In 1994, a horrific event took place in Rwanda where large numbers of people were massacred during the Rwandan Civil War. The act targeted the Tutsi – a minority group in the country. The Hutu militias killed approximately 600,000 individuals within a period of 100 days (Meierhenrich, 2020). The conflict was initiated following political differences between the then government led by the Hutu president and the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) which majorly consisted of the Tutsi people. The brutal killings involved the mass murder of Tutsi people in their villages, towns, churches, and even those who were seeking protection in schools. The soldiers, militia, and police allied to the Hutu authority used guns and machetes to butcher helpless human beings. In the process, they engaged in sexual assaults whereby over 400,000 women and girls were ruthlessly raped.
Despite the fatality and memory associated with the event, the country was rectified years later. The rectification was aimed at creating a safe environment for the people who were victims of the atrocity. Furthermore, the new government wanted to weaken the flashback of the occurrences to prevent individuals from remembering the horrors they faced. Currently, the country has set distinct public holidays where one is to mourn the victims of the genocide while the other is to promote the genocide ideology. The latter is focused on refuting the assertion that the massacre targeted the Tutsi ethnic community (Hamber & Palmary, 2021). The approach is to reduce possible hatred that might still exist between the two groups Hutu and Tutsi. Following the painful memory associated with the Rwandan genocide, the citizens have opted to forget the event to allow them to embrace peaceful coexistence in the country.
References
Hamber, B., & Palmary, I. (2021). A dance of shadows and fires: Conceptual and practical challenges of intergenerational healing after mass atrocity. Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal, 15(3), 12. Web.
Meierhenrich, J. (2020). How many victims were there in the Rwandan genocide? A statistical debate. Journal of genocide research, 22(1), 72-82. Web.