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Jérôme Torossian

Dr. Brian Endless

PLSC 316

October 5th, 2016

1994: The Darkest Page of Rwanda

In the twentieth century, the world has witnessed many horrors led by leaders who were

unfortunately successful in propagating their strong nationalist views and hate towards other

ethnic groups. These atrocities were often made during times of war or tribal conflicts, and when

empires and nations were about to collapse, such as the Ottoman Empire, Nazi Germany, the

Former Yugoslavia, or Rwanda. However, individuals who particularly know about what

happened to the Armenians, Jews, Bosnian Muslims, and Tutsis will not consider the actions

ordered against them as war crimes. In fact, each of the massacres that these ethnic groups

experienced were the result of a well-planned set of actions that aimed with intent to bring about

their own destruction. The United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the

Crime of Genocide approved by the UN General Assembly in 1948 defines and thus considers a

slaughter as genocide if the perpetrators had “the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national,

ethnical, racial, or religious group.” Often called the crime of crimes, genocide is a denial of the

right of existence of an entire human group by attempting to wipe the people out. In this paper, I

will mainly talk about the Rwandan genocide, which cost the lives of nearly one million innocent

people in the end of the last century. I will discuss how international politics affected the

genocide, and how did the international community was or was not able to help. In the end, I will

give my own opinion on whether I believe that the international community could have done

more to assist, and more particularly to prevent the genocide in the Republic of Rwanda.

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In order to understand what led to the Rwandan genocide, an overview of the history of

Rwanda, as well as its demographic, is more than necessary. Rwanda, the land of thousands of

hills, is a tiny country located in east-central Africa that shares a common border with Burundi,

the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, and Tanzania. Its population is pretty mixed

comprising of three different ethnic groups, such as the Hutus, who form the majority, as well as

Tutsis and the Twas. However, the two main population in the country are Hutus and Tutsis.

Prior to the colonization era, both of these ethnic groups lived side by side in peace. They have

lots of common traits as they share the same “language-the beautiful tongue of Kinyarwanda-the

same religions, the same children’s games, the same storytelling traditions, the same

government, […], the same outward appearance.”1 As a result, nothing could essentially divide

these two peoples other than the fact that they distinguished themselves through their separate

social activities. Yet, this peaceful coexistence evaporated as the great powers from the old

continent started to split Africa into colonies.

At the end of the nineteenth century, the Conference of Berlin offers the German Empire

the control of Rwanda. This decision marked the beginning of the colonial era for Rwanda

although Germany did not have a great interest in occupying this nation poor in natural

resources.2 The German colonizers used the concept of divide and rule in order to maintain their

power over the population. They thought to perceive a superiority in the Tutsis based on their

intelligence and physical appearance while Hutus were considered inferior.3 After Germany lost

the war in World War I, Rwanda was controlled by the government of Belgium, which used the

1 Rusesabagina, Paul. An Ordinary Man. Penguin Group, 2007, p.162 Ibid., p.21-223 Bartrop, Paul; Totten, Samuel. The Genocide Studies Reader. Routledge, 2009, p.261

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same Tutsi “superior” and Hutu “inferior” distinctions.4 5 In 1933, the Belgians went even further

by providing the Rwandans with ethnic identity cards.6 It is needless to point out that as the

Tutsis enjoyed many privileges, the Hutus viewed this as an injustice and rebellious sentiments

began to grow among them. Enjoying too much power, the Tutsis started to oppose the Belgian

rule over Rwanda and thus demanded their independence. Obviously, Belgium did not appreciate

this attitude and shifted its favor over the Hutus.7 Eventually, the Hutus decided to rebel against

the Tutsis in 1959, which resulted in the emigration of thousands of Tutsis to the neighboring

countries. In 1962, Rwanda finally gets its independence. Over the next thirty years, many

guerrilla raids were launched into Rwanda from the displaced Tutsis causing many more deaths

and exiles.8 During the early years of the 1990s, insurgents from the Rwandan Patriotic Front

made multiple attacks in Rwanda. At the same time, Juvenal Habyarimana, the former president

of Rwanda, founded a militia named the Interahamwe in order to massacre even more Tutsis.9 In

addition, the Rwandan government relied on the media, notably the Radio Television Libre des

Mille Collines to spread its hate over the Tutsis.10 By August 1993, as the Tutsi insurgents gained

many victories in their struggle, Habyarimana was pressured by many countries to sign a peace

treaty known as the Arusha Accords.11

The Arusha Accords signed by the Habyarimana regime and the RPF led to the

deployment of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda in order to support the peace

4 Bartrop, Paul; Totten, Samuel. The Genocide Studies Reader. Routledge, 2009,p.2615 Del Ponte, Carla ; Sudetic, Chuck. Madame Prosecutor: Confrontations with Humanity’s Worst Criminals and the Culture of Impunity. Other Press, 2009, p.656 Rusesabagina, Paul. An Ordinary Man. Penguin Group, 2007, p.237 Ibid., p.258 Ibid., p.279 Ibid., p.66-6710 Rusesabagina, Paul. An Ordinary Man. Penguin Group, 2007, p.6411 Ibid., p.65

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agreements.12 The Hutu extremists interpreted this reconciliation with the Tutsis as a threat and a

capitulation from Habyarimana.13 Thus, Hutu extremist leaders decided to plan a Tutsi

extermination. On the eve of April 6, 1994, a plane containing both the presidents of Burundi

and Rwanda was shot down by a missile as it was about to land at Kigali airport. The Tutsis were

directly blamed for this incident, which led to the Tutsi genocide perpetrated by Hutu

extremists.14 Radio Television Libre des Milles Collines constantly motivated the Hutus to

undertake their “work” so to clean their neighborhood of brush and cut all the tall trees.15 This

radio gave specific indications on where to find free machetes and “cockroaches.” Violence

towards Tutsis and moderate Hutus reached its highest point that it is believed that 10,000 people

died every single day in a 100-day period. Some people even paid the extremists so to be killed

by a gun instead of a machete. All this happened under the eyes of the poorly armed UNAMIR

force, who did not have the mandate to intervene. As a result of a non-quick response from the

international community, around 800,000 people were slaughtered and a significant “number of

Tutsi women were raped, tortured and sexually mutilated.”16

To repeat the words from Benjamin Netanyahu at the 71st UN General Assembly,

the UN “began as a moral force, has become a moral farce.”17 Indeed, the UN General Assembly

adopted the 1948 Genocide Convention so to prevent any people around the world from

experiencing genocide. According to this Convention, everything demonstrated that the Tutsis

were the target of a planned genocide. In January 1994, several warnings were made by Romeo

12 Del Ponte, Carla ; Sudetic, Chuck. Madame Prosecutor: Confrontations with Humanity’s Worst Criminals and the Culture of Impunity. Other Press, 2009, p.6713 Bartrop, Paul; Totten, Samuel. The Genocide Studies Reader. Routledge, 2009,p.18714 Del Ponte, Carla ; Sudetic, Chuck. Madame Prosecutor: Confrontations with Humanity’s Worst Criminals and the Culture of Impunity. Other Press, 2009, p.6815 Rusesabagina, Paul. An Ordinary Man. Penguin Group, 2007, p.8216 Bartrop, Paul; Totten, Samuel. The Genocide Studies Reader. Routledge, 2009,p.18717 Ravid, Barak. Netanyahu Calls UN “Moral Farce,” Says Israel Will Not Accept Any Dictates. Haaretz, 2016. Web.

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Dallaire, the UNAMIR commander, to the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations that a

genocide against the Tutsis and moderate Hutus was planned, and that the planners were making

lists, training their men to murder, and collecting arms.18 Yet, the UN did not interpret this

information seriously and did not give permission to Dallaire to confiscate 500,000 machetes.19

While the genocide took place, the UN did not do anything to protect the population as it viewed

the massacres as the result of a civil war and believed it was better to let diplomacy resolve the

issue. It even went further as to “reduce by nine-tenth the small peacekeeping force” after

Belgian soldiers were killed and the government of Belgium took away its blue-helmets.20 The

UN and Belgian decision to retreat soldiers gave even more motivation to the Hutu extremists to

pursue their goal. Hypocritically, the Security Council, Kofi Annan, and the United States

thought that the UN troops had to protect and evacuate all non-Rwandans out of the country

while thousands of innocent people were being slaughtered each day.21 Obviously, the lack of

actions by the United Nations completely helped the genocide to occur as smoothly as possible,

and I think that a total withdrawal of its forces would have been better as their presence was

totally useless and gave the Rwandans an illusion of safety.

The main players in both world and regional politics did nothing to stop the massacre or

take effective measures so to protect the endangered population. The U.S officials, as well as the

American public, was well aware thanks to news and reports that a genocide was occurring in

Rwanda. Fearing that it would be forced to intervene under the 1948 treaty, the United States

preferred to describe what happened in Rwanda by something other than its rightful name. In

fact, the U.S. Department of State talked about “acts of genocide” so to avoid another costly

18 Bartrop, Paul; Totten, Samuel. The Genocide Studies Reader. Routledge, 2009,p.33019 Ibid., p. 31820 Ibid., p.33021 Rusesabagina, Paul. An Ordinary Man. Penguin Group, 2007, p.97

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intervention, such as the failed operation in Somalia. In addition, what happened in Rwanda was

not a threat to the United States and did not hinder its national interest. Moreover, Rwanda does

not possess any natural resources, thus the United States did not see anything beneficial in

risking American lives. At the same time, no one in Washington D.C. wanted a military

involvement during a midterm congressional election.22 The shameful inaction of the United

States not only helped the Hutu extremists to continue their murderous plan, but it also hurt those

who were the target.

I emphasize that both the Germans and the Belgians should be first blamed for what

happened in Rwanda. In fact, they were the ones who divided these two ethnic groups by

ridiculously pretending that one was superior over the other. The Belgians helped the make

everything worse by distributing ethnic identity cards to the population and by viewing the Tutsis

as aristocratic while Hutus were considered ugly and stupid.23 In addition, I argue that both the

Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China are also responsible. Indeed, these

countries did not support an intervention in Rwanda’s domestic affairs for the reason that they

did not want nations to focus as well on their domestic actions. For instance, the war in

Chechnya for the Russians, and the constant oppression of Uyghurs and Tibetans for the

Chinese. France too had an impact on the genocide. In fact, France had close ties with the Hutu

government, which supported it diplomatically, financially, and militarily.24 Yet, in June 1994,

France decided to send troops in a mission called Operation Turquoise in order to stop the

massacres and create safety humanitarian zones for the civilians threatened by the genocide.25

22 Rusesabagina, Paul. An Ordinary Man. Penguin Group, 2007, p.13723 Rusesabagina, Paul. An Ordinary Man. Penguin Group, 2007, p.2324 Ibid., p.15325 Rusesabagina, Paul. An Ordinary Man. Penguin Group, 2007, p.168

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Operation Turquoise was able to save many lives, although massacres still occurred in some

areas. However, this mission eventually helped to stabilize the situation.

Although the international community did little to prevent the genocide in Rwanda, it did

actually want to prosecute those who were responsible by not only ending the culture of

impunity but also in order to look good. In fact, this was proven with the establishment of the

International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda by the United Nations Security Council in 1994.26 In

1998, the court convicted Jean-Paul Akayesu, former mayor of the town of Taba, for the crime of

genocide.27 Akayesu’s prosecution was actually the first-ever trial for the crime of genocide

made by an international court. The ICTR was successful in bringing into court people

responsible for the genocide, but it was also criticized for its “bureaucratic inefficiency […] and

the slowness of its work.”28 Surprisingly, Rwanda does not like the ICTR for the simple reasons

that the court does not have a death penalty sentence and that the conditions of inmates are too

comfortable.29

I believe that the international community could have done more to prevent the genocide

in Rwanda. In fact, I think that the world should have reacted immediately at the beginning of

the massacres and called the actions by its rightful name: Genocide. This could have shown to

the perpetrators that the international community was against them and knew who they were. In

addition, Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines was used to propagate hate towards Tutsis

even before the genocide occurred. I argue that if the international community pressured the

Rwandan government to close RTLMC, perhaps the genocide would have never took place.

Moreover, many countries declared that military intervention was too costly. However,

26 Bartrop, Paul; Totten, Samuel. The Genocide Studies Reader. Routledge, 2009,p.46427 Ibid., p.46428 Ibid., p.46629 Ibid., p.466

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prevention in genocide is apparently cheaper than an involvement to one that already occurs.30

Thus, if the international community took seriously the warnings that were given to them, maybe

a collective preemptive action could have stopped the plan of Hutu extremists and saved

thousands of lives. Overall, it is a shame that the international community preferred to play the

card of wait and see instead of facing the reality and acting immediately under the 1948

Genocide Convention. It is with these kinds of scandalous attitudes that the world will constantly

repeat the phrase: “never again.”

30 Bartrop, Paul; Totten, Samuel. The Genocide Studies Reader. Routledge, 2009,p.321

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Bibliography

Bartrop, Paul; Totten, Samuel. The Genocide Studies Reader. Routledge, 2009. Print.

Del Ponte, Carla ; Sudetic, Chuck. Madame Prosecutor: Confrontations with Humanity’s Worst

Criminals and the Culture of Impunity. Other Press, 2009. Print.

Ravid, Barak. Netanyahu Calls UN “Moral Farce,” Says Israel Will Not Accept Any Dictates.

Haaretz, 2016. Web.

Rusesabagina, Paul. An Ordinary Man. Penguin Group, 2007. Print.

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