Lessons from Rwanda The Rwandan Genocide Lesson 1 – The origins of the Rwandan genocide

Lessons from Rwanda

The Rwandan Genocide

L e s s o n 1 – T h e o r i g i n s o f t h e Rwa n d a n g e n o c i d e

Rwanda is a small, land-locked state in east Africa.

What is genocide?Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: • Killing members of the group; • Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group• Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to

bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;• Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group• Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group

Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide - Article II

Photo archives: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington DC.