Memorial

The genocide killed 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in a country of eight million people. Although the war that began in 1990 and the genocide that followed were understood by the international community as rooted in century-long ethnic tension - therefore an "African problem" - experts argue otherwise. Belgian colonial rule which began after World War I transformed the socioeconomic separation between Tutsi and Hutu into an ethnic one. It solidified their differences in the polemics of foreigner (Tutsi) versus native (Hutu), whereas before the boundary between the two identities was a socio-economic one: A Hutu could gain cattle through labor, receive education, own land, and become a Tutsi. Ethnicity became a scapegoat for all societal rifts; political parties were formed around ethnic loyalty; and attacks on the opposition parties were made mainly according to innate ethnic character, and not on their policies. This factor made women especially vulnerable during the genocide.