The Rwandan Genocide series

Rwanda History of Rwanda

Initial events Causes of the genocide Rwandan Players Role of the International Community Peculiarities of the Rwandan Genocide Consequences of the Genocide

Glossary and supplements Bibliography

The understanding of the genocide requires one to go further than the fault of France, Belgium, the international community, and the attack of 6 April 1994. The majority of observers agree that the attack was a detonator, but had it not happened, the genocide would probably still have occurred.

Contents

1 History of Rwanda 1.1 Ethnicity 1.2 Belgian influence and current western ideology at the start of the 20th century 1.3 Revolutionary reading of Rwandan society and a form of theology of liberation 1.4 The transformation of ethnocentricity into civil war 1.4.1 Similarities between the events in Burundi and in Rwanda 1.4.2 The flow of Tutsi exiles and the creation of the FPR 1.4.3 Hutu Power 1.5 A densely populated country 2 Rwanda: A cultural and geographical enclave 3 The pressures of rich democracies

History of Rwanda

Ethnicity

Tutsi, Hutu, and Twa are not ethnicities in the proper sense of the word, but are instead social professional categories (farmers, cattle farmers, and potters). Every Rwandan speaks the same language, which is rare in an African country, have the same traditional faith, and a single god: Imana, the same culture, and they live mixed together on the hills and marry among one another despite the political profession that have existed since independence. Thus, Rwandan ethnocentricism does not correspond with traditional ethnological characteristics.

A parallel to the situation in Rwanda would be a France where the private sector and the public sector, would have been instrumental for political ends, one of which being the majority which wanted to exterminate the other while understanding that being born to a father who was a civil servant would constitute a reason to be killed.

Rwandans explained that there were other traditional social references, such as clans which clustered every social professional group while also emphasising regional splitting.

Belgian influence and current western ideology at the start of the 20th century

Ethnicity, as structured at the time of Belgian colonisation, was the engine behind this tragedy. In the 1920s, Belgian ethnologists analysed (measured skulls, etc) thousands of Rwandans on analogous racial criteria, such as which would be used later by the Nazis. In 1931, an ethnic identity was officially mandated and administrative documents systematically detailed each person's "ethnicity," just as Jewish identity would be specified a few years later in Germany. Each Rwandan had a ethnic identity card. The Belgians considered the Tutsis to be the superior race and systematically imposed their authority over the Hutus across the colonial administration and the access to education, engendering great frustration among the other Rwandans.

A history of Rwanda that justified the existence of these races was written (see History of Rwanda). No historical, archaeological, or above all in linguistic traces have been found at the moment that confirm this official history. In fact, as those who have looked for such differences have remarked, the difference between the Tutsis and the Hutus is about the same size as between the different French social classes in the 1950s. The way people nourished themselves explained a large part of the frequent differences but it was not a perfect system: The Tutsis, since they raised cattle, traditionally drank more milk than the Hutu, who were farmers.

Some observers have also seen an induced replica of the Belgian linguistic conflict in the Rwandan problem. It is undeniable that the Walloons, who were the majority in the beginning in Rwanda, and the Flemish continued their ideological fights and also tried to gain supremacy over one another on Rwandan soil. In the 1950s and 60s, the back and forth of Belgian support for the Tutsis over the support for the Hutus was articled at the same time over Tutsis demands for political independence, like everywhere in Africa, and over the development of the presence of Flemmish people in Rwanda who would see in the Hutu a people who were repressed just as they were (recalling the Armenian genocide)

Revolutionary reading of Rwandan society and a form of theology of liberation

The French revolution also served as a reference in this political back and forth between the Tutsi and the Hutu. It is instructional to read "Rwanda. Généalogie d'un génocide," a book on this subject by Dominique France.

The Catholic church, the Belgian one, which is perhaps more influential than in any other country, anointed Rwanda to "Christ, the king." Rwanda was crucified in a certain way, which is a justification for this anointment: even if it would be risky to see a premonition in this. But one cannot make religious considerations abstract in an analyse of Rwanda, as the country is impregnated with religious sentiment, and as the social position of the Catholic church was important in the political, social, and educational structure.

Catholic authorities in Rwanda would develop a predication of liberation for the Hutu people who were oppressed by the Tutsis at the end of the 1950s in the manner of the discussion against the French nobility at the end of the 18th century.

The transformation of ethnocentricity into civil war

Similarities between the events in Burundi and in Rwanda

The flow of Tutsi exiles and the creation of the FPR

Hutu Power

A minority, called "Hutu Power," a group that was close to the family of President Habyarimana and the family of his wife, led the interim Rwandan government, created in the days that followed the attack. This government, in its exterminatory actions, trained a large number of peasants, teachers, doctors, academics, merchants, judges, clergymen, burgomasters, and prefects, thanks to a powerful and effective media campaign that lasted for around two years, and the simultaneous formation of a youth militia, the Interahamwe. The number of killers is just so that the Rwandan authorities, in the continuation of pilot experience of traditional justice, the gacaca, estimate that the current number of people presumed to be guilty is around 500,000.

A densely populated country

Rwanda: A cultural and geographical enclave

The pressures of rich democracies

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