Genocide of Carthage vs. Genocide of Rwanda

Carthage is considered to be the first genocide during the 3rd Punic War in 146 BC between Carthage and Rome.  The genocide of Rwanda in 1994 is one of the most recent genocides and occurred between the two ethnic groups of Rwanda.

Can there be similarities found between these two besides the destruction of a people?

At first it seems as if these two scenarios are very different.  Firstly Carthage was fighting a war against Rome which ended in their genocide.  In Rwanda however the Tutsi people were not fighting the Hutu people.  They were just an ethnic minority in the country and blamed for many of the problems that the ethnic majority was having.  So in one sense Carthage was more to blame in their genocide because they were actively battling the people who in the end killed them.  The people of Rwanda just happened to be born into a minority and for that they were murdered.  So in this sense the genocides are very different because one was the fruits of war and the other was murdering a minority group.

                                          Rwandans slaughtered in genocide

A second factor that make these genocides different is that in Carthage the Romans took the survivors of the genocide as Roman slaves.  However, the people of Rwanda just wanted a complete destruction of this race.  They had been using some Tutsi people as slaves before the genocide but during the genocide they just wanted to wipe the ethnic group off the face of the earth.  So this shows that similar to my first point the Carthage genocide was a result of waring nations and the Rwandan genocide was for control of the nation.

                                            Destruction of Carthage

This makes it seem as if these are very different events.  However, there is one obvious link between the two, and that is the destruction of a culture.  Both the Romans and Rwandans were trying to destroy a rival culture and both succeeded in doing so.  Carthage was wiped off the face of the map after the 3rd Punic war and most Tutsis were killed once the genocide was complete.  This shows basically how these were both very intense genocides even if they were for different reasons and done differently.

On idea about the ethics of both of these genocides is different.  In Rwanda in the current time frame this is a genocide in a third world country that has a bad leadership culture.  While Rome on the other hand was the major empire at the time and was very well run.  This gives a very good look into the ethics of the ancients.  It shows that the majority people were the ones doing the genocide.  To look at this in modern times would be like the USA committing genocide on another culture.  This would not be allowed in current times.  The people of America would not allow this to happen and would create a huge uproar.  Today genocide is done in smaller scales in third world countries where in the ancient times it was the major powers doing the genocide.

                        Skull and other bones from the Rwandan Genocide

                                           Remains of Carthage