The 7th of April 2024 marked 30 years since the start of the Rwandan Genocide – one of the most clear-cut cases of mass extermination since the Holocaust. As world leaders gathered in Kigali to light candles, they shed a light on a horrifying tragedy that took place in Rwanda.[1] In his speech, president Paul Kagame proclaimed that it was not the peacekeeping forces that failed, rather it was the international community, “whether from contempt or cowardice”, that failed Rwanda.
Through emphasis of the international community’s astonishing failure and inaction, this article seeks to posit that the Rwandan genocide was a product not just of the deep-seated Hutu hatred for the Tutsis, as sown by the political manipulation of colonial powers, but it was a staggering result of their overall inaction in preventing the genocide. This was propelled by political indifference, ignorance or tacit support for the genocidal Hutu regime.
Brief history of the Rwandan Genocide
The precolonial dynamics of the main ethnic groups of Rwanda – the Hutu and Tutsi were complex and blurred. The territorial borders of pre-colonial Rwanda, Mpororo, and Ankole caused ethnic alliances between different groups, with the Tutsis having stronger relations with Ankole’s Hima group. This often caused clashes with the Hutu and Hiru groups as they were usually considered to be of lower social ranking.[2] Whilst there were physical characteristic differences, they were considered social groups that one could move between. Any clear distinction was generally blurred by their intermarriage and shared language, culture and traditions.
The impact of colonialism served to intensify interethnic differences as a ‘divide-and-rule’ tactic. The German colonialist promoted the Hamitic theory[3] – the idea that the “Hamitic race” of which the Tutsis were a part, was superior in Africa due to their descendance from Europeans.[4] This ethnic classification was officialised with the formal introduction of identification cards in 1933 by the Belgian colonial regime, which categorised Rwandans based on ethnicity. These new identification cards reduced the complex heritage of Rwandans to binary categories. It allowed Tutsis to maintain their advantaged social position by reinforcing their image as ‘superior Hamites’ from European origin and Hutus as ‘inferior natives’ of Rwanda.[5] Ironically, it also set the stage for their portrayal as foreigners by the Hutu Power government later on.
By the 1950s tensions became more pronounced between the two groups and violence developed between them, culminating in the Hutu Revolution of 1959 and the 1990 civil war. Violence against the Tutsi population was promoted by the state through targeted media campaigns referring to Tutsis as outsiders and subhumans, most notably with the Ten Hutu Commandments in the Kangura newspaper.[6] A brief moment of calm and a fleeting moment of hope propelled by the Arusha Accords, quickly transformed into clear calls for murder in April 1994 through Radio Television Libre des Milles Collines.
The assassinations of President Juvenal Habyarimana and Burundi’s president Cyprien Ntaryamira were used as pretexts to launch a full-scale genocide targeting every single Tutsi in the land. More sinisterly, the genocide was not to be carried out solely by the state, rather it was encouraged that ordinary people turn on their friends, family and neighbours.[7] The popular element of the genocide was instrumental to the swiftness and brutality with which the genocide was carried out. Millions of citizens wielding machetes and clubs, set out in their local villages on murderous rampages – an effort that took a disturbing level of national cohesion. In a period of around 100 days, it is estimated that between 800 thousand to 1 million Tutsis were killed.[8]
The International Community
The United Nations was equipped with the responsibility of peacekeeping and had been involved in Rwanda since the 1990 RPF invasion. Yet its lack of direction, funding, intelligence and support for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR) commander, General Romeo Dallaire, meant that the UN mission was ultimately a failure.
Of the several urgent warnings Dallaire had sent to the UN, the most alarming was his January 1994 warning of genocide. Upon receipt of intelligence by an Interahamwe (Hutu militia group) informant that an “extermination” of Tutsis was pending, Dallaire had planned to raid an arms cache to make clear to the Hutu Power government that he was aware of these plans. This was rejected by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan who claimed that the raid exceeded UNAMIR’s mandate.[9] Instead, Dallaire was instructed to share the intelligence with President Habyarimana to inform him that Interahamwe activities threatened the peace process following the Arusha Accords.
Why were the Tutsis ignored? Why did the 150 states that had signed the 1948 Genocide Convention sit by as millions were massacred? Their complicity could be defined by three main factors: indifference, ignorance and involvement.
- General indifference was driven by the idea that Rwanda was of no significant geopolitical interest and therefore their involvement would bring respective countries no real benefit despite their capability to intervene. In fact, in April 2024, French president Emmanuel Macron admitted that France and its Western allies had the ability to stop the genocide but lacked the “will”.[10] This is best demonstrated by international reluctance in labelling the situation a ‘genocide’, as it would have obligated countries to intervene. A memorandum from the US Office of African Affairs in 1994 warned that a genocide finding could obligate the US government to “do something”.[11]In US president Bill Clinton’s 1996 speech at Kigali International Airport , he later lamented that the international community did not immediately call it a ‘genocide’.[12] Similarly, the UN tiptoed around the word during the genocide, preferring to express concerns over a ‘possible genocide’, which consequently deflected any legal responsibility to intervene.
- Ignorance of African political affairs was sown by false postulations that conflict in Africa was a result of tribal, ethnic or religious rivalries and that the genocide was a civil war. It was the underlying Western view that such atrocities were inherent to the continent.[13] The notion that the genocide was another case of civil war stripped the Hutu genocidaires of responsibility while distributing blame to the Tutsis and insinuating that this was an equal interaction where both sides had a share of culpability. US involvement in the 1993 Somali Civil War reinforced amongst American officials the mistaken idea that Rwanda was another civil war. The Battle of Mogadishu was a crucial turning point for US foreign policy in East Africa. The death of 18 American soldiers and the shocking parading of their corpses (not just by Somali rebels but also by members of the civilian population) meant that the US was no longer as inclined to send its personnel to zones of active bloodshed. They were no longer willing to cross what became known as the “Mogadishu Line”.[14]
- In some cases, foreign involvement in Rwanda whether purposefully or inadvertently contributed to the genocide. France’s Operation Turquoise stated its aims to provide humanitarian assistance by working alongside the genocidal Hutu Power government. Not only did this effort legitimise a murderous regime, but the creation of safe zones in southwest Rwanda also provided refuge for fleeing Hutu genocidaires and shielded them from justice. France sent weapons through Zaire to the Hutu Power government that ended up being used in the genocide and continued to do so until July 1994 when the Hutu government went into exile and a UN arms embargo was in place.[15]
Conclusion
The legacy of Rwanda remains a dark stain on the history of humanity. The isolation of Rwandans in the face of a murderous regime that propelled their very friends and neighbours to commit acts on a mind-blowing level marked not only humanity’s terrifying capacity for brutality, but also the disturbing indifference of an international community that had once promised ‘never again’.[16]
It was this isolation that was a key factor in the prolonged violence and bloodshed that the Tutsis faced. The lack of foreign involvement in what could’ve been a swift end to the genocide or in some cases the direct foreign involvement in the genocide, undoubtedly, contributed to the staggering loss of life, economic and infrastructural destruction, and the deadly breakdown in East African relations – many of which remain unrepaired to this day.
[1] The Commonwealth, “Rwanda Rises: 30 years on from the genocide against the Tutsi” (2024) https://thecommonwealth.org/news-story/rwanda-rises-30-years-genocide-against-tutsi
[2] Astri Suhrke, “The Path of a Genocide: The Rwanda Crisis from Uganda to Zaire” (2000)
[3] Nigel Eltringham, “‘Invaders Who Have Stolen the Country’: The Hamitic Hypothesis, Race and the Rwandan Genocide”, Social Identities, vol.24.4 (2006)
[4] Rosamunde Van Brakel and Xavier Van Kerckhoven, “The Emergency of the Identity Card in Belgium and its Colonies” Histories of State Surveillance in Europe and Beyond (2014)
[5] Mahmood Mamdani, “When Victims Become Killers – Colonialism, Nativism and the Genocide in Rwanda” (2002)
[6] Genocide Archive of Rwanda, “Kangura No 6” https://genocidearchiverwanda.org.rw/index.php/Kangura_No_6#:~:text=Established%20in%201990%2C%20Kangura%20was,Hutu%20ten%20commandements%20were%20published.
[7] Scott Straus, “How Many Perpetrators Were There in the Rwandan Genocide? An Estimate”, Journal of Genocide Research, vol.6.1 (2004)
[8] Peter Uvin, “Reading the Rwandan Genocide” International Studies Review, vol.3.3 (2001)
[9] Romeo Dallaire, “Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda” (2003)
[10] Le Monde, “Macron Says France and its Allies ‘Could Have Stopped’ the Rwanda Genocide But Lacked the Will To Do So” (2024) https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2024/04/04/macron-says-france-and-its-allies-could-have-stopped-the-1994-rwanda-genocide_6667380_4.html
[11] The National Security Archive, “Discussion Paper Rwanda” (1998) https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB53/rw050194.pdf
[12] CBS News, “Text of Clinton’s Rwanda Speech” (1998) https://www.cbsnews.com/news/text-of-clintons-rwanda-speech/
[13] Gregory Stanton, “Could the Rwandan Genocide Have Been Prevented?” Journal of Genocide Research, vol.6 (2004)
[14] Thijs Brocades Zaalberg, “Soldiers and Civil Power” (2021)
[15] Hazel Cameron, “The French Connection: Complicity in the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda”, African Security, vol.8.2 (2015)
[16] Audiovisual Library of International Law, “Convention of the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide” (1948) https://legal.un.org/avl/ha/cppcg/cppcg.html
Featured Image: Exhibition room displaying the faces of victims at the Kigali Genocide Memorial. Courtesy of Nelson Gashagaza (CC BY-SA 4.0)
