Abstract
When the plane carrying President Juvénal Habyarimana was blown out of the sky as it approached Kigali airport on the evening of 6 April 1994, a marker in Rwanda’s history was laid down. This was a tipping point for this small central African state. The four-year-old war that had officially ended with the signing of the Arusha Accords on 3 August 1993 was reignited. It turned into a showdown of apocalyptic dimensions. Hundreds of thousands were slaughtered as a power struggle reached its climax and resulted in regime change. Within days of the President’s assassination the government had fled the capital, and while the national army was pinned down by the rebel army of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), roving gangs of militia were free to go after (mostly) ethnic Tutsi civilians for murder, rape and pillage. As it gained territory, the RPF also engaged in wholesale civilian slaughter. The numbers killed, and the relative numbers of Tutsi and Hutu dead, remain disputed and differ in accordance with the political affiliations of analysts. Tutsi civilians were hunted down by militia forces, along with Hutus whom they regarded as RPF sympathisers. The RPF killed indiscriminately in a land that was overwhelmingly Hutu. One can safely say that at least half a million died in the period between the President’s assassination and the RPF’s assumption of power just over three months later. The death toll could possibly have been as much as one million.
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Notes
Former US Ambassador to Uganda R. E. Gribben reveals that US intelligence was clear about Museveni’s support for the RPF. See Gribbin, R. E. (2005) In the Aftermath of Genocide: The U.S. Role in Rwanda (New York: iUniverse) 63. Discussion on Ugandan support for the RPF is given in Chapter 4.
For an example, see Human Rights Watch (1999) ‘Leave None to Tell the Story’: Genocide in Rwanda (New York: Human Rights Watch) 1, 2. More on this charge in Chapter 5.
See, for example, African Rights (rev. edn 1995) 22; Prunier, G. (1995) The Rwanda Crisis 1959–1994: History of a Genocide (London: Hurst) 213–226.
According to Filip Reyntjens, ‘From early 1995, Hutu elites became the victims of harassment, imprisonment, and even physical elimination. Provincial governors (Préfets), local mayors, head teachers, clerics and judges were killed in increasing numbers. In most cases, the responsibility of the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA, which had become the national army) was well documented.’ Reyntjens, F. (2004) ‘Rwanda, ten years on: from genocide to dictatorship’. African Affairs 103: 180.
During the Security Council’s private deliberations, the US, UK and France used their influence to prevent the deployment of a reinforced peacemaking operation in the first few weeks after the genocide began in April 1994. Citizens for Global Solutions (2010) The Responsibility Not to Veto: A Way Forward (Washington, DC). www.globalsolutions.org. Accessed 17 November 2013. The article also cites Keating, C. ‘Rwanda: An Insider’s Account’. In: Malone, D. (ed.) (2004) The UN Security Council (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner) 509.
Herman Cohen, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs at the time, later acknowledged that the US had ‘silently acquiesced in the invasion’. Cohen, H. J. (2000) Intervening in Africa: Superpower Peacemaking in a Troubled Continent (New York: St Martin’s Press) 178.
On claims about cultural obedience, see Scherrer, C. P. (1999) Genocide and Genocide Prevention: General Outlines Exemplified with the Cataclysm in Rwanda 1994. COPRI Working Papers 14/1999. http://www.diis.dk/graphics/COPRI_ publications/COPRI_publications/publications/14 1999.doc. 17, 14, 21
Kellow, C. and Steeves, H. (1998) ‘The role of radio in the Rwandan genocide’. Journal of Communication, 48 (3) 107–128
cited in Li, D. (March 2004) ‘Echoes of violence: Considerations on radio and genocide in Rwanda’. Journal of Genocide Research, 6 (1)
Omaar, R. (Autumn 1997) ‘A genocide foretold’. Soundings 7 (London: Soundings Ltd) 110.
On claims about cultural impunity, see Nash, K. (2007) ‘A comparative analysis of justice in post-genocidal Rwanda: Fostering a sense of peace and reconciliation?’ Africana (1)1. http://www.africanajournal.org/PDF/vol1/vol1_4_Kaley%20Nash.pdf. Accessed 17 November 2012; International Crisis Group (1999) ‘Five years after the genocide in Rwanda: Justice in question’ (1) 2, 3.
http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/africa/central-africa/rwanda.pdf. Accessed 17 November 2013; Walters, S. (2005) The Gacaca Process: Eradicating the Culture of Impunity in Rwanda? Institute for Security Studies Situation Report. http://dspace.cigilibrary.org/jspui/bitstream/123456789/1/050805RWANDA.pdf? Accessed 17 November 2013.
Scherrer, C. (1999) Genocide and Genocide Prevention: General Outlines Exemplified with the Cataclysm in Rwanda, 1994, COPRI Working Papers 14/1999. http://www.diis.dk/graphics/COPRI_publications/COPRI_publications/publications/14–1999.doc. Accessed 12 February 2002.
Schraeder, P. J. (1994) United States Foreign Policy Toward Africa: Incrementalism, Crisis and Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) 21.
The death tolls of the two wars waged in the Democratic Republic of Congo are disputed. A survey by the International Rescue Commission found that 5,400,000 people have died from war-related causes in Congo since 1998. http://www.rescue.org/special-reports/special-report-congo-y. Accessed 17 November 2013. Ugandan and Rwandan forces intervened directly in the first war and indirectly in the second. See Clark, J. F. (2001) ‘Explaining Ugandan intervention in Congo: Evidence and interpretations’. Journal of Modern African Studies 39 (2) 261–287.
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© 2014 Barrie Collins
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Collins, B. (2014). The Tipping Point. In: Rwanda 1994. Rethinking Political Violence Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137022325_1
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