Příčiny genocidy ve Rwandě: Psychologické aspekty

Ethnic discrimination has deep roots in Rwanda. For many dozens of years, Tutsis have been marked down as those whose task it is to rule the country and Hutus have been treated as those who have to submit to it. As time moved on, Hutu hatred had been growing steadily and resulted in coup d'état in 1959 and consequent persecutions of Tutsis. However, hidden grudge lingered on. The pretext for its revival was the RPF incursion into the country at the beginning of nineties. The invasion also became one of the major preconditions of the fastest genocide in history. This thesis aims to pinpoint actors with direct and also indirect influence, to specify their motives, to assess implications of their decisions and on the grounds of this all to divide them into groups of perpetrators, bystanders and rescuers. The identification of psychological aspects of Hutu perpetrators was made with intent to analyse the process of Us-Them thinking with its typical features and consequences and the process of dehumanization with particular emphasis on its linguistic forms. In connection with that, this thesis points out crucial importance of Rwandan media of hate which determined anti-Tutsi propaganda to a considerable extent.