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Genocide, War and Peace in Rwanda Helen M. Hintjens Introduction

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Genocide, War and Peace in Rwanda Helen M. Hintjens Introduction CHAPTER THIRTEEN GENOCIDE, WAR AND PEACE IN RWANDA Helen M. Hintjens The genocidaires did not completely unleash the dogs of genocide until after April 21, when they could be certain there would be no international inter- vention. (Barnett 2002: 157) Introduction: War and Genocide in Rwanda The genocide in Rwanda started on 6 April 1994, and intensified on 21 April, when United Nations Assistance Mission to Rwanda (UNAMIR) forces were cut back from two thousand five hundred to just two hun- dred and fifty. This bizarre decision followed the deliberate torture and brutal murder of Belgian United Nations (UN) peacekeepers, shortly after the murder of the elected Prime Minister, Agathe Uwilingiyimana, whom they had been defending on 7 April. When genocidal forces retreated from Rwanda in July 1994, they had killed almost the entire pre-existing Tutsi population. Military and political ‘Hutu Power’ extremists had achieved the goal of genocide. Inadvertently, they also brought to power their mili- tary enemies: the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA). In 1990, the RPA invaded from Uganda in 1990, and took over the task of reconstructing Rwanda. Genocide hastened the most radical regime change since independence, transforming Rwanda’s socio-economic and political landscape. Security problems have persisted since 1994, with cross-border attacks from Zaire by former genocidal forces, assassinations of government critics, and cases of army brutality and torture. However, within Rwanda peace had more or less been restored from 1996–98. The Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), the political wing of the RPA, is now the main single party in Rwanda, and is headed by President Paul Kagame. In many ways he seems to personify the country’s post-genocide struggles, and the difficulty of reconciling peace and security with justice. The genocide was not acknowledged by the international commu- nity until it was too late. In mid-June, the French, under UN auspices, announced the creation of a ‘safe zone’ (Zone Turquoise) in South-Western 196 helen m. hintjens Rwanda. As well as saving some Tutsi lives, French intervention allowed armed killers to flee across the Zairean border. Humanitarian agencies fed almost two million Rwandans stranded in harsh camp conditions in East- ern Zaire. Meanwhile, genocidal ideology dangerously spilled over into Zaire, a country on the brink of collapse. This chapter discusses Rwanda’s civil war from 1990, and the geno- cide of April to mid-July 1994, in their local, historical and international contexts. The idea of ‘Hutu power’ which informed plans for genocide is traced back to Belgian colonial administrative practices and European ideas about racial difference. Civil war intensified the multiple crises that started to beset Rwanda from 1986 onwards. Competing explanations of genocide are considered, and the chapter asks why international interven- tion failed so miserably. Post-genocide reconstruction policies and peace- building efforts are also briefly reflected on. The main focus is genocide rather than civil war, because of the spe- cial nature of genocide, as defined in the Genocide Convention of 1948. Genocide refers to ‘acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group’. Unlike civil war, genocide requires other states to intervene to prevent it, and punish the perpetrators. Yet in Rwanda in 1994, most genocide victims were simply abandoned to their killers. Donor funding has paid for prosecutions of genocide organisers at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha, created under UN auspices in 1995. The United States (US), United Kingdom (UK) and China have replaced Rwanda’s pre-geno- cide development partners, particularly Belgium and France. Genocide targeted unarmed Tutsi civilians, for elimination. Any Hutu or Twa thought sympathetic to the Tutsi were also killed during the genocide period. It is estimated that eighty percent of genocide victims were killed within just six weeks of 6 April, a rate of killing roughly five times that of Nazi death camps (Prunier 1995: 174). A large (and still disputed) number of non-Tutsi Rwandans were also killed during the genocide. These vic- tims can also be viewed as casualties of genocide, but this depends on one’s definition of: ‘. a national, ethnical, racial or religious group’. The international community and the UN’s failure to act has provoked a great deal of soul-searching since 1994. This chapter briefly considers new forms of humanitarian interventionism elaborated, in part, and at least ostensi- bly, in response to the evident failure to prevent genocide in Rwanda. It is beyond the scope of this chapter to cover how civil war and geno- cide have spilled over from Rwanda into neighbouring Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo), and the killings, warfare, regime changes .
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