1. Analytical i Unit 4: Rwanda and Genocide
ng: Ethics, Values & Effective Citizenship
Unit 4: Rwanda and Genocide
Rwanda had an ethnic Genocide in 1994. Read closely Mahmood Mamdani’s When VicOms
Become Killers:
Colonialism, NaOvism and Genocide in Rwanda (2002). Write a book review in which you
analyze the following
quesOons: What were the origins of the genocide? What did the United NaOons do to prevent
the genocide?
What could it have done? How many people were murdered? Who were the murdered and the
murderers?
What does truth and reconciliaOon mean in the context of a post‐genocide Rwanda? Think about
how a
naOon recovers from genocide. In a pod‐cast intended for teen‐age listeners, explain lessons
learned from the
Rwandan genocide that are criOcal to human dignity, the rule of law, and tolerance.23seocie?
Colonialism, Nativism, Ethnic cleansing,
Religious intolerance, Racism, and Economics
gRwanda and Human Rights
Rwanda and Poli5cs
Rwanda is the most densely populated country in Africa. And in 1994, as we all know, Rwanda
was also
the site of a horrific genocide, in which over half a million people were killed in
less than three months. The conjuncOon of these two observaOons has led some
observers to link these two phenomena directly.
Robert Kaplan's arOcle, published in the Washington Post ten days aher
the genocide began, is illustraOve. Having noted that "Rwanda is one of the most
densely populated countries in the world," that its populaOon "will double in 20
years," and that "even the tragic slaughter...will have a minimal staOsOcal effect
on the populaOon growth," he then notes that "Rwanda’s [ie, similar genocides]
are endemic, built‐in, even to the world we inhabit." These are not primarily poli
Ocal issues, Kaplan implied, but simply part of the landscape; "We must therefore view these
places less as
countries than as crisis regions."
What is fundamentally at issue here is the characterizaOon of what he evocaOvely refers to as
"new‐age
primiOvism," where dense populaOon and a high birth rate make such conflict "endemic."
PoliOcs, people, and
policy explicitly do not factor into any explanaOon or understanding of such "crisis regions."
PosiOng a determinisOc relaOonship that "overpopulaOon" leads directly to massive and
inevitable violence
is a simplisOc approach and frees the observer from having to account for the circumstances
giving rise

2. to genocide. More importantly, by implying that no other pathways exist, it also frees the
perpetrators from
being held accountable for their decisions or their acOons.
But, the poliOcs of genocide were much more complicated than can be accounted for by a simple
equaOon of overpopulaOon and genocide. As one observer points out: "An apparently
Malthusian outcome
has occurred from more than merely Malthusian processes."
The Poli5cs of Rwandan Genocide
Three factors were involved in the central planning of the genocide. One was the recruitment of
large
numbers of youth to the army and to the locally organized miliOas, ohen associated with the
radicalized fac‐
Oons of the government. Surely this was a response to the rural crisis, for these recruits were
those without
land, educaOon, jobs, or hope; the ecological and demographic crisis was criOcally important in
creaOng this
context. But rural anger was nonetheless channeled through the poliOcs of the day and
manipulated by the
decisions of those in power. In a context of growing class differenOaOon, that meant not among
the vicOms of
rural crisis. Ecology was surely a factor in this complicated equaOon, but it was not the sole
explanaOon of
genocide.
A second element in the poliOcs of genocide was the fact that the country was at war, fighOng
against
an army formed mostly of refugees from outside, seen as sons of the monarchy overthrown
during decoloniza
Oon. The members of this force had grown up in Uganda and their poliOcal posiOon had
become increasingly
insecure in the evolving poliOcs of post‐Idi Amin Uganda. Their leaders had formerly been close
associates of
the President of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni, in his long struggle for power. But as it became
clear that his asso‐
24
ciaOon with the Rwandan refugee community had turned from a poliOcal asset to a poliOcal
liability, these
leaders, who were principally trained as soldiers, turned their aIenOon to new objecOves.
Day 1 ‐ Why Genocide?
Class AcOvity: Pretest, DefiniOon and discussion of genocide.
Why genocide originated: Colonialism, NaOvism, Ethnic cleansing, Religious intolerance,
Racism, and Economics
Examples of historical origins of genocide: Nazi, Biafra, Sudan, Liberia, and Rwanda
Assignment: research genocide in Rwanda
Day 2 ‐ AnalyOcal Reasoning: The Rwanda Genocide. 1994 ‐ The Preamble.
The Origins of Rwandan Genocide.
Rwanda is a land‐locked country in Central Africa with a populaOon of 7.3 million.(Show Map.)

3. Their language
is Rwanda but they also speak English, French and Swahili. They were colonized by Belgium
before they
gained their independence in 1962. There are three ethnic groups in Rwanda:
a) The Hutus who are approximately 85% of the populaOon
b) The Tutsis who are approximately 14% of the populaOon
c) The Twa who are approximately 1% of the populaOon.
The conflict of ciOzenship and indigenousness was really between the Hutus and the Tutsis.
Causes of Genocide: 25Colonialism by Belgium
Racism and Indigenousness
Privileged CiOzenship
The Plane Crash that killed President Habyarimana
Search for JusOce as an Act of Revenge, RetribuOon and Ethnic Cleansing.
Colonialism: Class test (Take Home) a) What is Colonialism? IdenOfy three countries that were
former colonies
in the conOnents of Africa, Asia and the Americas.
b)Who are the Hutus and the Tutsis?
25
Racism and Indigenousness:
The country in the Belgian Reform of the thirOes had three levels of populaOon: the
naOves/indigenes
or the Hutus, the aliens or the Tutsis and the seIlers or the Belgian colonists. Such a divide led to
civil strife so
that when the Belgians leh, issues of race and indigenousness rendered governance difficult.
There were massacres
but not genocide. Some Tutsis fled to Uganda a neighboring country and there formed the RPF
Rwanda
PatrioOc Front led by Mr.Kagame and conOnued the struggle for a full and parOcipatory
ciOzenship.
Privileged CiOzenship:
The privileged ciOzenship of the Hutu over the Tutsi helped to ignite the RevoluOon of 1959
whose aftermath
caused disaffecOon and unrest in the polity.
The Plane Crash that killed the Hutu President Habiyarimana:
On April 6th 1994, the plane carrying President Habiyarimana and other dignitaries was shot
down. The
crash was blamed on the Tutsi leader Mr.Kagame then in exile in Uganda. Mr. Kegame denied
the charge. The
Hutu populaOon sOll held Kegame and the Tutsis accountable.
Search for JusOce as an Act of Revenge, RetribuOon and Ethnic Cleansing:
26
Colonialism sred the socio-cultural links that bound the Rwandan
people as an entity. The Belgian political rulers, in a bid to maintain a
Day 3 ‐ Hotel Rwanda ‐ Class discussion
Day 4 ‐ IntervenOon of the United NaOons
What is the UN, its purpose, what did it do, and what could it have done during the Rwandan

4. genocide?
The United NaOons is an internaOonal organizaOon founded in 1945 by 51 countries. The
OrganizaOon can take
acOon on a wide range of issues, and provides a forum for its 192 Member States to express their
views,
through the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council and other
bodies and
commiIees.
The purpose of the UN is to maintain internaOonal peace and security, to take effecOve
collecOve measures for
the prevenOon and removal of threats to peace. (www.un.org)
To achieve internaOonal co‐operaOon in solving internaOonal problems of an economic, social,
cultural, or humanitarian
nature.er strong-hold on the country, introduced a deep racial divide between
the Hutus and the Tutsis. They identified the Hutus as of the Bantu race
aIn March of 1998, President Clinton issued the "Clinton apology": "We come here today partly
in recogniOon
of the fact that we in the United States and the world community did not do as much as we could
have and
should have done to try to limit what occurred" in Rwanda.
This implied that the United States had done a good deal but not quite enough. In reality the
United States did
much more than fail to send troops. It led a successful effort to remove most of the UN
peacekeepers who
were already in Rwanda. It aggressively worked to block the subsequent authorizaOon of UN
reinforcements. It
refused to use its technology to jam radio broadcasts that were a crucial instrument in the
coordinaOon and
perpetuaOon of the genocide.
(www.theatlanOc.com/magazine/archive/2001/09/bystanders_to_genocide/4571/)
Three of the five permanent members of the UN had reasons not to prevent the genocide. The US
had nothing
to gain, and France and China were supplying the government
with arms.
Most other countries had no investments or anything to gain
from helping Rwanda, so liIle was done.
And even as, an average, 8,000 Rwandans were being butchered
each day, U.S. officials shunned the term "genocide," for
fear of being obliged to act. The United States in fact did virtually
nothing to "try to limit what occurred." Indeed, staying out
of Rwanda was an explicit U.S. policy objecOve.
27
ancestry and so were indigenes and owners of the land while the
Day 5 ‐ Rwanda and Genocide: What are the staOsOcs, and the
cultural implicaOons?
Who was murdered?

5. Who were the murderers?
The Rwandan Genocide was the 1994 mass murder of an esO‐
mated 800,000 people. Over the course of approximately 100 days from the assassinaOon of
Juvenal Habyarimana
on April 6 through mid‐July, at least 800,000 people were killed, according to a Human Rights
Watch es‐
Omate. Other esOmates of the death toll have ranged between 500,000 and 1,000,000 (a
commonly quoted
figure is 800,000) or as much as 20% of the country's total populaOon. (Des Rorges, A. 1999)
Numerous elite Hutu poliOcians have been found guilty for the organizaOon of the genocide.
The Rwandan
Military and Hutu miliOa groups, notably the Interahamwe, systemaOcally set out to murder all
the Tutsis they
could capture, irrespecOve of their age or sex, as well as the poliOcal moderates. Hutu civilians
were forced to
parOcipate in the killings or be shot and were instructed to kill their Tutsi neighbors. Most
naOons evacuated
their naOonals from Kigali and abandoned their embassies in the iniOal stages of the violence.
By September 1995, several hundred of the 10,000 inmates in Kelgali’s central prison were
women. Rakiya
Omar of the African rights told an Associated Press journalist that some “were acOvely
involved, killing with
machetes and guns” while others “acted in support roles allowing murder squads access to
hospitals and
homes, cheering on male killers, stripping the dead and looOng their houses.”
Ahermath:
Approximately two million Hutus, parOcipants in the genocide, and the bystanders, with
anOcipaOon of Tutsi
retaliaOon, fled from Rwanda to Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda, and for the most part Zaire.
Thousands of them
died in epidemics of diseases common to the squalor of refugee camps, such as cholera and
dysentery. The
United States staged the OperaOon Support Hope airlih from July to September 1994 to stabilize
the situaOon
in the camps.
Day 6 ‐ Truth and ReconciliaOon
Truth and reconciliaOon as a global paradigm for post‐genocide Rwanda Truth and
ReconciliaOon CommiIee.
Truth and ReconciliaOon CommiIee
In July,1994, the RPF captured Kigali the capital of Rwanda and the Tutsis took over
government. Two million
Hutus fled to the Republic of the Congo for fear of retaliaOon. The threat of war and reprisals
haunted both the
Tutsi‐led government and the fugiOve Hutu. How can lasOng peace be achieved?
Truth and ReconciliaOon in Post‐Genocide Rwanda
NaOons aher a disjointed governance marked by genocide, apartheid and massacres would

6. insOtute a Truth
and ReconciliaOon CommiIee to heal wounds and return the naOon to order and normalcy.
28
Class Activity: Write a
paragraph describing who you
think were the murderers and the
murdered.
An example is the TRC of South Africa aher the end of the Apartheid regime and the freedom of
Nelson Mandela.
Test: Research into and name three other naOons that had the TRC (Truth ReconciliaOon
CommiIee).
With genocide, there are vicOms and vicOmizers. The disOncOons are not clearly made but the
glaring point is
that the Hutus are “the guilty majority and the Tutsis are the fearful minority.”
Issues of Truth and ReconciliaOon CommiIee in Post‐Genocide Rwanda
a) The truth in Rwanda genocide is known, there is no need for confession as was the case in
South Africa. In
Rwanda, genocide was public and open. Any living Hutu is presumed guilty of killing because if
you did not kill,
you were killed by your own.
b) What does jusOce and reconciliaOon mean to Hutus and Tutsis?
c) The Hutus are the poliOcal majority and the Tutsis the poliOcal minority. While the minority
calls for jusOce,
the majority calls for democracy.
d) How can the minority be safeguarded from a genocidal reoccurrence?
e) How can the Hutus no more be marginalized economically?
f) Should JusOce be retribuOve, that is puniOve (punish the evil‐doers) or should it be
reconciliatory? What is
the more realisOc and tenable opOon?
g) Should the genocide survivors be compensated and rehabilitated? How about the Hutu
refugees who fled to
Congo Republic, will they also be rehabilitated?
Day 7 ‐ Class genocide
A Re‐enactment of the Rwandan genocide
Class divides into two groups: A)Hutu B)Tutsi
Reconcilers, Panel of judges
Class AcOvity: To be filmed
Day 8 ‐ Conclusion
Post Test (15 minutes)
29
What is genocide?
Where can it occur?
Whom does it involve?
Name a people who has suffered genocide.
Class discussion:
How can genocide situaOons be avoided in the future?

7. How does genocide affect naOons globally
utsis were a Hamitic race who migrated from Ethiopia so were aliens.
Tcolonialists using racial difference favored the Tutsis who were thus
associated with privilege and power. Colonial divisiveness was thus the
initial cause of conflict and rivalry between two hitherto ethnicities who cohabited
before the advent of the colonialists.
Class Discussion:
Do you consider the genocidal impulse an admissible
form of settling political disputes? In other words, discuss
whether the quest for power and control justifies genocide and
manʼs inhumanity to man. Give reasons for your answer.
Student Activity:
Student panels will be formed
to brainstorm possible actions
that could have been
taken by the United Nations.
ins of the Rwandan genocide
l Rwanda class discusionhe United Nations
Cultural implication of genocide
Truth & Reconciliation
Lessons learned