Rwanda Genocide, Role of Media

The roots of the genocide of members of the Tutsi, which resulted in the loss of up to 1 million lives in Rwanda between April and July 1994, lie in the colonial history of the East African country. After the colony's independence from Belgium in 1962, the Hutu majority of the population came into power and began to discriminate against the Tutsi minority group. This so-called social revolution had its ideological foundation in the racist “Manifest of the Bahutu.” Because of several waves of violence and emigration in the second half of the 20th century, the population of Tutsi was diminished to 9% of the Rwanda population. To avoid a further exclusion and to depose the regime of President Juvénal Habyarimana, the Rwandan Patriotic Front ...