Response Paper 3

I believe the genocide is a result of all of these things; the long standing hatreds, the weak state and its uncontrollable population, and most of all the manipulation of the massacre. The racial tension and hatred was built up for so long that when it was mixed with the unstability of the government after the murder of the president it was no surprise that the governemnt could not control the masses and they began to act out of instinct rather than logic. The hatred of the Hutus for the Tutsis, that has gone on for years since the British rule in the country, fueled the actions that they carried out which gave them a reason for all the bloodshed. In "We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families", Hutus said it was either kill or be killed and everyone was looking out for thier own skin. With fear and hatred mixed together it was very easy for the political elite to manipulate the confused masses. The new seemingly right leaders had a race full of hate and fear at their control and anyone who objected to the orders of murder appeared to be a Tutsi sympathizer which would leave them in the same boat as the Tutsi. This sort of ultimatum of kill or be killed caused by the masses and leaders is what lead to the genocide in Rwanda and because of the lack of true political control, little could be done to stop the slaughter. Because the Hutu leaders controlled the radio and the radio basically controlled the masses the leaders could inject any kid of hatred or idealism into the listeners who would then go out and do the leaders bidding. The radio station was a big player in the genocide because everyone listned to it and beleived the words being said which can be seen as a prime reason many of the slaughters occured. Because such chaos was going on during the genocide control was far out of reach so the different players in this game had to fight fire with fire by using violence agaisnt violence which can take a long time to solve a problem. This is why I believe the response to the problem took as long as it did.