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Welcome to the country of Rwanda!You are at a market and a local has given you a brief history lesson on the country of Rwanda. You learn that Rwanda is composed of three main ethnic groups: Hutu, Tutsi and Twa. Nearly 85% of the population identified as Hutu, making it the majority group in Rwanda. Tutsi comprised 14% of the population and Twa made up 1%. The colonial power, Belgium, believed that the Tutsi were superior to the Hutu and the Twa and put the Tutsis in charge of Rwanda. At the end of colonial rule, however, Belgium began giving more power to the Hutus. As the Hutus gained more leverage, they began to drive the Tutsis out of Rwanda and?significantly lowered the population of Tutsis in the country.Ethnic tensions existed in Rwanda for centuries, growing even more extreme after Rwanda gained independence from Belgium in 1962. Many Hutus resented the Tutsi, as they were typically considered the elite and had ruled the country for decades. As a result, they also feared the Tutsi and were determined to hold on to their own power.?In 1959, the Hutus overthrew the Tutsi monarchy and tens of thousands of Tutsis fled to neighboring countries, including Uganda. A group of Tutsi exiles formed a rebel group, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), which invaded Rwanda in 1990 and fighting continued until a 1993 peace deal was agreed.On the night of April 6, 1994, a plane carrying then President Juvenal Habyarimana was shot down, killing everyone on board. Hutu extremists blamed the RPF and immediately started a well-organized campaign of slaughter. The RPF said the plane had been shot down by Hutus to provide an excuse for the genocide. Hutu extremists launched their plans to destroy the entire Tutsi civilian population once and for all. Political leaders who might have been able to take charge of the situation and other high profile opponents of the Hutu extremist plans were killed immediately. Tutsi and people suspected of being Tutsi were killed in their homes. Entire families were killed at a time. The Hutu extremists set up radio stations and newspapers which broadcast hate propaganda, urging people to "weed out the cockroaches" meaning kill the Tutsis. The names of those to be killed were read out on radio. Even priests and nuns have been convicted of killing people, including some who sought shelter in churches. In 100 days after April 6, 1994, 800,000 men, women, and children perished in the Rwandan genocide, perhaps as many as three quarters of the Tutsi population. At the same time, thousands of Hutu were murdered because they opposed the killing campaign and the forces directing it.A UN peacekeeping operation (UNAMIR) was sent to Rwanda in April. The mission, however, failed to be sufficient and was extremely?ill equipped. There was a lack of functioning vehicles and the ones that were available were hand-me-downs. Medical quickly supplies ran out with no money to restock and other supplies could rarely be replaced.The United States was the main proponent in backing the UNAMIR’s exit of Rwanda. U.S. officials felt that a small peacekeeping mission would result in a large and costly war for Americans. Belgium joined the United States in calling for a full UN exit in April of 1994. The Security Council later voted in mid-May to send 5,000 troops back to Rwanda after reports that the genocide spread. However, by the time the force returned, the genocide had long been over.When the killing stopped, the RPF established a coalition government with a Hutu as president and a Tutsi as vice president and defense minister. The UN also reinstated and revamped the UNAMIR operation in Rwanda, which remained there until March 1996. UNAMIR provided humanitarian relief in the aftermath of the genocide. The effect that the genocide posed on the people of Rwanda is immeasurable. The people were tortured and terrorized as they saw those they love die and feared the loss of their own life. It is estimated that nearly 100,000 children were orphaned, abducted or abandoned.?26% of the Rwandan population still suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder today. In 1994, the United Nations created the?International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), dedicated to bringing those responsible for the genocide to justice. Although slow-moving, the ICTR began trying and indicting perpetrators in 1995. The United Nations conducted more than 70 tribunal cases and Rwandan courts have tried up to 20,000 individuals. However, trying individuals in courts proved to be a challenging process as the location of many perpetrators was unknown.-342900113665002286000-63500457200011366500Welcome to the country of Canada! You’re visiting the French province of Quebec during a 1995 vote as to whether Quebec should separate from the rest of Canada.Several diverse political groups coalesced in the late 1960’s in the formation of the?Parti Québécois, a provincial political party. Since 1968, the party has appealed for constitutional negotiations on the matter of provincial sovereignty. Front de Liberation du Québec (FLQ), a faction of the Parti Québécois, formed in 1963 advocating the creation of an independent state of Quebec. Bombings of mailboxes by the FLQ were common throughout Quebec from 1963 to 1970, but other targets included the Montreal Stock Exchange, Montreal City Hall, police offices, railways, and banks.On October 5, 1970, two members of the FLQ kidnapped British Trade Commissioner James Cross outside his home. The FLQ demanded the release of detained FLQ members and the public broadcast of the FLQ Manifesto, which criticized business, religion and the political leaders of Quebec and Canada. Then on October 10, Pierre Laporte, the Quebec Minister of Labour was abducted while playing football with his family. Thus began the October mercial areas were closed off and the army was brought in to patrol Montreal and government buildings. With increased difficulty in maintaining civil order, the Quebec Government asked the Canadian army to formally intervene. Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act, the only time it was used in peacetime in Canadian history, which allowed the government to suspend civil liberties; which led to the arrests of 250 suspected FLQ members and sympathizers within a 12-hour period. The situation took a turn for the worse when on October 17, the FLQ announced that it had murdered Pierre Laporte. On November 6, police raided the hideout. Cross was rescued and released after 62 days in captivity. Only eight individuals were convicted of crimes associated with the October Crisis. Federal troops in Quebec were withdrawn on December 24.Canada was originally colonized by the French for fur trapping and trading. However, the British won the French and Indian War (1754- 1763), which effectively divided up Canada into upper and lower Canada: Upper Canada would be British and lower Canada would be French. Quebec, being French territory, would be apart of lower Canada. Later on, Canada was united in 1867 under the British North American Act. By the early 1900’s, most French Canadians lived in Quebec for hundreds of years, spoke French, and had a different culture than English-speaking Canadians. Most French Canadians lived on farms and rarely left their villages. The majority of French Canadians were Catholic, while British Canadians were Protestant. Thus, most French Canadians think of themselves as French, not British and didn’t like the close ties Canadians now had with the British. Idea of a separate French Canada began to spread slowly after the end of World War I. However, by the 1960’s many French Canadians had become Quebec nationalists and thought of themselves as Quebecois, not Canadians. However, by this time but of Quebec had changes. Growing populations pushed onto farmlands and rural people grew poor due to lose of those lands. Many decided to leave their farms and move into cities. The Catholic Church began to lose their influence so many stopped going to church and English was being spoken in most French cities. Many French Canadians felt that their language and culture might disappear and felt like second-class citizens within their own country. The separatist movement began to emerge in Quebec. French influence began to assert itself against English domination, and momentum for Quebec independence grew. Those who support Quebec separatism want: to protect French language and culture, to be treated as equals with English Canadians, non-French Canadians respect French culture and language, and to preserve French Canadian culture for future generations. Cons for separating argue that separatism would: result in economic disaster for Quebec and the rest of Canada and ruin national unity and pride. Both in 1980 and 1995 the people of Quebec voted as to whether to succeed or remain apart of Canada. Both votes were in favor of staying apart of Canada with razor tight margins in the 1995 vote: 49.4% voted to secede, 50.6% voted to remain apart of Canada. The close results showed that the relationship between Quebec and the rest of Canada continue to be a controversial issue. So what now? The Canadian government does not want Quebec to separate from Canada because they are a huge economic help to the country, Quebec is rich in natural resources, and the eastern province allows western Canada to have access to many waterways for shipping and trade. Therefore, the government has made several reforms in an attempt to keep the separatist happy…In 1982 the Constitution Act made Canada bilingual helping Quebec’s citizens to preserve their language and culture. The act made two official languages of Canada (French and English) and made it so that all government documents had to be written in French and English. In Quebec today, French is the only official language. The Office Québécoise de la Langue Fran?oise, Quebec French language police, enforces the usage and placement of French throughout the province. English can be used in advertising, must it must be placed after the French words and must be half the size of the French. Tensions persist between Canadians and those from Quebec today. For example, those living in Quebec celebrate Saint Jean Baptiste day, the patron saint of French-speaking Canadians every June 24th while the rest of Canada celebrates Canada day on July 1 when the nation was officially born due to the Constitution Act of 1867. 537210084455Pierre LaPorte00Pierre LaPorte-22860084455001485900844550036576008445500445770084455James Cross00James Cross6057900844550046863001968500Welcome to the country of Germany!You are visiting Germany while on break from school and decide to visit some museums and decide to go to a Holocaust museum. While at the museum, you learn about the genocide of Jews during World War II.After Germany’s loss in WWI, the Treaty of Versailles punished Germany by placing tough restrictions on the country. The?treaty made Germany take full responsibility for the war, reduced the extent of German territory, severely limited the size and placement of their armed forces, and forced Germany to pay the allied powers reparations. These restrictions?not only increased social unrest but, combined with the start of the Great Depression, collapsed the German economy as inflation rose alongside unemployment.In the German parliament, the Nazi party, led by Adolf Hitler, gained popularity. Hitler was made the Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933.After coming to power in 1933, Germany’s Nazi Party implemented a highly organized strategy of persecution, murder, and genocide aimed at ethnically “purifying” Germany, a plan Hitler called the “Final Solution”. Hitler and the Nazis said the Jews were responsible for huge events like losing World War One and the economic crisis.?The solution to all these problems was to banish the Jews from society. With this political message and the promise to make Germany a large and economically powerful country Hitler’s party rose to the top. Hitler built on and used anti-Semitic ideas that already existed. He was Austrian and grew up in Vienna where the mayor was extremely anti-Semitic and where hatred of Jews was widespread.Throughout the nights of November 9-10, 1938, rioting across Germany, Austria, and part of German-controlled Czechoslovakia targeted Jewish people and their places of business and worship. These nights have come to be known as?Kristallnacht, or “The Night of the Broken Glass”. Over those two nights, hundreds of synagogues were burned; more than 7,000 Jewish-owned businesses were looted and destroyed, and almost 100 Jews were killed during the violence. Some 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and transported to concentration camps. The rioting was triggered by the?assassination of Ernst vom Rath, a German diplomat in Paris, by a Polish Jewish teenager on November 7th. Although the events of November 9th and 10th were reported to be a spontaneous outburst of violence among the German people, they were?actually closely organized by the Nazis. Once Germany took over Poland in 1939, it created forced-labor camps. Thousands of prisoners died from working conditions, exhaustion, and starvation. After the outbreak of World War II, the number of concentration camps increased exponentially. The number of prisoners of war camps also rose, but after the first years of the war most were converted into concentration camps. Nazis forcibly relocated Jews from ghettos to concentration camps.Treatment inside the concentration camps were horrible. Prisoners were given tiny rations of food and forced into physical labor. They often slept more than three to a bed without pillows or blankets, even in the winter months. In many concentration camps, Nazi doctors conducted?medical experiments on prisoners against their will, in many cases killing the prisoners in the process. In 1942, fifteen Nazi leaders met at a conference in Germany to discuss the “Jewish Question”. Their job was to decide the most efficient way to exterminate the Jews. It was not until this point in the war that systemic extermination of the Jewish people was considered.Despite, wide reporting of Holocaust atrocities including gas chambers, many prominent analysts doubted the authenticity of these reports.?In the US after WWII had ended, photographs of the Holocaust stunned the public. Newspapers in the United States had reported on the oppression of the Jews in Germany during the war. In 1942, many newspapers were writing details of the Holocaust, but these stories were short and were not widely read. In 1943, after sources had confirmed the killings of at least two million Jews in concentration camps across Europe a?Gallup poll found that less than half of Americans believed these reports to be true; 28% thought they were “just a rumor”. The reports were unconfirmed and sometimes denied by the United States government.During the Holocaust it is?estimated that 6 million Jews were slaughtered along with, 3 million Soviet prisoners of war, 3 million Polish Catholics, 700,000 Serbians, 250,000 Gypsies, Sinti, and Lalleri, 80,000 Germans (for political reasons), 70,000 German handicapped, 12,000 homosexuals, and 2,500 Jehovah’s Witnesses.To prosecute the leaders of the Holocaust, the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg was formed in 1946. The U.S., the UK, the Soviet Union and France each supplied two judges (a primary and an alternate) and a prosecution team for the trial. Twelve leading Nazi officials were sentenced to death for the crimes they had committed, while three received life sentences in prison, and four had prison terms for up to twenty years. Three defendants were acquitted. However, many of the Nazis who perpetrated the Holocaust were never tried or punished, including Hitler who had committed suicide. 49149001968500274320013398500-3429001968500 ................
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