The 1994 Genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda Flashcards
Pre-1959?
Colonial Rwanda – go back to understand
- Part of German East Africa 1885-1919
- Belgian LofN mandate 1922-1945
- Beligian UN Trust Territory 1945-1961
o Accelerated Hutu-Tutsi tension
o Constructed as separate and distinct from one another
o Tutsi natural elite of Rwada + Hutus dispossessed of land
- 1950s artificial making isn’t working
o When Hutu gain enough power they could facilitate an end - Part of rhetoric to call Tutsi alien + invaders
o Hutu agree with Beligum that decolonization should happen with Hutus in power – inversion of power
what happened in 1959?
Revolution
- Tutsi excluded from moral order of Rwandan state
o Effectively one ethnocracy was replaced with another
- Survivors of genocide see this as a violent transformation point
what happened 1970s - 80s
Consolidation of power
- 1973 Habyerimana becomes President.
- 1978, MRND (Movement Revolutionaire National pour le Development) declared the only legitimate political party in Rwanda.
- Tutsi-dominated Burundian army launched attacks against Hutus in Burundi in 1972.
-1980s economic crisis
o pressure from donors to increase more liberal policies
o return of intervention but in different form
In June 1990, multiparty system
o During period Rwandan freedoms curtailed
o Perceived inferiority of Tutsi institutionalised
o Manifestation of racial tension but also Tutsi groups beyond border
Rwandan state a focus for agitation
Part of regions character more broadly
Early 1990s?
1990s
- Rwandan Patriotic Front: est 1988. Invades 1990
o From Uganda
o Marked beginning of revolutionary civil war
- November 1991 Catholic Bishops of Rwanda issue a letter on Pastoral Role of Rebuilding Rwanda.
o Xpress need to let go of racial difference
o Religion important part of rehealing
o Could make little difference
Leading up to genocide?
1991-1992 Massacres of Tutsis
- December 1992, Arusha, Tanzania: Habyarimana refuses to sign a protocol on power sharing and transitional government.
o In house fighting intensified on both sides
- August 1993: Arusha Peace agreement signed between the Habyarimana government and the RFP
o Special UN forces sent in anyway - Agathe Uwilingiyimana, newly appointed prime minister of the country came from a group of moderate Hutu.
- Late November 1993 the UN Assistance Mission to Rwanda (UNSMIR) arrives in Rwanda. They are under the command of Canadian Major General Romeo Dallaire.
- 11 January 1994, Dallaire sends a coded-cable message to the UN in New York warning of the danger of severe impending ethnic conflict in Rwanda.
what was the trigger of the genocide?
Trigger of genocide seen as assassination of Habyarimana with plane shot out of sky.
- From here signal from radio calling for genocide
- 6th april to 11th april 20,000 killed in Kigali alone
roughly what happens during the genocide?
‘Hutu Power’ gives the signal
- 20 April: Belgium withdraws its troops from UNAMIR.
- 21 April: UN Council Resolution No. 912 reduces the
UNAMIR peace-keeping forces in Rwanda. - April 30: UN condemns the killings o Failed to label as genocide o 6th to 30th at least 150k murdered o rate increases in May and June o at least 500,000 probably close to 1m
- July 1994: RPF takes control of Kigali
- 19 July: RPF installs a new government of national unity with a Hutu President (Pastor Bizimungu) and Tutsi PM Faustin Twagiramungu.
- Compulsory ID cards are abolished.
o Institutionalised nature of ethnocracy dismantled - November 1994: the UN Security Council creates the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). The Tribunal is located in Arusha, Tanzania.
How was it the UN/international communities fault?
Article 1 of Genocide Convention - The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of war or in time of peace, is a crime under International Law which they undertake to prevent and to punish.
- yet they did not
Actively reduced troops in the face of genocide
- Clear evidence in radio and media of inciting dehumanisation and genocide
Took far too long to refer to what was happening as genocide
US officials under the Clinton administration were banned from using the words genocide
- Labelling and recognising is an important first step in preventing or reacting to genocide
Can we blame the colonial era?
Bartov?
Created the mono-dimensional racial distinctions
- Central to propaganda campaign
- Heart of the justification of Hutu power
e.g. The Hamite/Hamitic Hypothesis
o John Hanning Speke
o Measurement of specific elements of anatomy to show tutsi and hutu as fundamentally different
Fed into mass media…
o Kangura newspaper – ‘specialist in genetic…’
Written into blood of people
Comes from scientific discourses around race
RLTM radio
o Cockroaches
Religion…
- Proteges of missionaries continued to disseminate mytho-histories of the origins of Hutu and Tutsi
Racial purity and mixed marriage focus
o Foetuses removed from hutu women where father is a tutsi
o Part of broader concept of elusive enemy
Bartov – ‘the elusive enemy’
o Enemy is everywhere – not just obvious tutsi
how did revolution play a part?
Removes state from pubic opinion, public opposition and moral restraint
War allows for people to take hardest line
Division between groups institutionalised over a long period of time is exploited
How does the Hutu 10 commandments show genocidal intent?
Hutu 10 commandments o Clear intention o Look to the future o Supremacy based on ethnicity o Ideology mentioned o Institutionalisation
o Tutsi women Biological and conniving
Gendered othering
Shows care about future
o Treachery filtered down to every part of your life
Enemies close at hand
o Stop giving mercy
Implies had mercy until them and putting up with them now –> turning point
o Men and women difference in active role – murdering vs stealing
o 10 X – ancestrally inherited, religious authority
o Imbued with fear
All protection of what has been gained
Constructed that way
o Date – shows it was institutionalised + ingrained
Forces within and without are threatening hutu state
o Stresses point in RPF – how guilty are they for events that occurred
Are factors contributing to Rwandan genocide the same as other genocides?
Yes:
Total War - Armenia, Holocaust
Ethnic aspect - same
Culture of fear
Media usage - Holocaust
NO:
Less bureaucratic
Transition from top to bottom comes very quickly
Carried out on ground by civilians - not just army/state
More in common with colonial genocide?
o Systematic nature of genocides in 20th C not seen here
o Hybrid with colonial and post-colonial
o Milita persuading and message taken about to compel people
X - could argue v organised
- different type of organisation - decentralised, sent out from top but initiative taken from below
Could European intervention in East Africa be seen as responsible for this mass violence?
Colonial? UN? Christian faith?
Hone in on ‘responsible’ and ‘mass violence’
Colonial intervention
- Intervention of ideas (sci + religion)
- racial hierarchy
- rwandan people perceptive of this
Christian Faith
- basis of society
- Missionaries
- just before revolution church changes tune and sides with Hutus
Lack of UN intervention
- could have stopped it
- actually descaled
Trigger/institutionalism
- big gap between intervention and genocide
Mass media
Tribal tensions long before European intervention
- disputed
- not on ethnic lines
- not as binary
What role did religion play in the Rwandan genocide?
2 Perspectives - functionalist and intentionalist
Functionalist - build up of decisions from local
Intentionalist - design from top
F - church didn’t condemn so priests condoned the killed
- so strongly religious country yet didnt use the church
- justification through inaction
I - Institutionalised stuff like education went through church and only Hutu could become high church –> park of making and perpetuating difference
X - to orchestrate you need motive, strategy and centralised power
- churches didn’t have any
- centralised - regional differences
- strategy - up to individual priest
- motive - nothing to gain
- got out of their way though
X - Role of hub and rescuing people
- connection with red cross because they would set up at churches
X ‘Work’
Geography like hills, marshes, forests
- machete connected with agricultural nature of rwanda
- Next to Burundi and Uganda
- Burundi killed lots of Hutus and they fled to rwanda
- broader geo-political reasons
