Informative Speech on Rwandan Genocide Outline

Ben Johnson Intro to Comm. 1320-04 11/8/12 Rwandan Genocide General Purpose: To Inform Specific Purpose: To share with the class that the Rwandan Genocide was a brutal genocide that most people know little about. Thesis: The Rwandan Genocide is one of the lesser known, quickest, and most inhumane genocides this world has ever seen, and it is still affecting the people of Rwanda till this day. Organizational Pattern: Topical Introduction I. Attention Getter: What some people do not know is that Rwanda was home to the most brutal genocide this world has ever seen.

There is a book of testimonies where the survivors of the Rwandan genocide told their story of their struggle to survive called, Survival Against the Odds. There was one survivor named Dephrosa, and this is a quote from her testimony. “They brought us all in the sitting room and started forcing us to take our clothes off. The housekeeper rapped me. My husband wanted to intervene but they staved him off by hitting him with a masus [a club with nails] on his neck. He fell back in the chair. the husband was not killed right away they kept him alive to watch multiple men rape his wife and daughters for several days until they finally killed him. II. Connection: I am not here to tell you my opinion about how the Untied States, the Untied Nations, or the world should have handled this historical tragedy. I am here to share with you what had happened to three-quarters of the Tutsi race in Rwanda. III. Thesis Statement: The Rwandan Genocide is one of the lesser known, quickest, and most inhumane genocides this world has ever seen and it is still affecting the people of Rwanda till this day.

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IV. Transition: When most people think about genocide the first thing that comes to their mind is the Holocaust, but what a lot of people don’t know is that the Holocaust wasn’t the worst mass murder our Earth has seen. Body I. The Rwandan genocide is one of the fastest but less known genocides we have on record. A. The genocide lasted only 100 days from April 6, 1994 through July 16, 1994 which makes it one of the shortest genocides in history. 1. President Hayarimana was assassinated in the beginning of April 1994 and that was the start of the genocide. . It is believed by many, that Hutu rebels shot down the presidents plane for a reason to start the mass murders, but has never been proven. 2. Only hours after the assassination, the killings began. a. A quote from an article called100 Days Of Slaughter published by PBS says, ” The International Red Cross estimates that tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of Rwandans are now dead by April 21, 1994. ” B. An estimated 800,00 to 1,000,000 Tutsis and some moderate Hutus were slaughtered during the genocide. 1.

Kathy Robinson a Holocaust and Genocide Professor stated that, ” 6 men, women, and children were murdered every minute of every hour of everyday for 3 months. ” 2. Three-quarters of all Tutsis in Rwanda were murdered during the genocide. II. The Hutu’s didn’t just kill the Tutsis, they dehumanized and murdered them in the most inhumane ways imaginable. A. The propaganda that the Hutus used to influence people into believing that the Tutsis were worthless and were better off dead. B. The weapons the hutus used to murder hundreds of thousands of Tutsis. C. The Hutu’s used rape to torture, humiliate, and infect the Tutsis with HIV. . Rape wasn’t just a weapon used to infect the women with HIV; the husbands were forced to watch their wives and daughters get rapped by several Hutu men. a. A quote by a Rwandan survivor named Aline, “My father had to watch us being raped and abused. My mother was raped, then my sister and then me. My father was forced to watch. He couldn’t move, not even look away. ” 2. The interahamwe (a militia group part of the genocide) paid HIV positive men to rape Tutsi women, so the women that weren’t killed by a masus or another weapon would die from disease. 3. Up to 20,000 children were born due to the rapes that occurred in Rwanda.

D. Many of the Tutsis neighbors and city officials were Hutus, so they had no one to turn to but their fellow Tutsis who were just as frightened as everyone else. 1. In a book called, Survival Against the Odds, where 11 year old Valentina tells her story and there was a quote from Sylvestre Gacumbitsi (the Mayor of her city), “He shouted: “We are the interahamwe. We are about to eliminate every Tutsi so that in the future no-one will even know what a Tutsi looked like. If anyone is hiding in this church by mistake, because really he or she is a Hutu, they should tell me now. ” E.

I have told you about the Rwandan genocide and how the Tutsi people suffered during the genocide. I will now share with you their struggles they continue to go through years after the genocide ended. III. How even though the genocide has been over for about eighteen years it is still hurting people today? A. The Rwandan women are facing many problems still to this day. 1. 60,000 Rwandan women are now widows. 2. 7 in 10 survivors make less than 5000 Rwandan Francs ( only 8 American dollars) a month. 3. Many women are unable to live in the city or villages they grew up because of the humiliation of being publicly raped. . The Rwandan women are also faced to look after orphaned children when they are hardly able to support themselves. a. Many of the children the women will take care of will be orphaned a second time due to HIV and AIDs. B. There are now 200,000 orphans in Rwanda due to the genocide. 1. Most of the children do not have homes. 2. Over half of the children have stopped going to school because of poverty. 3. Many of the children that are orphaned have brothers and sisters that are younger and are forced to take over the responsibility of their parents. C. HIV and AIDs are plaguing many of the people in Rwanda today. 1. 7% of women were infected with HIV and AIDs during the genocide. 2. There are currently 250,000 children in Rwanda who have been orphaned as a result of HIV/AIDs. a. Thats 2. 5% of the total population of Rwanda who’s parents died from AIDs. 3. 27,000 children under the age of 15 are living with HIV/AIDs. D. Now that I have told you how many Rwandan people are still suffering from the genocide that happened 18 years ago I will go on and review what I have shared with you. Conclusion I. Review of Thesis/Main Points: I have told you about the rwandan genocide, how brutal it was, and how it is still affecting the rwandan people to this day.

This tragedy will affect Rwanda for many years to come. II. Connection: Rwanda isn’t the most well-known genocide but as you heard to day it is the most inhumane genocide to date. III. Final Memorable Remarks: No matter what happens in this our world there is no reason that any race of people should go through such a horrific event and we should learn from our mistakes so maybe in the future we will be able to stop genocide before it happens to save many lives. References “BBC NEWS | Africa | Rwanda: How the genocide happened. ” BBC News – Home. N. p. , n. d. Web. 14 Nov. 2012.