Forced Migration in Rwanda essays

Forced Migration in Rwanda essays Forced migration is a situation in which the liberty or life of individuals is taken away or threaten at the hands of another. The reasons behind forced migration are beyond the control of those being forced out of an area. Those who are displaced do so because it is the only possible way in which to survive. Often the conditions which cause forced migration include oppressive political regimes, war zones, and areas of famine. There are many recent examples of such forced migration throughout the modern world, specifically the example of mass movement from Rwanda in the mid 1990s. Between 1993 and 1994 over 900 000 were displaced by the war and living in refugee camps (Olsen 1995, 219). The Rwanda case tells us important things about the complexity of links between many different factors. In other words, there is no one reason behind migration of such magnitude. To understand the complex conflicts like the Rwandan genocide, one must be aware of the issues motivating the confl ict. What people do and what physical environment they do it in, but also why they do it must be examined. The forced migration in the African nation was initiated by many sources of insecurities ranging from ethnic insecurities of both distant past and more recent past origins, developmental and resource insecurities as well as geopolitical insecurities. Not only does a sense of threatened security result in involuntary migration, it also has broader implications for the future. Rwanda has been a nation plagued with ethnic insecurities reaching as far back as 1500 A.D. The two main ethnic groups in Rwanda, the Tutsi and Hutu, all spoke the same language, believed in the same god, shared the same culture and lived side by side throughout the country(Uvin 1996), but could agree on very little. Inequality between the Tutsi and Hutu was evident in the sixteenth century in which Tutsi and Hutu relations were dominated by the ...