took refuge. An eight-year war in the eastern Congo, resulting from the spill-over of ethnic tensions in Rwanda, witnessed yet another genocide and the needless deaths of more than five million Congolese from disease, malnutrition, and mass violence. The international community did not distinguish itself in dealing with either the Rwandan genocide of 1994 or the ensuing violence in the eastern Congo. A repetition of these experiences cannot be ruled out because ethnic tensions in Rwanda continue to simmer, and armed militias continue to pillage, rape, and kill in the eastern Congo. The United Nations declaration on the "Responsibility to Protect'' resulted from the Rwanda debacle and is slowly gaining acceptability.