Historical and socio-political context of the incidents in Rwanda in 1994

Annotation

The study of the 1994 Rwandan genocide appears critical to understanding the mechanisms of mass violence and ethnic conflict. The main goal of the study is a comprehensive study of historical, political and social prerequisites, coverage of the topic in domestic political science. Methods of historical analysis of archival documents, content analysis of media materials, sociological surveys and comparative analysis within the framework of other cases of genocide were used. The study's findings suggest that colonial legacies, internal political conflicts and international inaction played a key role in the escalation of violence. The Rwandan genocide was the result of long-term structural problems and the deliberate actions of both internal and external actors. The death of 800,000 people in three months is due to the fact that since 1993, the Rwandan government began a large-scale campaign to arm the population. The relevance of the study is due to the very scarce material in domestic historical and political science on this topic, which required a comprehensive analysis of relevant foreign literature, and also necessitated a survey of indigenous Rwandans. This study highlights the need to understand ethnic sociopolitical processes to prevent similar tragedies in the future.

Keywords

• genocide in Rwanda
• ethnic violence
• hutu
• tutsi
• Burundi
• Zaire
• Juvenal Habyarimana
• political conflicts
• human rights
• international relations
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Contribution of the authors

Rudas T. P. – work in museums, archives, processing and presentation of statistical data, source materials, interviewing students from Rwanda, follow-on revision of the text, final conclusions; Morozova O. S. – scientific management, research concept, justification of the purpose of the article.

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