What is the background to the human rights issue in Rawanda?

Question

I know it's got something to do with the minority Tutsis ruling over the Hutus and Belgians?

I've looked it up on wikipedia but it's so hard to understand wikipedia, can someone explain it in depth but simple enough to understand fully?

Answer 1

If the racial tension was the fuze, than the bomb itself was something like this: there was extreme poverty and a population density higher than in most european countries (230/square km)...wich is hard to support in a mostly rural society. It ended in neighbours and friends slaughtering eachother with cheap chinese machetes (cheaper than bullits). The UN stood by and did nothing. The belgians ran off, evacuating whites only.

  

Answer 2

By human rights issue, you mean the genocide in 1994?

Very very basically. Hutu and Tutsi are not 'races', they were status categories based on wealth and things, and one person could be a Hutu one day and Tutsi the next. Then the Germans later Belgians came and said Hutu and Tutsi are 'races'.

So, the Tutsi were thought of as superior and favoured by the Belgians. They were in the minority, and Hutus began to assert their power in 1959 and Belgians switched sides to support the Hutus. The Hutus took over when Rwanda became independent in 1962. So Hutus ruled, and the country was led by a dictatorship. So by the 1990s, the Hutus' power was slipping and a group of Tutsis who lived in a neighbouring country organized an army and invaded. The Hutu-led army took full control of Rwanda and began massacring Tutsis and moderate Hutus who opposed them. About 800,000 people were killed and many more fled as refugees. The genocide ended when the Tutsi-led army came in and defeated the Hutus.

(If anything needs clarification, let me know!)