We're studying the Rwandan Genocide in one of my classes

And there is an entire chapter in our book "A Problem From Hell"- America and the age of Genocide about it. We have to take notes on each section, so I'll be trying to post all of my notes here for you-

We'll also be watching Hotel Rwanda in class, which I'll post my notes on as well

Here are my notes for the first section, "'I'll Never Be a Tutsi Again'"

(Just as a side note, the chapter opens with the most disturbing picture I've ever seen. It's of Rwandan people, who have been killed, floating down the Kagera river. It's absolutely horrifying.)

-On April 6, 1994, the Rwandan president was murdered in a plane shooting.
-His death, according to Colenel Theoneste Bagosora, meant that the government had fallen and the military was in charge.
-The military's first actions were to put a curfew into place, along with roadblocks around the capital.
-The Hutu radio station, Radio Mille Collines, began calling the Tutsis Inyenzi, or cockroaches, and claimed them to be the target.
-American officials, who were unsure if the president's death had in fact occured, conversed about the probability that widespread violence would soon occur.
-Alison Des Forges was America's most knowledgable insight into Rwanda; without her, the country could barely figure out the ethnic differences between the Hutus and the Tutsis.
-Des Forges was a specialist in Rwandan culture and was closs friends with Monique Mujawamariya, who was a member of the Human Rights Watch.
-Monique sent a warning to the Human Rights Watch weeks before telling them that anyone who gave the president trouble, was basically as good as dead.
-Monique was killed at gunpoint under the order of Bagosora, asking Des Forges to care for her children.
-The prime minister, who rightfully after the death of the president had become head of the state, was to be transported by the UN to Mille Collines to broadcast for peace.
-The prime minister, along with all of Rwanda's modern politicians were murdered systematically.
-The peacemakers who had been sent to help the prime minister to the radio station were savagely mutilated, to the point that their bodies couldn't be numbered.
-The radio station then became a way for others to know who was on the list to be murdered. Tutsi and moderate Hutu names, and adresses were read on air, so they cuold be found more easily.
-It was obvious early, that this was going to be a genocide by the systematic, and not spontaneous murder of all Rwandan Tutsis.
-The deaths in the city were commited by mostly technologically advanced weapons such as grenades and automatic weapons.
-In the country, firearms were the most common, until more and mroe Hutus joined the battle. At that point, knives machetes, and masus(clubs with nails pointing outward) became the operative weapons.
-There were checkpoints where fleeing Tutsis would be killed all at once.
-Families consisting of intermingled parentry had tough decisions to make.
-The military was willing to kill anyone who was not a Hutu, including children who's fathers were Tutsis, even if their mother was a Hutu.
-In 100 days nearly 800,000 Tutsis were murdered.
-Before the plane shooting, America ignored many warning signs, and denied the attempts to strengthen the peace keeping mission.
-The Clinton administration refused to send troops to stop the massacre.
-They did not jam the Rwandan radio station, and allowed the Rwandan ambassador to the UN to remain.
-Washington demanded that the peacemakers be removed from Rwanda, and refused the allowance of UN reinforcements.
-Taking the same path as the Somalian genocide, America watched on the sidelines.