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In 1994, the nation of Rwanda endured a brutal 100 day spasm of violence that tore apart families and claimed the lives of over 1 million people. Members of the ethnic minority Tutsi group were hunted down and murdered by members of the larger Hutu group. While this was the worst episode of violence between them, it was not the first. What added to the tragedy was that while the horrific events unfolded, the rest of the world stood by and did nothing. Learn more about the 1994 Rwandan genocide, why it happened, and how it unfolded on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. This episode is sponsored by Aura Frames. I've told you how much I love Aura Frames. However, I'm not the only one. It was selected three times as one of Opera's Favorite Things and named the 1 digital picture frame by Wirecutter, the Strategist, Wired Magazine and PC Magazine. It was also recommended by Good Morning America, the Today Show, Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, and more. With Aura Frames, you can set it up quickly, update it from anywhere, and be sure that the images will be displayed in the highest quality possible. If you want to give the gift of memories this holiday, there might be no better way to do it than with auraframes. For a limited time, save on the perfect gift by visiting auraframes.com to get $35 off Aura's best selling Carver mat frames, named one by Wirecutter by using promo code daily at checkout. That's auraframes.com promo code daily. This deal is exclusive to listeners and frames sell out fast, so order yours now to get it in time for the holidays. Support the show by mentioning it at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. This episode is sponsored by the Tourist Office of Spain. If you've been listening to this podcast long enough, you might think you know Spain well. Think again. There is so much more to Spain than what most people think. In fact, every part of Spain is packed with history and culture. Extra Madura in the west is home to fantastic Moorish architecture and Hamonibirico, the world's greatest pork product. In the north, Galicia Asturias and the Basque country have stunning coastlines, amazing food and unique cultures. The island of Lanzarote in the Canary Islands has a volcanic landscape, and the Tabernas Desert has been a filming location for many Western films. The city of Merida has some of the greatest Roman ruins you'll find, and in Valencia, the home of Paella, you can even find the Holy Grail. Plan your next trip and learn about all the lesser known gems in Spain. Once again, that's spain.info. The Rwandan genocide didn't occur in a vacuum, and the events that transpired weren't random. To understand why it happened, we need to understand the history of the country and the events that led up to it. Rwanda, like the rest of Africa, was subject to European colonization in the 19th century. Germany was the first country to colonize Rwanda in 1897. However, its tenure as a German colony was short lived because of World War I. Following the East African Campaign in 1916, Belgium seized and occupied Rwanda. After taking the land, Belgium held onto it and colonized it until Rwanda gained its independence in 1962. Belgium's rule as a colonial power fundamentally changed Rwanda's societal structures, especially in terms of race. Believing in so called race sciences, Belgium categorized Rwandans by identity groups and issued identity cards labeling ethnicities. The Belgians identified three main racial the Tutsi, who made up about 14% of the population the Hutu, who made up about 85%, and the Twa, who made up about 1%. Although these groups were already present, it was Europeans who placed significantly more importance on them. The Belgians favored the Tutsis because they were perceived as being a superior race that they believed had migrated from northern Africa, making them more closely related to Europeans. The perception was that this justified their leadership over the Hutus, whom they regarded as an inferior race. The final group, the Trois, were treated as insignificant by the Belgians. The group was perceived to have been the region's original inhabitants and mostly kept to themselves living in the forests as hunter gatherers. The TWA were excluded from the political process and were largely ignored. Belgium approached colonial rule in Rwanda with laziness and favored an indirect approach. So long as the Tutsis were willing to convert to Christianity, they were able to hold power in Rwanda. The adoption of Belgian racial science also made it nearly impossible for the previously more fluid movement between societal classes. In reality, there was no significant difference between Tutsi, Hutu, and twa. They shared the same language, culture, and history. These were social and economic groups, not racial groups. The Tutsi were traditionally associated with cattle ownership and political power, while the Hutu were primarily agriculturalists. Under colonial rule, these flexible societal categories were hardened into fixed ethnic identities, reinforced by identity cards and unequal access to education. And as time went on, the Tutsi, like the Belgians, believed they were superior and began to implement colonial policies for Belgium. The native chiefs of the Hutu and Trois people were dismissed and regulations on labor laws were also changed, allowing for severe corporal punishment like beating and whippings that were given out should agricultural quotas not be met. Not surprisingly, this fueled widespread resentment towards the Tutsi. Under Tutsi rule, the Hutus endured multiple famines, could not receive education, and suffered brutal suppression through harsh punishments. The societal structure in Rwanda remained unchanged until 1959. In 1959, the Hutus launched a rebellion not against Belgium, but against the ruling Tutsis. As a result, about 300,000 Tutsi fled Rwanda, overturning the existing societal structure. In 1962, three years after the revolution against the Tutsi, Belgium granted Rwanda independence and left the government almost entirely under Hutu control. Under Hutu control, those in power returned the discrimination once experienced at the hands of the Tutsis. Hutu leaders committed brutal acts of violence, forcing thousands more Tutsi to flee the country. The Tutsi were blamed by the Hutu extremists for being the cause of the economic, political and social pressures the country was facing. This tension continued to brew until October of 1990, when a civil war broke out between the two ethnic groups. The war began when a group of Tutsi refugees living in Uganda crossed the border and tried to reclaim Rwanda. Over a decade, Tutsis had fled Rwanda to Uganda and organized the Rwandan Patriotic Front. In response to the ongoing violence and discrimination, extremist Hutu leadership created lists of Tutsis and moderate Hutu leaders to assassinate during the war. They also trained and armed youth militias who carried out a few smaller scale massacres during the war. The violence perpetrated by the Hutu was well documented by both local and international human rights organizations, including the UN Commission on Human Rights. But no action was ever taken against the Hutu. Internationally, authorities classified the massacres and violence as internal conflict. The Rwandan government called the killing spontaneous, uncontrolled actions and and never brought anyone to justice. The civil war was brought to a brief end in August of 1993 with the signing of the Arusha Accords. This agreement said that in exchange for peace, the two groups would create transitional power sharing governments. Hutu extremists were furious with the terms of the accord. The Hutu extremists began to place messages in the media about how the Tutsis were going to go on a killing rampage against the Hutus. The most important media station which spread this message was Radio Television Liebe Demille Collins or rtlm. The radio station used its platform to promote hatred towards the Tutsi. They began to espouse a racist ideology, claiming that because the Tutsis were Foreigners, they were inferior to the Hutu. It was the argument that the Belgians had originally used just turned on its head. Meanwhile, extremist Hutus condemned Tutsi supporters, painted Tutsis as subhuman and comparable to cockroaches and imported large quantities of weapons, especially machetes, for local militias. They claim that these were preparations for self defense. At this point, Rwanda was a powder keg and it was just waiting for the spark to blow it up. On April 6, 1994, someone shot down the Rwandan president's plane, killing him and the president of Burundi, both of whom were Hutu. RTLM announced their deaths on the radio and urged the Hutu to go to work. This was the call that triggered the start of the genocide. The first day saw key Tutsi and moderate Hutu political and military leaders executed. In addition, checkpoints were created along roads. At the roadblocks, they had people checking identity cards that listed the person's ethnicity. Organizers meticulously planned the genocide. The government distributed lists of enemies and their families to local militia using information gathered at roadblock checkpoints. By identifying identity cards, officials compiled lists to systematically identify and call for the murder of different Tutsis. Hutu citizens were recruited or pressured into arming themselves with machetes or other weapons and were encouraged by the government to destroy or steal their neighbor's property and maim, rape and kill them. The government incentivized the killing by promising rewards to people who traveled house to house and murdered anyone sheltering Tutsi refugees. Militias corralled victims into large open areas like stadiums and schools for mass executions. Most of the violence was committed with hand weapons, specifically machetes. Machetes were chosen because they could easily be imported under the guise of agricultural use, facilitating stockpiling and distribution. Additionally, because the killings were carried out under the perception of self defense, the murders were considered to be personal and not centrally organized. Using weapons like machetes helped maintain that illusion. The agony and terror inflicted upon the Tutsi defy comprehension. Hutu husbands, in fear of the violent mob, murdered their Tutsi wives as they slept. Friends and neighbors turned into killers overnight. Those who desperately sought sanctuary in churches found betrayal and death at the hands of priests and nuns that they had trusted. A haunting legacy of the genocide was the tidal wave of sexual violence. Up to a half a million Tutsi women who already lived in terror suffered the additional trauma of rape. Hutu leaders orchestrated the use of rape as a systematic weapon. During the genocide, they forced men who had tested positive for HIV or who were hospitalized with the disease into rape squads whose goal was to inflict slow, painful deaths on Tutsi women. In addition to this, women of reproductive age were often mutilated by machetes, knives and other weapons to prevent the possibility of future pregnancies. Men were also the victims of the rape squads and were often mutilated. An often forgotten victim of the genocide were the TWA people. Though not direct targets, they were accused of aiding and hiding the Tutsis. This led to an estimated 10 to 30,000 of them being killed during the genocide as well. The genocide led the Rwandan Patriotic Front in Uganda to quickly reform and begin an offensive against the government. Desperate to end the mass killings, the civil war restarted as the RPF quickly made inroads into the country, eventually capturing the Rwandan capital, Kigali after 100 days. After taking the capital, 2 million Hutus quickly fled the country fearing Tutsi vengeance. There are reports that thousands of Hutus were killed and more were hunted down in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo following the the Tutsi returned to power, though of course they deny this. As a response to the genocide, the Tutsi opted to go into battle with the Hutu militia groups in the Congolese army, which had backed the Hutu government. This eventually led them to overthrow and install a new government in the DRC. The genocide took place over just 100 days. The number of Tutsi murdered during that timeframe is estimated to be around 800,000, which was 77% of the total Tutsi population. The total number of victims from the genocide is close to 1.1 million. In many ways, the Rwandan genocide is an international failure. Both Belgium and the United nations had forces inside Rwanda, but were never given a mandate to step in and try to prevent the killings. In fact, the UN actively avoided using the word genocide due to pressures from countries like the United States, which were unwilling to get involved in another African conflict. France did attempt to get involved, but were allies of the Hutu government in power. Though they attempted to set up safe zones and evacuate at risk citizens, they did nothing to stop the massacres from occurring. An important question to ask is whether anyone was ever punished for the genocide. This is a complicated answer as the International Criminal Court wasn't Even established until 2002, nearly a decade after the events occurred. There was an International Criminal Tribunal established in Rwanda that was used to prosecute the ringleaders of the genocide. Ultimately, just 93 people, all Hutus, were convicted of genocide, and these trials were often lengthy and expensive. An estimated 10,000 more people are believed to have died in prison before coming to trial. Additionally, community based courts known as gachacha courts were established. These courts used community level justice to try the massive number of genocide cases with the goal of reconciling the country. These courts encouraged confessions and allowed the community to determine the punishment for the convicted. These lasted from 2002 to 2012. Currently, Rwanda is doing fairly well all things considered. The country is growing economically and is in a period of relative political stability. The genocide still weighs heavily on people's minds and mentioning ethnicity at all is now completely illegal. Yet much of the conflict in Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo today can be traced back to the events of the early 1990s. In some respects, while Rwanda itself has stabilized, much of the trouble has simply been exported to its neighbors. The events of 1994 in Rwanda are one of the greatest losses of life since the end of the Second World War, especially so if you consider how quickly it all transpired. The events of 1994 show us that even relatively peaceful countries can erupt into violence if divisions within the country are left unchecked. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Austin Otkin and Cameron Kiefer. Research and writing for this episode was provided by the Olivia Ashe. Today's review comes from listener SLR2422 on Apple Podcasts in the United States. They write family friendly. This is a great podcast to throw in the car if you have kids in the car and you're on your way to from somewhere. Our kids 10 and 13 don't find all the topics interesting, but they generally like about one in every three or four. We're always searching for something we can put on that is generally clean. Well, thanks slr. If your kids aren't interested in every episode, make them listen to it anyhow. Think of it as eating your vegetables for your mind and you never know when the information is going to come in handy. My standing philosophy for the show is that it will be as clean as history will allow. There are some unpleasant episodes in history, like this episode, for example, which can't really be avoided and need to be heard by people. Nonetheless, I'll never use foul language and will always try to handle such topics tactfully. Remember, if you leave a review or send me a boostogram, you too can have it read in the show.