Who Is Rwanda Thing - 2092 Words

â€Å"Always Regret that Rwanda thing† The term â€Å"Genocide,† produced by combining geno-, from the Greek word for race or tribe, with -cide, derived from the Latin word for killing, was created by Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin following the horrors of World War II. Although the term â€Å"genocide† itself may have only been in existence for the past seventy-one years, acts of genocide have been known to happen as early as the 13th century. At long last, the United Nations declared genocide as an international crime, laying out its definition clearly in Article Two of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. â€Å"Genocide† would later be applied to the heinous acts of violence committed during conflicts†¦show more content†¦As a pastoral nation, Rwanda’s agrarian economy was dependent on the harvesting and exporting of crops such as rice, coffee, and maize to the West. Unfortunately, the West was not dependent on Rwanda, as these products were also imported from Brazil, Columbia, and other larger African countries. Prior to the control of other Western powers, the country was at peace, but all this changed after Rwanda came under control of Germany and Belgium. Unfortunately, Germans and Belgians could not appreciate the complexities of the subtle relations present in Rwanda before colonization and therefore established a strict racial system. The Europeans segregated the native Rwandan population into three racial classifications: the Hutu (84%), the Tutsi (15%), and the remaining 1% the Twa (. Tutsi, the more Caucasian looking in skin tone and body structure, were assumed to be the most intelligent and diplomatic thus receiving all high ranking positions in government and society. While the Hutu, the majority of approximately 90%, lived in poverty, were forced into servile farmer positions, and denied access to land ownership, education, and Christianity. Belgian col onists soon issued ethnic identity cards which formalized an imposed condition of racial inferiority that had not exist beforehand. This imposed racial system would later be one of the leading, if not most significant, causes for the Rwandan genocide in 1994. Belgium soon