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Rwanda

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Rwanda, assignment 2
Rwanda's history is marked by hunger, violence and war, and not least the lack of democracy. Most of us associate Rwanda with the genocide in 1994. It will long be remembered for the international community's inability to intervene. Around a million people were killed in the most brutal ways. Then and today people still live side by side with the families of the killers. How can a country stand up again and experience the peace and reconciliation?
The genocide started 7.april.1994 after the presidential plane where shot down and killed Rwanda’s President Juvènal Habyarimana. The mass murder continued the next 100 days, and it weren’t an army or some gangs with weapons that killed the Tutsis, it was ordinary Hutus who choose to remove the Tutsis from the country. They slaughtered the Tutsis with machetes and other sharp items. The Front Patriotique Rwandais was the Tutsis army and the leader of the army General Paul Kagame stopped the massacre and shortly after he became the new president.

Rwanda is a small state with a population of around 8 million. It is one of the most densely populated country in Africa. Most are Hutus who make up just over 80 percent of the population. A small tribe are Tutsis who account for approx. 15 percent. The Legal Settlement for the massacres is an important part of the reconstruction but peace and reconciliation cannot be pushed on Rwanda from outside. It must come from within. Rwandan authorities tries to conducting a so-called Gacaca courts to get rid of most of the trials, but still thousands of suspects sitting in overcrowded prisons and awaiting for their trial.

Rwanda is a poor country with strong growth in the population but they have almost no natural resources and only a little industry. Almost the entire population work in agricultural and animal husbandry. The genocide in 1994 went hard out on the

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