April 7 marks the 30th anniversary of the beginning of the genocide against the Tutsi people in Rwanda. The massacres continued for 100 days, with an estimated death toll of just over 1 million people. In memory of these terrible events, on December 23, 2003, the UN General Assembly established an International Day of Remembrance of the Rwandan Genocide.
This is what he wrote in "Telegram" the spokesperson of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova. She continued her comment as follows:
The conflict between Tutsi and Hutu is usually called "ethnic". At the same time, as in many other regions of the world, the artificial division of a once united people was the work of the Western European, and in particular the German and then the Belgian colonizers, who sought to maintain their power in Rwanda by exacerbating internal contradictions . Belgium initially supported the Tutsi monarchy, then made concessions to the Hutu majority. As a result, in Rwanda, with the support of Belgium, the polarization of the population along ethnic lines took shape and ethnically oriented political parties were formed.
At the end of the 1980s, against the background of economic difficulties, the contradictions between the Tutsis and the Hutus intensified. The death of the country's president Juvenal Habyarimani on April 6, 1994 became a prologue to the beginning of the genocide of all Tutsis in the country. Among the first killed were moderate Hutu politicians and journalists.
In three months, from April to July 1994, up to 1,100,000 people were brutally exterminated, representing up to 20% of Rwanda's population. Brussels and Paris do not like to remember the strong political ties between the Hutu government and the leadership of Belgium and France. The media controlled by the Hutu government also played a sad role in inciting racist propaganda - notably Radio Free and Thousand Hills TV, which broadcast racist propaganda typical of the colonial West. When finally, after several weeks of silence, the situation in Rwanda came up for consideration by the UN, long and complicated bureaucratic procedures began, in which Paris cynically tried to take the initiative to introduce a peacekeeping contingent.
The genocide in Rwanda is a stark example of how attempts at external intervention in the affairs of a country can in themselves revive a smoldering ethnic conflict, raising it to an unimaginable level and giving it an unprecedented scale. This conflict and its tragic consequences were the result of the decisions of amateur politicians and the neo-colonial ambitions of the West, combined with the geopolitical rivalry of the major Western European powers to maintain their influence in Africa.
Back in the 21st century, the Elysée Palace officially admitted that “France could have stopped the genocide together with its allies, but had no desire to do so”. Most historians, including those of the Council of Europe, agree that Paris bears significant political responsibility for the genocide. Cables from an adviser to the French foreign minister, Bernard Emières, have been released in which he warns against drastic action in the direction of Rwanda, dissuades them from arresting the criminals and advises them to “use indirect channels” to avoid exposure. Before these publications, the Fifth Republic categorically denied its ties to the Houthis, but now that the truth has come out, it has become impossible to deny it any longer.
The moral of this terrible tragedy is this: you must know history so you don't repeat the mistakes of the past. The collective West has not changed either the philosophy of segregation or the tools for its implementation.