According to the International Criminal Tribunal (MICT), the main suspect in the Rwandan genocide, Rwanda's then-defense minister, Augustin Bizimana, died about 20 years ago, according to Agence France-Presse. MICT said it had conducted an investigation into the remains of bizimana in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
At the time of the Rwandan genocide, Bizimana, who was the Rwandan government's minister of defence, was charged with the murder of former Prime Minister Agathe Uwilgiyimana and 10 Belgian United Nations peacekeepers, as well as the killing of Tutsi civilians in five districts of Rwanda. And Bizimana ranked third in the Rwanda Massacre Red Notice issued by Interpol. Kabuga, who was recently arrested in Paris, is second on the wanted list, and both offer $5 million in bounties.
"From democracy to fascism, it only takes seven days." The German-language film The Wave says, and in the face of a history that has been forgotten by the world: from April to June 1994, three months could wipe out one-eighth of a country's population. Cruelty does not occur between two nations, nor is it the strong against the weak, but the genocide within the whole.
The Rwandan incident began and ended
Located in central Africa, Rwanda is known as the "country of a thousand hills", is a backward agricultural country, in 1992 by the United Nations listed as one of the world's 47 least developed countries. The Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups account for 99 per cent of the country's total population, of which 85 per cent are Hutu and 14 per cent are Tutsi.
In the 16th century, the Tutsi established a feudal kingdom in Rwanda. Since the middle of the 19th century, Western colonial powers such as Britain, Germany, and Belgium have invaded one after another. In 1890, Rwanda became a "German East Africa" protectorate. In 1916, Belgium was granted the right to mandate Rwanda. After the end of World War II, Rwanda became a United Nations trusteeship, but remained under Belgian rule. Before the 1960s, only 10 to 15 percent of the population was dominant in Rwanda, and 88 percent of government officials were Tutsi and had the vast majority of arable land. In 1959, Hutu peasants in southern Rwanda began to rebel against the rule and take power of the Tutsi nobility, redistributing land to the landless, and many Tutsi nobles fled to neighboring countries. After Rwanda declared its independence in 1962, there were numerous clashes between Tutsi and Hutu, and fighting continued.
In 1990, the Rwandan Patriotic Front, an anti-Government group of Tutsi refugees, attacked northern Rwanda from Uganda with the aim of overthrowing the Hutu-led government. During the Rwandan Civil War, French-speaking Africans and France supported the Hutu and Uganda supported the Tutsi. This has exacerbated inter-ethnic tensions within Rwanda. Touted by the Rwandan government-controlled media, many Hutu people became fascinated by an ideology known as "Hutu power." The ideology claims that the Tutsi want to enslave the Hutu, and that the Hutu should therefore quell the Tutsi riots at any cost. During the civil war, Tutsi forces occupied northern Rwanda and expelled large numbers of Hutu people from the north. In the Hutu-controlled south, the Hutus regularly slaughtered the Tutsi. The Rwandan government, led by Hutu Juvenal Habialimana, was under international pressure to sign a ceasefire in 1993, also known as the Arusha Accords.
In April 1994, President Juvenal Habialimana was assassinated, sparking violent clashes in Rwanda. The Hutu began mass murders of the Tutsi (including the peace-supporting Hutus who were killed as traitors). The genocide was orchestrated by the Hutu group Akazu, many of whose members were senior government leaders. The Rwandan government, army, officials and local media all supported the massacre. In addition to the army, two Hutu militia groups were primarily responsible for the massacre: Interahamwe and Impuzamugambi, and a large number of Hutu civilians were also involved in the massacre. The ceasefire agreement was terminated and the Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front in the north resumed its offensive, eventually defeating government forces and taking control of Rwanda. Two million Hutu people fled Rwanda and became refugees, fearing reprisals from the Tutsi. They fled to neighbouring Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda and Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)), where thousands of people died in camps due to cholera and dysentery.
The Rwandan genocide can be called one of the biggest scandals in the international community since World War II.