Unique Characteristics of Rwandan Genocide:

Use of child soldiers, women and such. Everyday people

Recent
Happened in a very short amount of time.
Genocide in Africa

Early European involvement in Africa: The Slave Trade

The Atlantic Slave Trade was the most significant link Africa had to the larger
Atlantic World in early modern times.
African peoples received European goods for slaves.
Firearms were the most common.
Impact of Slave Trade in Africa

Deprived Africa of a huge fraction of their population

It distorted African sex ratios because ~ 2/3s of slaves were male
Introduction of firearms increased the level of violence.
The Scramble for Africa

The Scramble for Africa: a process of invasion, occupation, colonization and

annexation of African territory by European powers
This took place between 1881 and World War I in 1914
The Berlin Conference

Lots of countries got together and just started picking pieces that they wanted.
The Principle of Effectivity

The Principle of Effectivity: powers could hold colonies only if they actually
possessed them.
o Treaties with local leaders
o Flying their flag
o Establishing administration in the territory to govern it.
o Use the colony economically.
Indirect Rule

A system of government for British non-colonial dependencies: eg

Protectorates
Day-to-day government and administration of areas was left in the hands of
traditional rulers

Herero and Namaqua Genocide

Campaign by the Germans of collective punishment and racial extermination

undertaking in German South-West Africa (present day Namibia)
1904-1907 Considered to the be the first genocide of 20th century
Experiences used for the Holocaust.
Background

1883 Germany established protectorate over small coastal strip of land, and
promoted white settlement
Local tribes rose up against German occupation and expansion
In 1894 a peace-accord was signed but Germany expanded its territory and used
Imperial colonial troops to pacify the region.
Oppression, leading to a Revolt

Root Causes: Germans

o Used natives as slave laborers
o Confiscated land for white settlers
o Raided cattle from Hereros and Namas
Direct Causes: Germans
o Planned to build a railway, opening up even more land for white settlers
o Forced repayment of loans taken out by Hereros
1904 Revolt

Herero killed about 15 Germans in a surprise attack; just after colonial power
withdraw half its troops
Germany sent 14,000 troops headed by LG Lorthar Von Trotha

Trotha was all about that violence. He thought that the African people would only
understand violence and that he needed to burn the land and start over.
Battle of Waterberg

3000-5000 Herero combatants defeated in August 1904

Germans killed those who surrendered and its forced pursued those who fled,
killing everyone he got his hands on.
Genocide

Remaining Hereros escaped by entering the Kalahari Desert, hoping to reach the
British territory of Bechuanaland.
Pursued by Germans, who poisoned waterholes.

The Hereros Genocide as aperlude to the Holocaust (I)

The few survivors- mainly women and children put in concentration camps to
work as slave laborers
Mortality rates in these camps was up to 75%
Medical experiments were taken place on the prisoners
After camps closed down, surviving Herero were distributed as laborers for
settlers in German colony. From that time on all Herero over the age of seven
were forced to wear a metal disc with their labor registration number.
The Hereros Genocide as aperlude to the Holocaust (II)

The German general staff later reflected on this in its official publication (Der
Kampf):

Like a wounded beast the enemy was tracked down and the desert was to complete what
the German Army had begun: the extermination of the Herero nation.

Governor Leutwein:

We need the Herero as cattle breeders and especially as laborers.

Rwanda Genocide

Between April and July, 1994

Target: Tutsis and moderate Hutus
Death- toll: between 500,000 and 1,000,000
20% of population, 70% of Tutsi population
Colonial racial discrimination

Rwanda and neighboring Burundi and Tanganyika became colonies of the

German Empire during Scramble for Africa (1894-1915)
Tutsi minority favored over Hutu minority by colonial powers
From WWI until 1958 Belgium ruled Rwanda; further pursuing Germanys
policy of favoring Tutsis and downgrading Hutus.
Independence
Tutsi elite started calling for independence from Belgium
Belgium switched alliances, supporting Hutus in overthrowing Tutsi monarchy
in 1959
In 1962 Rwanda gained its independence and separated from Tutsi controlled
Burundi
What followed were three decades of Tutsi oppression by the Hutu majority.

Rwanda Civil War

Started in 1990
Hutu-led government wersus Rwanda Patriotic Fron
RPF existed mainly out of Tutsi regugeess