Rwandan Genocide

[Guardian Hawk]

From something I read years ago there's a heightist component to the genocide?

One side is markedly taller than the others and sees the smaller people as sub human or something I guess? Kind of the reverse to what the Dinka go through in Sudan?

I don't think there is (heightist component). In fact, whilst there are small genetic differences (here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_of_Hutu_and_Tutsi) there is basically nothing to tell a Hutu or Tutsi apart (ID card/paperwork is really the only way to know who is who).

 

[Doss]

One of the very saddest and gravest of the modern genocides.

 

[Borry]

Just scanning the wikipedia page from the link on the OP, not much depth from that.

Ultimately another tragic consequence of European intervention and colonialisation in that continent.

I'm just reading a bit about the background, especially with regards to the German and Belgian rule in that country and the fact that they saw one group as superior and the other as inferior. All starts setting seeds for the disaster many decades later.

European colonists, convinced the Tutsi had migrated to Rwanda from Ethiopia, believed the Tutsi were more Caucasian than the Hutu and were therefore racially superior and better suited to carry out colonial administrative tasks

The Belgians initially continued the German style of governing through the monarchy, but from 1926 began a policy of more direct colonial rule.[24][25] They simplified the chieftaincy system, reducing its numbers and concentrating it in the hands of Tutsi,[26] extended the scale and scope of uburetwa,[26] and oversaw a land reform process by the Tutsi chiefs, in which grazing areas traditionally under the control of Hutu collectives were seized and privatised, with minimal compensation.[27] In the 1930s, the Belgians introduced large-scale projects in education, health, public works, and agricultural supervision.[28] The country was thus modernised but Tutsi supremacy remained, leaving the Hutu disenfranchised and subject to large scale forced labour.[29] In 1935, Belgium introduced identity cards labelling each individual as either Tutsi, Hutu, Twa or Naturalised. While it had previously been possible for particularly wealthy Hutu to become honorary Tutsi, the identity cards prevented any further movement between the classes