Rwandan Genocide

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Template:Politicsboxend The Rwandan Genocide was the slaughter of an estimated 937,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus, mostly carried out by two extremist Hutu militia groups, the Interahamwe and the Impuzamugambi, during a period of 100 days from April 6th through mid-July 1994.

For many, the Rwandan Genocide stands out as historically significant, not only because of the sheer number of people that were murdered in such a short period of time, but also because of the way many Western countries responded to the atrocities. Despite intelligence provided before the killing began, and international news media coverage reflecting the true scale of violence as the genocide unfolded, virtually all first-world countries declined to intervene.

The United Nations refused to authorize its peacekeeping operation in Rwanda at the time to take action to bring the killing to a halt. Despite numerous pre- and present-conflict warnings by Canadian Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire the UN peacekeepers on the ground were forbidden from engaging the militias or even discharging their weapons, unless fired upon. In the weeks prior to the attacks the UN ignored reports of Hutu militias amassing weapons and rejected plans for a pre-emptive interdiction. This failure to act became the focus of bitter recriminations towards individual policymakers specifically, such as Jacques-Roger Booh-Booh, as well as the United Nations and countries such as France and the United States more generally and President Clinton specifically. Clinton was kept informed on a daily basis by his closest advisors and by the U.S. Embassy of Rwanda. President Clinton has said "It’s the biggest regret of my administration." [1] He has visited Rwanda several times since leaving office. The genocide was brought to an end only when the Tutsi-dominated expatriate rebel movement known as the Rwandese Patriotic Front, led by Paul Kagame, overthrew the Hutu government and seized power. Trying to escape accountability, hundreds of thousands Hutu "genocidaires" and their accomplices fled into eastern Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). The violence and its memory continue to affect the country and the region. Both the First and Second Congo Wars trace their origins to the genocide, and it continues to be a reference point for the Burundian Civil War.

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Background

The Twa were the first known inhabitants of Rwanda. Rwanda is one of the few states in Africa to closely follow its ancestral borders. The Kingdom of Rwanda, controlled by a Hutu royal family, ruled the region throughout recorded history. While the upper echelons of this society were largely Hutu, ethnic divisions were stark. Many Tutsis were among the nobility. Significant intermingling took place. The majority of the Hutu, who made up 82–85% of the population, were poor peasants.

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Pre-Colonial history

The exact date of the founding of the Kingdom of Rwanda varies from source to source with some placing it as early as 1312 and some as late as 1532. However, most sources agree that by the beginning of the fifteenth century, the Kingdom of Rwanda existed. It grew out of the fusion of several clans into a single kingdom under one royal clan. This royal clan was the Abanyiginya. It was said that this clan was descended from a son of god and that the Abeeza, another royal clan, was descended from the other. Therefore, these two clans intermarried regularly. It is also important to note that both of these clans included only Tutsis, with the result that all kings, or Mwamis, were Tutsi. Other clans were comprised of both Hutu and Tutsi, which made it possible for Hutus to hold chieftaincies within the kingdom. One’s identity, though, was decided more through smaller kinship groups, called inzu, than through the larger clan group. These kinship groups were usually either Hutu or Tutsi, owing their identity to a patrilineal inheritance.

Prior to the nineteenth century, it was a basic assumption that Tutsis naturally had military power and that Hutus possessed supernatural power. Therefore, the Mwami’s council of advisors, or abiiru, was made up of Hutus and gave a large measure of power to those Hutu clans that produced the advisors. However, over time “Tutsi” began to equal “power.” The differences in the degree of power held by the two groups began in the mid-eighteenth century.

Hutus were continuously subjugated under Tutsi rule. As the abiiru began to lose power during the reign of Mwami Rujugira to a possession cult, a religious group that practiced an indigenous religion somewhat akin to voodoo, the Hutu influence in the court of the Mwami began to wane. However, organization was still possible, and this helped to check the power of the Mwami. Hutus could also serve in the military, albeit in an administrative role only.

One of the main ways that Hutus began to be subjugated was through an extensive set of patronage relationships. There were three categories of these arrangements. The first, umuheto, existed between lineage groups and could take place not only between Hutus and Tutsis, but between “well-off” Tutsis and petits Tutsis, or poor Tutsis. The umuheto was basically a cattle clientship. It entailed a periodic gift of cattle to the powerful Tutsi in return for their protection. The main issue with this style of patron-client relationship was that it only applied to those who already owned enough cattle to make the gift, the upper-classes. The umuheto served as a tool to bring together the upper-classes into a single unit.

The second type of patron-client relationship was ubuhake. This existed between individuals, not lineage groups, and was therefore a more local arrangement. Since cattle-ranching was a more lucrative opportunity than agriculture, this arrangement relied upon the patron Tutsi lending the client petits Tutsi or Hutu a cow in exchange for some sort of political or social support. This system was more exploitative of the poor, but still applied to both poor Tutsis and Hutus.

The third type of patronage system, ubureetwa, was imposed only after a series of reforms centralized more land authority in the hands of the Mwami. The Mwami could now divide up land among chiefs of his own choosing, instead of land being something passed down through the lineage group. Land, then, became individually owned, making the Kingdom of Rwanda into a more modern state. Also, these chiefs were now administratively appointed instead of inheriting their titles. This had the consequence of further devaluing the Hutu in society since many of the hereditary chiefs had been Hutu, and now most of the appointed chiefs were Tutsi. The urubeetwa that was imposed by this more centralized authority was imposed exclusively on Hutus by their hill chiefs. They demanded manual labor as a payment for the right of Hutus to occupy the land. The Hutu status on these hills was downgraded to a serf-like position, with the newly-appointed Tutsi chiefs in the role of the feudal master. These centralizations, put in place between 1860 and 1895 by Mwami Rwabugiri, made Rwanda look more and more like a Tutsi power.

The other major modernization that took place in Rwanda during this period was the expansionist nature of the state, brought about largely because of the power of the military. Mwami Rujugira (1756–1765) was instrumental in this expansion. Because service in the military took one outside of one’s home region, it helped to offset some of the social polarization going on in the rest of the country. Though during Rujugira’s reign Hutus could only serve in administrative posts, it still gave them an opportunity to be integrated into the wider Rwandan society, and by the end of the nineteenth century, Hutus were allowed to serve in all aspects of the military.

At the beginning, the main job of Hutus in the military was herding. This was done by the entire lineage group, not just men, and it connected all of the Munyarwanda (Rwandan people) to the state. The lineage head became the military commander of the herding group, and was thereby transformed into a dual authority from kinship and the state. In this way, all the kin groups were connected to the state. This also lessened the influence of the kinship group and strengthened the power of the state over the people. The military was the outstanding success of an integrated Rwandan society and by far the most egalitarian structure within the Kingdom of Rwanda.

The administrative structure outside of the military was not nearly so integrated. When Rwabugiri centralized power, he brought the whole country under the control of the Mwami, who was given ultimate authority. This authority, however, was much of the time in name only. The centralization under the Mwami was decidedly less authoritarian than the colonial structure. Still, the Mwami was given far more power than before under Rwabugiri. He divided the state into four levels: the kingdom, the province, the district, and the hill. The kingdom was ruled over by the Mwami, who was always a Tutsi from the Abanyiginya or Abeeza clan. The position of Mwami was considered sacred, as the first Mwami was descended from the son of god.

The next level, the province, was ruled by a chief of men. His main job was to recruit soldiers to serve in the active army that not only conquered neighboring peoples, but also guarded the borders and the hills from invaders. The provincial chief was always Tutsi. At the district level, there were two chiefs. One was the chief of landholding. He was in charge of agriculture and collected all dues on labor and products from agriculture. The second was the chief of pastures, who presided over grazing land and all dues that came from cattle-ranching. While most of these were Tutsi as well, some of the landholding chiefs were Hutu, since agriculture was the traditional activity of the Hutus.

Finally there was the hill chief. This would be comparable to a village chief in other societies. However, given the topography of Rwanda, these villages were often centered on the hills. The hill chiefs, as mentioned earlier, were appointed by the Mwami or some higher chief, and though they could be either Hutu or Tutsi, tended more to be Tutsi.

The reign of Rwabugiri was an important transition in Rwandan sociopolitical development. He simultaneously incorporated Hutus into power in the military and administration while further disenfranchising Hutus socially and politically. His reign was also important for the expansion it brought and what it came to mean for identity in Rwanda. As the state expanded and new people brought under its umbrella, Rwabugiri did not bother to assess what ethnic groups were being assimilated into Rwandan society. All of the new conquered people were simply, “Hutu.” The title “Hutu” came to be identified with being a subjugated class, and therefore became a “transethnic” identity. This identity also helped to solidify the idea that “Hutu” and “Tutsi” were socioeconomic, not ethnic, distinctions.

However, social mobility was still possible, even in the highly centralized state built by Rwabugiri. One could kwihutura, or “shed Hutuness” by accumulating wealth and cattle and rising through the hierarchy. One could also gucupira, or lose social status and wealth, thereby becoming Hutu. Both of these processes took several generations to accomplish, but could happen. This ability to change one’s identity through one’s actions supports the theory that “Hutu” and “Tutsi” were less dictated by sociobiology and more by class and political power.

Tensions came to a head after Rwabugiri’s death. A succession dispute occurred between the Abanyiginya clan and the Abeeza over who should take the throne, and a power struggle erupted pitting the Tutsi elite on one hand with the excluded Tutsis and the newly subjugated Hutu on the other. A coup in favor of the Abeeza brought the struggle to an end with the anointing of Rucunshu as the new Mwami, but in their anger the rebels massacred many leaders of the Abanyiginya clan and put up Abeeza chiefs in their place. However, this was less an “ethnic” struggle between Hutu and Tutsi than an action demonstrating the dissatisfaction of the newly subjugated peoples, including the formerly autonomous Bakiga in the northern part of the kingdom. In short, the coup demonstrated the unhappiness of the oppressed Hutu lower classes under the superior Tutsi upper classes.

What is important to glean from this section is that identity within pre-colonial Rwanda had little to do with ethnicity and more to do with political and economic power. All Kinyarwanda-speaking people lived in the same cultural community, though not the same political or economic community, and those who lived outside of the kingdom of Rwanda could accurately be labeled as a diaspora. However, a political polarization was still not inevitable at this time, as the Hutu population was growing in number and strength, as demonstrated by the coup. “It is the history of the state that ultimately made of Hutu and Tutsi bipolar political identities.”(Mamdani, Mahmood. Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda. Princeton University Press. Princeton, NJ. 08540. 2002. pg. 74) This history, focusing on the centralization of the state and the social processes, most importantly the changes in patron-client relationships, is what had a major impact. The event that would have the biggest impact, however, was the voluntary ceding of authority in 1890 to Germany.

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Colonial History

For all practical purposes, the Germans had very little influence in Rwanda and Burundi other than to keep the Tutsi rulers in power. Their attention was focused far more on Tanganyika and Southwest Africa, present-day Tanzania and Namibia. The influential colonial policy began after the First World War, when as a trusteeship of the League of Nations, the Kingdom of Rwanda became a protectorate of Belgium.

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Self-government

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After World War II the Belgian colonial administration in Rwanda was placed under United Nations trusteeship and was therefore expected to prepare Rwanda for independence. Preceding the Belgian pull out, elections brought the Hutu nationalist Party of the Hutu Emancipation Movement (PARMEHUTU) to power in 1959. They launched a program of advancing the power of the Hutu majority, largely in the West. While the Tutsi had been the favourites of the colonial powers, perception shifted as the Tutsi became viewed as feudal overlords. It was thus seen as proper that the Tutsi leadership was ousted in favour of rule by the Hutu majority. This also led to a downplaying of the violence that was associated with this process. Some 20,000 Tutsi were killed and an additional 200,000 fled to neighbouring countries.

After independence, PARMEHUTU established a one-party rule based upon Hutu nationalism. In 1964 and again in 1974, pogroms were initiated in which large numbers of Tutsi were killed and more were forced into exile.

In 1973 the Hutu Juvénal Habyarimana seized power in a military coup, ousting PARMEHUTU, but continuing to rely on Hutu nationalism to stay in power, mainly on akazu.

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Other causes of the violence

Another school of thought argues that the violence in the region is a result of the same European theories of race that led to the Holocaust. These ideas were propagated by John Hanning Speke. Unlike the other mixed states of Africa, Rwandans were considered by Europeans to be on the border between Blacks and the "more noble" Hamites. Tutsis were viewed as Hamites and Hutus as inferior Bantus. This ingrained racism was reversed upon independence when the majority Hutus took to viewing the Tutsis as foreign invaders and not true Rwandans. Similar divisions have led to violence in other parts of northeast Africa, most notably in Sudan.

Others see an economic explanation for the violence. The Great Lakes region, with rich soil and a more temperate climate because of its altitude, is one of the most densely populated parts of Africa. This has led to a great deal of competition for scarce land and resources.

Jared Diamond, in his book Collapse, argues that this overpopulation was a contributing factor to the violence, as in one area where only a single Tutsi lived, 5% of the 2000 Hutu inhabitants were also killed. Diamond claims that the mayhem of the genocide provided a pretext for some Rwandans to kill their wealthier neighbours and seize their land.

Many Rwandans claim that there was little inter-ethnic rivalry until it was deliberately encouraged by the Juvénal Habyarimana government as a ploy to counter Paul Kagame and the Rwandese Patriotic Front's (RPF) largely Tutsi invasion on October 1, 1990.

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Prelude to genocide

Another source of mounting tensions in 1990 was the grumblings of the Tutsi diaspora in refugee camps ringing the nation, particularly from Uganda. Rwanda had been given independence before Uganda, and the early Tutsi outcasts saw history played out in 30 years of Uganda's history, from independence from Britain, to a fledgling democracy, and on to Idi Amin and successive military overthrows. Rwandans fought alongside Ugandans, where they had helped depose Milton Obote with Yoweri Museveni's National Resistance Army and saw his installation as president in January 1986.

The mainly Tutsi Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF) was formed in 1985 under Paul Kagame and saw an opportunity in their own country to demand recognition of their rights as Rwandans, including the right of return. On October 1, 1990 RPF forces invaded Rwanda from their base in neighbouring Uganda. The rebel force, composed primarily of Tutsis, blamed the government for failing to democratize and resolve the problems of some 500,000 Tutsi refugees living in diaspora around the world.

The Rwandan government portrayed the invasion as an attempt to bring the Tutsi ethnic group back into power. International reaction was ambiguous. The violence increased ethnic tensions as Hutus rallied around the President. Habyarimana himself reacted by immediately repressing Tutsis and Hutus who were perceived to be in league with Tutsi interests. Habyarimana justified these acts by proclaiming it was the intent of the Tutsis to restore a kind of Tutsi feudal system and thus to enslave the Hutu race.

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Arusha Accords

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Preparations for the genocide

During this period the rhetoric of Hutu nationalism escalated. Radio stations, particularly Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM), owned by top government leaders, and newspapers, began a campaign of hate and fear. They broadcast and published material referring to the Tutsi as subhuman and making veiled calls for violence. Radical Hutu groups, organized and funded by members of the government, started to amass weapons and conduct training programs. Government leaders met in secret with youth group leaders, forming and arming militias called Interahamwe (meaning "Those Who Stand Together" or "Those Who Fight Together" in Kinyarwanda, the local language) and Impuzamugambi (meaning "Those who have the same goal" or "Those who have a single goal").

There is ample evidence that the killing was well organized. (See Leave None to Tell the Story, by Human Rights Watch [2], and the evidence presented at trials at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda [3].) By the time the killing started, the militia in Rwanda was 30,000 strong — one militia member for every ten families — and organized nationwide, with representatives in every neighbourhood. Some militia members were able to acquire AK-47 assault rifles by completing requisition forms. Other weapons such as grenades required no paperwork and were widely distributed. Many members of the Interahamwe and Impuzamugambi were armed only with machetes, but these were some of the most effective killers.

According to Melvern, Rwandan Prime Minister Jean Kambanda revealed ([4]) that the genocide was openly discussed in cabinet meetings, and that one cabinet minister said she was "personally in favour of getting rid of all Tutsi… without the Tutsi all of Rwanda's problems would be over." As well as Kambanda, the genocide's organizers included Col. Théoneste Bagosora, a retired army officer, and many top ranking government officials and members of the army, such as General Bizimungu, who is portrayed in the film Hotel Rwanda. On the local level, the genocide's planners included Burgomasters, or mayors, and members of the police.

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Initial assassinations

On April 6, 1994, the French Mystère-Falcon jet carrying the Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira, the Hutu president of Burundi, was shot down as it prepared to land in Kigali. Both presidents were killed when the plane crashed.

The exact responsibility for this act is not known. At the time, Juvénal Habyarimana was involved in talks that aimed at sharing power with the Rwandese Patriotic Front. U.N. investigators initially suspected that Hutu extremists within Habyarimana's family circle had killed him, fearing he would concede too much power to the RPF in talks.

However, some recent testimony claims that blame lies with members of the RPF, possibly with the help of foreign mercenaries. In January 2000 three Tutsi informants told the United Nations that they were part of an elite strike team that carried out the assassination of the Hutu president. They told UN investigators in 1997 that the killing of Juvénal Habyarimana was carried out "with the assistance of a foreign government" under the overall command of Paul Kagame. They claimed that the RPF members had opted to kill Habyarimana out of dissatisfaction with the slow pace of the talksTemplate:Fact.

Specific allegations were made in a November 2005 book by Lieutenant Abdul Ruzibiza [5], in which Kagame is accused of directly planning Habyarimana's assassination in a meeting at RPF headquarters in Mulindi (Byumba, northern Rwanda) on March 31, 1994.

Regardless of the identity of its perpetrators, the dramatic airplane attack was an unambiguous signal to all Rwandans. Those who were going to kill knew what they had to do; and the Tutsi and the moderate Hutu understood at once that they would be attacked.

On the nights of April 6 and 7 the staff of the Rwandan Armed Forces (FAR) and Colonel Bagosora clashed verbally with the UNAMIR (United Nations Assistance Mission For Rwanda) Force Commander General Roméo Dallaire, who pointed out the legal authority of the Prime Minister, Agathe Uwilingiyimana, to take the control of the situation as outlined in Arusha Accords. Colonel Bagosora disputed the authority. General Dallaire decided to give an escort of UNAMIR personnel to Mrs. Uwilingiyimana to protect her overnight and to allow her to send a calming message on the radio the next morning. By then, the presidential guard occupied the radio station and Mrs. Uwilingiyimana had to cancel her speech. In the middle of the day, she was assassinated by the presidential guard. The ten Belgian UNAMIR soldiers sent to protect her were later found killed (they had been captured and tortured to death).

Other moderate officials favourable to the Arusha Accords were quickly assassinated. Faustin Twagiramungu escaped execution as he was passed to the safety of UNAMIR.

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Arms shipments

In the early morning of January 22, 1994, a planeload of arms from France, including 90 boxes of 60 mm mortars made in Belgium, was confiscated by UNAMIR at Kigali International Airport. The delivery was in violation of the cease-fire clauses of the Arusha Accords, which prohibited introduction of arms into the area during the transition period. General Dallaire put the arms under joint UNAMIR-Rwandan army guard. Formally recognizing this point, the French government argued that the delivery stemmed from an old contract and hence was technically legal. Dallaire was forced to give up control over the DC-8 aircraft.

A UK company, Mil-Tec Corporation Ltd, was involved in arms supplies to the Hutu regime at least from June 1993 to mid-July 1994. Mil-Tec had been paid $4.8 million by the regime in return for invoices of $6.5 million for the arms sent. The manager of Mil-Tec, Anoop Vidyarthi, was described as a Kenyan Asian who owned a travel company in North London and was in business with Rakeesh Kumar Gupta. They both fled the UK shortly after the revelations. The arms shipments by Mil-Tec were:

  • 6 June 1993 ($549,503 of ammunition from Tel Aviv to Kigali);
  • 17–18 April 1994 ($853,731 of ammunition from Tel Aviv to Goma);
  • 22–25 April 1994 ($681,200 of ammunition and grenades from Tel Aviv to Goma);
  • 29 April–3 May 1994 ($942,680 of ammunition, grenades, mortars and rifles from Tirana to Goma);
  • 9 May 1994 ($1,023,840 of rifles, ammunition, mortars and other items from Tirana to Goma);
  • 18–20 May 1994 ($1,074,549 of rifles, ammunition, mortars, RPG rockets and other items from Tirana to Goma);
  • 13–18 July 1994 ($753,645 of ammunition and rockets from Tirana to Kinshasa).
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Genocide

Image:Rwandan Genocide Murambi bodies.jpg

As though the assassination of Juvenal Habyarimana was a signal, military and militia groups began rounding up and killing all Tutsis they could capture as well as the political moderates irrespective of their ethnic backgrounds. (The movie Hotel Rwanda dramatizes this as a coded radio broadcast instructing Hutus to "cut the tall trees"). Large numbers of opposition politicians were also murdered. Many nations evacuated their nationals from Kigali and closed their embassies as violence escalated. National radio urged people to stay in their homes, and the government-funded station RTLM broadcast vitriolic attacks against Tutsis and Hutu moderates. Hundreds of roadblocks were set up by the militia in the capital Kigali and around the country. Lieutenant-General Dallaire and UNAMIR, escorting Tutsis in Kigali, were unable to do anything as Hutus kept escalating the violence and even started targeting, via RTLM, UNAMIR personnel and Lieutenant-General Dallaire.

The killing swiftly spread from Kigali to all corners of the country; between April 6 and the beginning of July, a genocide of unprecedented swiftness officially left 937,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus (some estimates pin the number at or a little over 1,000,000) dead at the hands of organized bands of militias. One such massacre occurred at Nyarubuye. Even ordinary citizens were called on by local officials and government-sponsored radio to kill their neighbours and those who refused to kill were often killed themselves. "Either you took part in the massacres or you were massacred yourself," said one Hutu who was forced to take part. The president's MRND party was implicated in organizing many aspects of the genocide.

Most of the victims were killed in their villages or in towns, often by their neighbours and fellow villagers. The militia members mostly killed their victims by chopping them up with machetes, although some army units shot and killed the Tutsis and moderate Hutus. In some towns the victims were forcibly crammed into churches and school buildings, where Hutu extremist gangs then massacred them. In June 1994 about 3000 Tutsis sought refuge in a Catholic church in Kivumu. Local Interahamwe then used bulldozers supplied by the local police to knock down the church building. People who tried to escape were hacked down with machetes.

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UNAMIR

For the next couple of weeks, many questionable decisions were made by members of the United Nations Security Council. The UN had a peacekeeping force in the country, UNAMIR — the United Nations Assistance Mission For Rwanda.

UNAMIR's Force Commander Lieutenant-General Dallaire became aware of plans for the genocide in January of 1994. He sent a cable to UN headquarters in New York asking for permission to confiscate weapons. Throughout January, February and March, he pleaded for reinforcements and logistical support. The UN Security Council refused. The United States refused to provide requested material aid after the failed US efforts in Mogadishu, Somalia. France, China and Russia opposed involvement in what was seen as an "internal affair". Dallaire was directly "taken to task," in his words, for even suggesting that UNAMIR should raid Hutu militants' weapons caches, whose location had been disclosed to him by a reliable government source. Many UN officials, including Boutros Ghali and Kofi Annan were involved in watering down the response of the UN. In the United States, Clinton and Albright refused to take action. Only Belgium asked for a strong UNAMIR mandate. After the murder of ten Belgian peacekeepers protecting the Prime Minister in early April, Belgium pulled out of the peacekeeping mission.

The UN and member states appeared largely detached from the realities on the ground. In the midst of the crisis, Dallaire was instructed to have UNAMIR focus only on evacuating foreign nationals from Rwanda, and the change in orders even led Belgian peacekeepers to abandon a technical school filled with 2,000 refugees, while Hutu militants waited outside, drinking beer and chanting "Hutu Power." After the Belgians left, the militants entered the school and massacred those inside, including hundreds of children. Four days later the Security Council voted to reduce UNAMIR down to 260 men.

The administrative head of UNAMIR was former Cameroonian foreign minister Jacques-Roger Booh-Booh, who has come under criticism for downplaying the significance of Dallaire's reports, and holding close ties to the Hutu militant elite.

Following the Belgian forces' withdrawal after 10 soldiers were killed, General Dallaire consolidated his contingent of Canadian, Ghanaian and Dutch soldiers in urban areas and focused on providing areas of "safe control". His actions are credited with directly saving the lives of 20,000 Tutsis.

The new Rwandan government, led by interim President Théodore Sindikubwabo, worked hard to minimize international criticism. Rwanda at that time had a seat on the Security Council and its ambassador argued that the claims of genocide were exaggerated and that the government was doing all that it could to stop it. Representatives of the Rwandan Catholic Church, long associated with the radical Hutus in Rwanda, also used their links in Europe to reduce criticism. France, which felt the United States and United Kingdom would use the massacres to try to expand their influence in that francophone part of Africa, also worked to prevent a foreign intervention.

UNAMIR's Kigali sector commander, Belgian Col. Luc Marchal, reported to the BBC that one of the French planes supposedly participating in the evacuation operation arrived at 0345 hours on 9 April with several boxes of ammunition. The boxes, about 5 tons, were unloaded and transported by FAR vehicles to the Kanombe camp where the Rwandese Presidential Guard was quartered. The French government has categorially denied this shipment, saying that the planes carried only French military personnel and material for the evacuation.

Finally, on April 29, 1994, the UN conceded that "acts of genocide may have been committed." By that time, the Red Cross estimated that 500,000 Rwandans had been killed. The UN agreed to send 5,500 troops to Rwanda, most of whom were to be provided by African countries. The UN also requested 50 armoured personnel carriers from the United States. However, deployment of these forces was delayed due to arguments over their cost.

On June 22, with no sign of UN deployment taking place, the Security Council authorized French forces to land in Goma, Zaire on a humanitarian mission. They deployed throughout southwest Rwanda in an area they called "Zone Turquoise," quelling the genocide and stopping the fighting there, but often arriving in areas only after the Tutsi had been forced out or killed. Operation Turquoise is charged with aiding the Hutu army and fighting against the RPF. Due to confusion amongst French troops about what was actually going on, many Tutsi were massacred in French controlled areas.

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RPF renewed invasion

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The RPF battalion stationed in Kigali under the Arusha Accords came under attack immediately after the shooting down of the president's plane. The battalion fought its way out of Kigali and joined up with RPF units in the north.

Image:Rwandan refugee camp in east Zaire.jpg

The RPF renewed its civil war against the Rwandese Hutu government when it received word that the genocidal massacres had begun. Its leader, Paul Kagame, directed RPF forces in neighboring countries such as Uganda and Tanzania to invade the country, battling the Hutu forces and Interahamwe militias who were committing the massacres. The resulting civil war raged concurrently with the genocide for two months.

The Tutsi rebels defeated the Hutu regime and ended the genocide in July 1994, 100 days after it started. Approximately two million Hutu refugees, most of whom participated in the genocide and feared Tutsi retribution, fled to neighbouring Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zaire (now DRC). Thousands of them died in epidemics of cholera and dysentery that swept the refugee camps. The Rwandan genocide and the resulting large numbers of refugees destabilized the regional balance of power along the Zairian border, resulting in the start of the First Congo War, which set the stage for the Second Congo War that continues to trouble the region. Battalions of Interahamwe continue to operate in eastern Congo, destabilizing the region and causing tension between Rwanda and the DRC.

Paul Kagame is now President of Rwanda. Rwanda is in the process of prosecuting thousands of genocide suspects in the national courts and in informal Gacaca sessions.

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Relief efforts

Image:Gisozi Genocide Memorial, Rwanda.jpg

The United States had experienced trouble in Somalia shortly before the genocide, and President Clinton decided not to get involved in the "local" conflict—a decision he was later reported to regret. The United Nations, in the absence of any serious military aid from the United States, was forced to open its communication pathways wider than before and urge other countries to join the efforts. The United States agreed to support these efforts with finance and some equipment. Early in the relief process, American camps began to drop large food packages from the air in hopes of alleviating the suffering below. However, the opposite occurred as people were slaughtered once again by the mobs trying to reach the precious food. The United States refused to bring its aid closer to the ground, and, as time went by, dysentery and cholera began to spread rapidly through the crowded refugee camps, ultimately killing tens of thousands. Soon, the problem was exacerbated as rain began to fall and scores of people contracted septic meningitis.

By this point, France had established a field hospital at the area of Lake Kivu in an attempt to help the large numbers of refugees. Some of these refugees were Interahamwe leaders and members of the government who fled the country fearing retaliation from the RPF. To aid the ground forces, Israel conducted the largest medical mission in its history, and, although their supplies were not as abundant as those of the other forces, their all-volunteer force of military surgeons was composed both of specialists and sub-specialists, including well-known surgeons. The two units were able to establish a unique and constructive method of operation that relied on France's abundant medical supplies and Israel's medical expertise.

In tandem with these two units, the Netherlands had sent a small contingent consisting mostly of medics and nurses. This force turned out to be beneficial for rehabilitation efforts and ambulatory care after patients moved out from the French-Israeli medical quarters. Care Deutschland assisted by supplying ambulances, and Merlin of Ireland assisted by supplying trucks and heavy equipment to distribute food and supplies to the end targets at the refugee camps. Together, this unique combination of well-intentioned forces was responsible for curbing the death toll about the waters of Lake Kivu, near Goma, Zaire.

UNAMIR was brought back up to strength after the RPF victory (and was called UNAMIR 2 thereafter). UNAMIR remained in Rwanda until March 8, 1996.

Following an uprising by the ethnic Tutsi Banyamulenge people in eastern Zaire in October 1996 that marked the beginning of the First Congo War, a huge movement of refugees began which brought more than 600,000 back to Rwanda in the last two weeks of November. The Interahamwe continues to operate in eastern DRC. This massive repatriation was followed at the end of December 1996 by the return of 500,000 more from Tanzania, again in a huge, spontaneous wave.

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Justice, reconciliation, reforms

Image:Rwanda poster.jpg

With the return of the refugees, the government began the long-awaited genocide trials, which got off to an uncertain start in the closing days of 1996 and inched forward in 1997. In 2001, the government began implementation of a participatory justice system, known as "gacaca" in order to address the enormous backlog of cases. Meanwhile, the United Nations set up the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, currently based in Arusha, Tanzania. The United Nations Tribunal has jurisdiction over high level members of the government and armed forces, while Rwanda is responsible for prosecuting lower level leaders and local people. Tensions have arisen between Rwanda and the United Nations over use of the death penalty.

Despite substantial international assistance and political reforms — including Rwanda's first ever local elections held in March 1999 — the country continues to struggle to boost investment and agricultural output and to foster reconciliation. A series of massive population displacements, a nagging Hutu extremist insurgency, and Rwandan involvement in the First and Second Congo Wars in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo continue to hinder Rwanda's efforts.

After General Dallaire returned to Canada, he suffered severe depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. In 2000, he was hospitalized after being found under a park bench, intoxicated and suffering from a reaction with his prescription anti-depressants. The story gained national headlines in Canada and sparked a fierce debate over the rules of engagement for UN Peacekeepers. Dallaire co-wrote a book, Shake Hands with the Devil, about his months in Rwanda, and in 2004 testified at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. In Canada, Dallaire is considered a hero; he was appointed to the Canadian Senate in 2005.

On March 31, 2005, the successor organization to the Interahamwe, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), led by Kris Christensen, finally condemned the genocide of 1994.

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Charges of revisionism

The context of the 1994 Rwandan genocide continues to be an important matter of historical debate with charges of revisionism often made [6] [7]. Suspicions against French and United Nations (UN) policies in Rwanda between 1990 and 1994 and its alleged support of the Hutus led to the creation of a French Parliamentary Commission on Rwanda, which published its report on December 15, 1998 [8]. In particular, the action of François-Xavier Verschave, former president of French NGO Survie, which accused the French army of protecting the Hutus during the genocide, was instrumental in the creation of this Parliamentary commission. To counter those allegations, a "double genocides" theory was created, which accused the Tutsis of having committed a "counter-genocide" against the Hutus. This theory was in particular supported by Black Furies, White Liars (2005), the controversial book of investigative journalist Pierre Péan [9] [10]. For example, researcher Jean-Pierre Chrétien, named in the book as an active member of the "pro-Tutsis lobby", published an op-ed in Le Monde criticizing this "amazing revisionist passion" (étonnante passion révisioniste) [11].

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See also

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References

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bg:Геноцид в Руанда cs:Rwandská genocida de:Völkermord in Ruanda es:Genocidio de Ruanda fr:Génocide au Rwanda id:Pembantaian Rwanda is:Þjóðarmorðið í Rúanda it:Genocidio ruandese he:רצח העם ברואנדה hu:Ruandai népirtás ja:ルワンダ紛争 no:Folkemordet i Rwanda pt:Genocídio de Ruanda ru:Геноцид в Руанде fi:Ruandan kansanmurha sv:Folkmordet i Rwanda zh:卢旺达大屠杀

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