Genocide in Rwanda
By: Michele Copeland
Dr. Jared Diamond’s thesis states that it wasn’t just “the Hutu verses Tutsi ethnic hatred
fanned by politicians”, but that the cause for the genocide in Rwanda had other contributing
factors that fueled the #re. The contributing factors he states are di$erent environmental issues
such as over population (760 people per square mile), un-mechanized farming, land disputes,
small land plots (most less than an acre), poor farming practices which led to soil erosion,
deforestation, fear/paranoia and drought. I stand by Dr. Diamond’s thesis that the multiple
contributing factors played a role in the Rwanda genocide especially fear/paranoia, their
farming practices and over population. These are the three topics I would like to expand on.
Let’s start with the most obvious one, over population. Rwanda’s population was
7,107,000 people in 1993 before the genocide then dropped to 4,745,000 in 1994. Rwanda was
over populated from the beginning because of its prime location and ability to stay disease free
from the high altitude. The introduction of new world crops, public health, medicine, and stable
political boarders helped caused the population grow 3% every year. As we know more people
leads to needing more food and according to Thomas Malthus “population growth tends to out
run the growth of food production”.
While Rwanda’s population grew the farming practices stayed traditional and failed to
modernize which lead to clearing forest and draining marshes to gain new farmland. While
farming they didn’t leave any room for correct practices like terracing or crop rotation and tried
