Genocide in Rwanda is one of the historical events that will live to be remembered by the people of Rwanda as well as those who were affected with the event. Gregory Stanton has tried a lot to explain some facts regarding genocide in his book “Eight Stages of Genocide.” These stages are similar to the activities that had occurred during the Rwanda genocide. The Rwanda genocide occurred in 1994. According to Gregory, the first stage of genocide is classification. This stage was experienced in Rwanda since there were some people who had distinguished themselves in groups like Hutu and Tutsi (Gregory 10). The second stage, symbolization, was also experienced in Rwanda since there was easy identification between the Tutsi and Hutu. In this case, the Tutsi were the minority while the Hutu were the majority.
Dehumanization, the third stage, was evident in Rwanda since the Hutu people did not treat the Tutsi as human beings. There was obvious hatred between these two groups. In Rwanda, there were some people who had been organized into troops to fight with the opponents (Des 20). This was consistent with Gregory’s fourth stage, organization. There were also extremists in Rwanda that induced more hatred between the two major rival groups. This encouraged polarization, which is the fifth stage of genocide. This increased the rivalry between the Hutu and the Tutsi. The Tutsi formed rebellion groups with an intention to resist the actions of the Hutu people.
At some point, a state of emergency was declared and some major international organizations started to raise some concern about the incidence. There was some preparation in Rwanda since people of the same group were able to identify themselves. This was consistent to the sixth stage of genocide, preparation. According to Gregory, the seventh stage of genocide is extermination. In Rwanda, there were mass killings that were experienced in most of the parts of the country. At some point, people wanted to revenge what had been done to their relatives and friends. This therefore led to more killings in the country. Due to these killings, some people started fleeing out of the country (Langford 12). The last stage of genocide is denial. Towards the end of the Rwandan genocide, the parties involved did not want other people to associate them with the activities that had taken place. They wanted to hide the evidence that would make them to be sued in the courts of law. They therefore tried very hard to hide this evidence by hiding the dead bodies in mass graves. From the above points of view, we can come to the conclusion that Gregory’s “Eight Stages of Genocide” reflect how Rwanda’s genocide occurred.
Works Cited
Des Forges, Alison. Leave No One to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda. Human Rights Watch. Retrieved January 12, 2007. Print.
Gregory, S. Eight Stages of Genocide. Washington. Washington and Lee University. 2002. Print.
Langford, Peter. The Rwandan Path to Genocide. Blake Publishers. New York. 1999. Print.
