Rwandan Genocide

Pre Twa kingdoms (8000-3000 BCE)

Colonia
Migration of various Bantu peoples
l
Hutu and Tutsi groups coalesce
Kingdom of Rwanda; King Rwabugiri
Colonia
1884German control; indirect rule
l
Tutsi superiority; Hamitic hypothesis
1918 1919Colonial power transfers from Germany to Belgium
1960
1926Belgium introduces ethnic identity cards
1959Hutu rebellion
1960Election favors Hutu candidates
1961 Belgian withdrawal (1960-1); 1961Rwanda and Burundi separate
1979
massacres of Tutsis; approximately half of the Tutsi population flees Rwanda
1973Habyarimana; ethnic quota system for public employment; MRND
founded
1980 Rwandan refugees in Uganda assist Museveni in overthrow of Obote,
1992
subsequently found RPF
Continued favoritism of Hutus in ethnic quotas; multi-party government
RPF invasion, quick ceasefire; Occasional massacres of Tutsis
Interahamwe founded; coining sending Tutsis back to Ethiopia via the river
Secret planning for genocide begins in government
1993
RPF takes up arms, reaches Kigali; French troops assist government
Peace accord between RPF and Habyarimana for power-sharing agreement
UN troops deployed to oversee transition
Habyarimana stalls power-sharing agreement while expanding interahamwe
training
RTLMC begins broadcasting
Various NGOs warn global community of impending genocide
1994
April 6Habyarimanas plane shot down, genocide begins that night
April 7interahamwe set up road blocks across the country; house-to-house
killing of Tutsis and moderate Hutus
Throughout: UN troops stationed in country cannot intervene
Throughout: Refugees flee across borders to Burundi, Uganda, Zaire
April 8RPF launches counter-strike
April 21UN reduces forces from 2500 to 250 after 10 Belgian troops are killed
while attempting to protect Agathe Uwiliyingimana, the moderate prime
minister
April 30UN decides to omit the term genocide from resolution
condemning the crisis
Tide of refugees shifts in make-upmainly Hutus, including interahamwe,
fleeing advance of RPF
May 17UN agrees to send 6800 troops to defend civilians, they are delayed
because of disagreement about cost; UN notes that an act of genocide may

Rwandan Genocide
have been committed; US resists UN because of cost of armored vehicles
June 22French troops deployed to cordon off a safe zone, in which Tutsis
continue to be slaughtered
JulyRPF takes control of Kigali, prompting government to flee; Tutsis are
slaughtered in refugee camps; cholera crisis in Zaire refugee camps; debate
over whether RPF committed vengeance killings
AugustUN establishes a tribunal for prosecution
Notes: Western nations also decline use of g-word throughout conflict
1995 Return of refugees
1999
Kagame in power
Trials for perpetrators in Tanzania
Human rights observers killed
Gacaca courts
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
Casualt 800,000-1,174,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu killed
ies:
250,000 women raped
Purposeful HIV infection (2.9% of total population infected, 13% of Kigali, twice as
many women as men infected)
75,000 orphaned

Symbols
and Motifs

Foliage/Forest
Animals, particularly dogs
Silence/speech
Roadblocks
Cockroaches
Identification cards
Pictures
Machete
Refugee camps

Concerns

Victims/Perpetrators/Bystanders
Mediaboth Western and within country
Effect of racism
Terminological distinctions
Representations in Media

Themes

Gendered Experience of War

In what ways are women and men under different threats?
Sexual violence as a weapon
National Borders

Rwandan Genocide
How is a nation formed?
How does a nation determine who is authentically one of us?
Language
When can a person be heard?
How is language used to determine identity?
Repetition of stereotypes as naturalizing difference
Unspeakable experience
What can be communicated through language?
What cannot be explained through language systems?
What can a particular audience hear?
Whose story is told? Whose is left out?
Religion
Positive development of communities
Missionaries as developers versus missionaries as colonizers
Churches as havens turned into massacres
What is the value of different types of knowledge?
Representation
Rhetorical framing of Africa
What images are shown versus repressed
Illusion of access
Western media coverage as constructing a negative image of Africans
Globalization and its discontents
a stabilized and centralized viewpoint on globalization as the drama of
the Western subject and its sufferings (Mirzoeff)
Resources as reason for caring about lives of Africans
Victims/Perpetrators/Bystanders
Destabilized moral position
Relative distance of bystander
Ambivalence between perpetrator and victim
Theoretica
l
Dimensio
ns

Fanonpaternalism; cultural obliteration

AchebeThe Image of Africa
Bhabhastereotype as fetish
Mirzoeffempire of the camps
MamdaniWhen Victims Become Killers
Gourevitchrole of Rwanda in post-Holocaust age

In We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed Along with Our Families, Philip Gourevitch
discusses how

Rwandan Genocide
[t]he nights were eerily quiet in Rwanda. After the birds fell silent, there were hardly any animal sounds.
I couldnt understand it. Then I noticed the absence of dogs. What kind of country has no dogs? I started
to keep watch in the markets, in the streets, in the countryside, in churchyards, schoolyards, farmyards,
graveyards, junkyards, and the flowering yards of fine villas [.] I made inquiries, and I learned that
right through the genocide dogs had been plentiful in Rwanda [] But as the RPF fighters had advanced
through the country, moving down from the northeast, they had shot all the dogs. What did the RPF have
against dogs? Everyone I asked gave the same answer: the dogs were eating the dead (147-8).
Throughout the literature on post-genocide Rwanda, authors remark upon the absence of dogs, an absence that
stands in stark contrast to most other areas in the world, where dogs are as abundant as humans. The transition
between the time before the genocide and the time after the genocide is divided in part by the presence and
absence of dogs, which stands together with the absence of up to a million Rwandan citizens. While coming-ofage stories are often marked by a nostalgic longing for a simpler past, in Deogratias, this absence is emphasized
through the dog metamorphosis, to remind the reader of all that is missing. (Polak 57)
from Being a Dog: Transformation, Focalization, and Memory in Deogratias.