rwandan genocide research paper

• Open access
• Published: 26 March 2013

Rwanda – lasting imprints of a genocide: trauma, mental health and psychosocial conditions in survivors, former prisoners and their children

• Heide Rieder 1 &
• Thomas Elbert 1  

Conflict and Health volume  7 , Article number:  6 ( 2013 ) Cite this article

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The 1994 genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda left about one million people dead in a period of only three months. The present study aimed to examine the level of trauma exposure, psychopathology, and risk factors for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in survivors and former prisoners accused of participation in the genocide as well as in their respective descendants.

A community-based survey was conducted in four sectors of the Muhanga district in the Southern Province of Rwanda from May to July 2010. Genocide survivors ( n  = 90), former prisoners ( n  = 83) and their respective descendants were interviewed by trained local psychologists. The PTSD Symptom Scale Interview (PSS-I) was used to assess PTSD, the Hopkins Symptom Checklist (HSCL-25) to assess symptoms of depression and anxiety and the relevant section of the M.I.N.I. to assess the risk for suicidality.

Survivors reported that they had experienced on average twelve different traumatic event types in comparison to ten different types of traumatic stressors in the group of former prisoners. According to the PSS-I, the worst events reported by survivors were mainly linked to witnessing violence throughout the period of the genocide, whereas former prisoners emphasized being physically attacked, referring to their time spent in refugee camps or to their imprisonment. In the parent generation, when compared to former prisoners, survivors indicated being more affected by depressive symptoms ( M  = 20.7 (SD = 7.8) versus M  = 19.0 (SD = 6.4), U  = 2993, p  < .05) and anxiety symptoms ( M  = 17.2 (SD = 7.6) versus M  = 15.4 (SD = 7.8), U  = 2951, p  < .05) but not with regard to the PTSD diagnosis (25% versus 22%, χ 2 (1,171) = .182, p  = .669).

A regression analysis of the data of the parent generation revealed that the exposure to traumatic stressors, the level of physical illness and the level of social integration were predictors for the symptom severity of PTSD, whereas economic status, age and gender were not. Descendants of genocide survivors presented with more symptoms than descendants of former prisoners with regard to all assessed mental disorders.

Conclusions

Our study demonstrated particular long-term consequences of massive organized violence, such as war and genocide, on mental health and psychosocial conditions. Differences between families of survivors and families of former prisoners accused for participation in the Rwandan genocide are reflected in the mental health of the next generation.

Introduction

In April 1994, Rwanda was immersed in a brutal wave of organized violence that left an estimated one million people dead in a period of only three months. Civil war, genocide against the Tutsi minority group and violent reprisal attacks until 1998 horrified its inhabitants. The thoroughly planned and state-monitored genocidal violence was specifically marked by the extensive participation of the local population: neighbors went after neighbors by means of guns, machetes or sticks during house to house searches, at roadblocks or at central congregation points. Looting, destroying property and genocidal acts including murder and sexual violence were common [ 1 ]. Overall, more than 10% of the country’s 7.8 million population and approximately 75% of the Tutsi ethnic minority were killed and a huge number of people ended up widowed or orphaned. In the direct aftermath of genocide, two million people took refuge in the neighboring countries. Many of them did not reenter Rwanda prior to 1996, when the refugee camps began breaking down and people felt encouraged and/or coerced to return. In many cases, a return to Rwanda was followed by immediate incarceration. The release of these prisoners did not begin before 2002 when Gacaca , a judicial initiative based on a traditional Rwandan mechanism of local conflict resolution, was implemented to confront the estimated 1.2 million cases [ 2 ]. Until the present day, genocide survivors and those who participated in the genocide continue to live next door to each other.

In the aftermath of 1994, genocide survivors showed high rates of mental health and psychosocial problems due to the inconceivable, dehumanized brutality that the majority of them had been exposed or witness to. Entire family systems as well as the general social fabric that formerly provided support were destroyed due to losses of family members and growing mistrust and fear following the genocide. A great majority of the survivors were female and woman-headed households proved to be especially vulnerable, suffering from the effects of economic deprivation, which included a lack of food, housing and money for the education of their children [ 3 ]. Apart from general population samples, studies analyzing the mental health situation in Rwanda following the genocide have mainly focused on groups of widows and orphans or children living in child-headed households. An elevated level of depressive and anxious symptoms as well as PTSD was found in each of these groups [ 4 – 7 ]. On the other hand, little to nothing is known about the mental health situation of former prisoners in Rwanda, many of which spent several years in refugee camps after 1994. It is assumed that former prisoners – that is, accused perpetrators and their respective families – also present with mental health problems, whether due to their participation in [ 8 , 9 ] or exposure to violence, genocide and their refugee status. Concrete data on this is, however, currently lacking.

To our knowledge, no existing study has used data from a local population sample investigating both survivors and former prisoners as well as their respective descendants living together in the same communities. We opted for a comparison of these two, as they constitute important stakeholders within the post-conflict Rwandan society and assumingly present with different mental health and socioeconomic profiles. This also assumed that a neutral, unaffected group would be near impossible to find owing to the pervasive effects of violence on the Rwandan population as a whole. As the primary targets of genocidal acts were men and boys, genocide survivors proved to be mainly women, whereas genocide-related crimes were mainly committed by men [ 10 ]. A gender imbalance was therefore assumed in the examined sample of parents. We furthermore hypothesized that families of genocide survivors had been exposed to more traumatic events and that they were more affected in terms of mental and physical health. With regard to social and economic factors, we assumed that they live under worse conditions than the group of former prisoners and their descendants.

Sampling and procedure

The inclusion criterion for all participants born prior to 1994 was that they must have resided in Rwanda in the same year, while parents of children born prior to 1994 had to be at least 18 years old at the time of genocide. In the present study, survivors were defined as targets of the 1994 genocide and therefore represent today’s rescapés . They were mainly categorized as Tutsi but were in some cases Hutu as well (e.g., Hutu women who were persecuted for being married to a Tutsi). Both groups were thus included in the survey. Former prisoners were defined as released prisoners who in the aftermath of genocide were incarcerated because of being suspected of participation in genocide. Therefore, all former génocidaires were included, even if they claimed to be innocent, declaring that they had not killed or harmed anyone. Following this definition, we were interested in the local perception of the family as a “perpetrator family” rather than in the legal status of the individuals.

The survivor sample consisted of 64 women (71.1%) and 26 men (28.9%) and the former prisoner sample consisted of eight women (9.8%) and 74 men (90.2%). In the group of descendants, eligible participants had to be between 19 and 31 for those born prior to the genocide and between 13 and 15 for those born after 1994. The sample of descendants of survivors consisted of 55 women (56.7%) and 42 men (43.3%) and the sample of descendants of former prisoners consisted of 45 women (49.5%) and 46 men (50.5%). Eight participants of the 368 refused to participate in the study for reasons of mistrust, lack of further financial support and owing to the fear of being sent back to prison.

The present study was designed as a cross-sectional survey of a local population sample in the Muhanga district of the Southern province of Rwanda. Muhanga and its main provincial town Gitarama are located in the geographic center of the country, one hour away from the capital of Kigali. Before 1994, the province’s population was characterized by cohabitation and a high incidence of intermarriage between Hutu and Tutsi [ 11 , 12 ]. By choosing this research site, we intended to investigate communities where both former ethnic groups (and to a small amount Twa, the third population group) live alongside one another until today and that have an elevated number of Tutsi in contrast, for instance, to districts in the North. Four sectors were selected within the Muhanga district (Nyamabuye, Muhanga, Shyogwe, Cyeza) using a simple random sampling approach. Approval for the implementation of the survey was obtained from the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda, Kigali (NISR), and from the Ethical Review Board of the University of Konstanz. Furthermore, district and sector representatives were informed of the survey and provided a research permit in the local language of Kinyarwanda. All participants provided their written informed consent and parents signed for their children after having received extensive information on the aim of the study. Interviews were conducted by seven local Bachelor-level psychologists (four men and three women) who had participated in former epidemiological studies and had thus already received extensive training and experience in conducting structured interviews. An additional week of training was provided to all interviewers in order to review, and afterwards practice unfamiliar parts of the interview by means of role-playing and group discussions. Interviewers were closely supervised throughout the entire procedure by a female clinical psychologist (H.R.). Whenever needed, follow-up care of the interviewees was provided. If necessary, participants– especially victims of sexual violence – were referred to self-help groups or trauma counselors for further care.

The study was conceived as a community-based study with a house-to-house survey. In all four selected sectors, two quarters were randomly chosen (one quarter per interviewer) and interviewers went door-to-door, starting at a convenient location within the assigned sector. Each subsequent house was approached until the required number of interviews was achieved. The first adult person encountered in the household was asked whether genocide survivors or former prisoners resided in the house. As soon as it was determined that one eligible person and his or her child met the conclusion criteria, the interviewer started the interview with the person already spoken with. When two or more eligible adult persons were present, one of these was randomly selected for participation. If no one was at home at the time of the first visit, interviewers returned afterwards to ask for eligible participants. If eligible parents had children that met criteria for both age ranges (born before or after the genocide), both children were interviewed. If more than one child within one age group was available and willing to participate, one of these was randomly chosen. Each interviewee received 1,000 Rwandan Francs (about 1.30 Euro) as compensation for the time spent in the interview. The interviews lasted between one and two hours, were carried out individually in the respondent’s home and took place between May and July 2010.

The socio-demographic part of the interview contained questions about gender, age, marital status, educational background as well as some economic and social variables. A social integration index was built by integrating the number of current close friends, the participation in any community activity and the integration in cooperatives or associations. The economic index contained the following variables: possessions (house, agricultural fields), any monthly monetary income, the capacity to satisfy the family’s needs and facts on typical nutrition (number of meals, with protein or not). Both the social integration and economic indices were calculated by the addition of their z-transformed variables divided by the square root of their number. These indices were only calculated for the parent generation, as these variables were not assessed for descendants born after 1994 and could therefore not be calculated for the whole group of descendants. Furthermore, six questions on physical health within the previous six months were included, referring to common symptoms or syndromes in Rwanda (e.g., chronic pain or diarrhea, tuberculosis, HIV or any kind of disability). Answers were compiled on an index of physical illness with a possible range of 0 to 6. Finally, questions concerning the experience of displacement and loss due to war and genocide and with regard to the group of former prisoners, their time spent in prison, were added.

To assess trauma confrontation, the Rwandan adjusted Event Scale was used [ 5 ]. This contained 25 potentially traumatic events, for example, to witness a massacre, to be physically attacked or to hide under cadavers . Each type of event was assessed referring to a specific period of time, namely before, during and after the genocide, as well as lifetime exposure. In all four categories, events were summed up to a total number of event types to which participants had been exposed.

Diagnostic status and symptom severity of PTSD were determined using the PTSD Symptom Scale Interview (PSS-I) [ 13 ], which assesses the 17 symptom criteria in the previous month according to the DSM-IV . Each item was evaluated on a four-point Likert scale ranging from 0 (not at all/only one time) to 3 (five or more times a week/almost always) and a PTSD severity score with a possible score range of 0 to 51 was established for every subject by adding all symptom scores. The Kinyarwandan version of this was first produced by colleagues conducting research in the Ugandan refugee camp Nakivale and was later also applied in different settings in Rwanda [ 9 , 14 ]. Its translated version demonstrated satisfactory psychometric properties [ 15 , 16 ].

Depressive and anxiety symptoms in the week prior to the interview were administered by the use of the Hopkins Symptom Checklist (HSCL-25) [ 17 ]. For further analysis, a severity score for anxiety (scores range from 10 to 40) was established and syndromal anxiety was estimated by using a critical cut-off value for clinical relevance at a mean score of 1.75 [ 18 , 19 ]. A symptom score for depression (scores range from 15–60) was established and again, syndromal depression was estimated using a critical cut-off value of 1.75. For further analysis of the validity of this procedure, a cross-check was made by also establishing syndromal depression according to the DSM-IV criteria using an algorithm suggested by Bolton and colleagues [ 20 ]. At least five out of nine depressive symptoms including at least one of the depressed mood items (e.g., crying easily, feeling hopeless) had to be present to fulfill the diagnosis, whereas functional impairment was not further assessed. The risk of suicidality was estimated by means of the corresponding section of the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (M.I.N.I.) [ 21 ] and two items about alcohol and other drug abuse in the previous week were added.

All instruments were applied in Kinyarwanda language versions, produced by colleagues and applied before in Rwanda. All diagnostic scales (including the self-rating scales) were applied in the form of a clinical interview.

Statistical analyses

Descriptive data are presented as frequencies (%), mean scores and standard deviations. Chi square analysis and Mann–Whitney tests are used to analyze between-group differences. To explore the impact of different predictor variables on the severity of the posttraumatic stress symptom score in the group of adult survivors, a regression analysis was calculated. As the PTSD symptom score is a count variable and as our data did not fulfill the assumptions to run a linear regression, we applied an extended generalized linear model for count data based on the assumption of a negative binomial distribution of the data. The Lagrange multiplier test statistic revealed that overdispersion of the data was not a problem ( χ 2 (1,176) = 3.8, p  = .052); a Poisson regression was thereby performed. The predictor variables included in the model were age, gender, exposure to traumatic stressors (number of traumatic events), physical illness, the social integration index and the economic index. Spearman’s Rho correlations are used to further investigate links between different socio-demographic variables. Data analysis was conducted using SPSS software version 20.

For further discussion, it must first be considered that socio-demographic profiles between groups differed significantly in that survivors were mainly female (71%), more educated and half of them were widowed (53%), whereas former prisoners were mainly male (90%), presented fewer years of schooling and were significantly more often married (83%). A detailed description of the characteristics of the sample can be drawn from Table  1 .

Exposure to war and genocide-related events

Respondents reported having been exposed to about eight different types of traumatic stressors. The average number of events experienced by each group with regard to different periods of time is illustrated in Figure  1 . No gender difference was found in the parent generation with regard to the number of events ever experienced, but women reported a higher trauma load with regard to the period of the genocide ( U  = 2446.0, p  = .0001) and men reported a higher trauma load with regard to the aftermath of the genocide ( U  = 1880.0, p  = .0001). In the group of descendants, no gender difference was found at all. Potentially traumatic events such as being captured or kidnapped, witnessing a massacre, serious injury or attack with a weapon as well as sexual abuse or rape were mainly reported by the survivor group and their descendants and linked to genocidal violence. Confrontation with other war or combat situations linked to political events in 1959 or 1973 as well as to the war against infiltrators from 1996 to 1998 were reported by the parent generation of the survivor group (43% and 20%) and to a lesser extent by former prisoners (18% and 9%). On the other hand, 65% of the latter group reported having experienced physical attack especially after the genocide and thereby mainly in relation to their imprisonment as well as their time spent in camps for Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) in Kibuye in the Western region of Rwanda or in refugee camps in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Number of traumatic event types ( Mean ) before 1994, during genocide and after 1994, and in lifetime reported by respondents born before 1994.

Witnessing the killing of someone , seeing dead and mutilated bodies , being attacked with a weapon and physical attack proved to be the most upsetting experiences reported by the entire group. However, survivors and former prisoners as well as their descendants reported different types of events to be the worst (see Figures  2 and 3 ). Whereas former prisoners reported being mostly affected by their own experience of being physically attacked and incarcerated, the three other groups mentioned mainly witnessing the killing of someone to be worst.

Percentages of the worst traumatic event types reported by the group of survivors ( n   = 90) and former prisoners ( n   = 83).

Percentages of the worst traumatic event types reported by the group of descendants of survivors ( n   = 66) and descendants of former prisoners ( n   = 62), all born before 1994.

Level of distress

The analysis of the PDS data revealed that 81% of the whole sample fulfilled the A1 criterion for a traumatic event according to the DSM-IV . The prevalence rate for current PTSD was 25% in the survivor group, 16% in all their descendants and 22.4% in their descendants born before 1994. 24.6% of all widows and widowers fulfilled this diagnosis. 22% of the group of former prisoners, 1% of all their respective descendants and 1.6% of their descendants born before 1994 suffered from PTSD. The severity score of the PDS ranged from 8 to 48 ( M  = 23.9, SD  = 10.3) for those who fulfilled the diagnosis. In the parent generation, intrusions associated with the B cluster of the PTSD diagnosis turned out to be as frequent in survivors as in former prisoners. The HSCL severity score for anxiety ranged from 10 to 40 ( M  = 14.6, SD  = 6.7). 37% of the survivor group and 23% of their descendants were above the cut-off value for clinical relevance. In families of former prisoners, 22% of the parent generation and 8% of their descendants were thus likely to suffer from an anxiety disorder. The HSCL severity score for depression ranged from 15 to 55 ( M =  18.2, SD  = 5.9). Considering a cut-off score, 21% of the survivors and 3% of their descendants as well as 14% of the former prisoners and 5% of their respective descendants were likely to suffer from depression. Following the Bolton algorithm as earlier described, 30% of the survivor group and 16% of their descendants might have been ill with symptoms of an affective disorder and 15% of the former prisoners as well as 5% of their respective descendants likewise. Prevalence rates resulting on the one hand from a cut-off mean score of 1.75 and on the other hand from symptom criteria of the DSM-IV diagnosis for major depression thereby proved not to be in accordance with each other. The analysis of the M.I.N.I. data revealed that 11% of the sample reported suicidal tendencies. One quarter of the survivor group and 7% of the former prisoners turned out to be at risk. 15% of all former prisoners reported alcohol abuse in the week prior to the interview, whereas only 7% of victims reported this. In the parent generation, women showed a higher level of suicidality than men ( U  = 2826.0, p  = .000) and a lower level of alcohol abuse ( U  = 3120.0, p  = .005). All group differences in psychopathology are presented in Table  2 .

Association between PTSD symptom severity and related disorders

Positive correlations were found between the PDS symptom severity score and other related disorders in the total sample (N  = 360). The symptom severity score of PTSD was associated with the severity of depressive symptoms (Spearman, r  = .62, p  = .000) and symptoms of anxiety ( r  = .59, p  = .000). Depression and anxiety symptom scores were associated as well ( r  = .69, p  = .000). PTSD symptom severity occurred to be linked to suicidal tendencies ( r  = .35, p  = .000), but neither alcohol nor other drug abuse.

Physical health

In the parent generation, general complaints such as headaches, coughing and malaria (51.2%) were most frequently reported, followed by chronic pain (32.0%) and HIV (7.0%) especially amongst survivors as well as disability due to genocide-related violence (5.8%). Survivors were more affected and differed significantly from the group of former prisoners in the physical illness index ( U  = 2896.0, p  = .009). Again, a gender difference was found as women reported more physical symptoms ( U  = 2640.0, p  = .001). Descendants of survivors seemed as well to be more affected than descendants of former prisoners, while this difference did not reach significance ( U  = 3742.0, p  = .058). Among those, general complaints (44.2%) especially about stomachaches as well as chronic pain (5%) were again reported most frequently.

Prediction of traumatic stress in the parent generation

Predictors of traumatic stress were analyzed by calculating a negative binomial regression on the PDS symptom severity score of the parent generation (see Table  3 ). Poor physical health, a low level of social integration as well as a high exposure to war and genocide were the strongest predictors for PTSD symptom severity, whereas age, gender and economic status were not.

Socio-economic conditions in the parent generation

Regarding the two indices, the social integration and the economic index, the parent generation did not differ significantly in the first, but rather in the latter one ( U  = 2699, p  = .006) identifying the group of former prisoners as the wealthier one. While further analyzing gender differences, men presented a higher level in both the economic ( U  = 2723.0, p  = .006) and the social indices ( U  = 2805.0, p  = .029). And, with regard to marital status, widows and widowers showed a lower economic status ( U  = 2054.0, p  = .000), but no difference in the social integration index compared to non-widowed. A negative correlation between physical illness and both indices, the social integration ( r  = −.20, p  = .000) and economic status ( r  = −.33, p  = .000) was found.

The present study examined mental health problems and psychosocial conditions in Rwandan families 16 years following the 1994 genocide. Its main aim was to investigate the impact of war, genocide and other potentially traumatic experiences on genocide survivors on the one hand and former prisoners on the other hand, as well as the respective descendants of both groups. The study also examined correlates of PTSD and the prediction of the PTSD symptom severity. In general, survivors and their descendants reported more traumatic events and proved to be more affected than families of former prisoners. Posttraumatic stress reactions were especially elevated in adult survivors who had experienced a high number of traumatic events, had poor physical health and were lacking in social integration.

Not surprisingly, survivors and their descendants, as the primary targets of the 1994 atrocities, showed the highest exposure to traumatic stressors with twelve and ten different event types, thus reflecting their exposure to genocide-related violence. These findings are in line with other studies conducted in Rwanda [ 4 , 5 , 9 ]. The average number of event types reported by former prisoners and their descendants ranged from six to nine events and was also mainly linked to the period of genocide, although both generations in this group emphasized its aftermath more frequently than the families of survivors. Former prisoners especially pointed to physical attacks experienced in refugee camps in the eastern Congo or related to the imprisonment upon their return. Their descendants often became witnesses of these imprisonments and the circumstances under which they took place. In this way, the past and recent political situations in Rwanda, which were marked by various episodes of persecution, attack, massacre, and forced displacement, were also directly reflected in the number of events reported before and after 1994. This furthermore highlighted the repetitive and cumulative nature of trauma in Rwanda and the Great Lakes Region, which is not only limited to genocide.

In the present study, 25% of the genocide survivors and 22% of the former prisoners were diagnosed with PTSD. In Rwanda, studies reported 25%-29% of PTSD in non-specified adult populations [ 6 , 22 , 23 ], 41%-51% in widows and genocide survivors [ 6 , 7 ] and 37% within the Southern province of Rwanda [ 24 ]. Our sample therefore showed a lower level of distress than previously reported data on Rwanda, while also presenting a high trauma load. In addition, it is in discordance with data collected in the Southern province. These differences might be due to recovery over time [ 25 ] but might also be linked to differences in exposure to genocide within the same province. As stated by Straus [ 26 ], Gitarama manifested less “anti-Tutsi violence” in comparison to other Southern cities such as Butare or Gikongoro, and, according to des Forges [ 27 ], the nearby Kabgayi church offered special protection to a great number of Tutsi in the area. While in the present study genocide survivors and former prisoners significantly differed in their PTSD severity scores, this was not the case with syndromal PTSD. This was due to the fact that both groups manifested the same level of intrusions – the B criterion of the DSM-IV diagnosis. While this elevated level of intrusions seems unsurprising in genocide survivors, it needs further explanation with regard to former prisoners. The prisoners examined in the present study had spent about eight years in prison: some of them were incarcerated in the direct aftermath of the genocide and others upon their return from refugee camps, as only a few did not leave their home district in 1994. For those prisoners, to be put in prison might have felt like the point of no return as the accused did not necessarily expect to ever leave prison or at least not until the implementation of Gacaca jurisdiction in 2002. Adverse experiences throughout their prison time such as malnutrition, lack of appropriate health care, overcrowded detention conditions or physical harassment and attacks might have added new traumatic events to the already existing fear network [ 28 ], and feelings of hopelessness and helplessness over the years might have fostered and maintained intrusive symptomatology. Acute fear, one might argue, characterized their time in prison as well as the arrival in their respective communities as they did not know what to expect and how they would be perceived by others in this changed political environment.

Comparing rates of symptoms of anxiety and depression between survivors and former prisoners, the former showed a significantly higher level of distress. With regard to the HSCL score, 37% of survivors and 22% of former prisoners fulfilled the criteria for anxiety disorder, and according to the Bolton algorithm 30% versus 15% for depression. When relying on these results, our findings are consistent with earlier reported studies on survivors and widows or on the general Rwandan population [ 6 , 7 , 20 , 23 , 29 ], even though no comparable data are available for former prisoners. A high level of disagreement was nonetheless found when comparing prevalence rates gained either by using a cut-off score or following DSM-IV symptom criteria, as suggested by Bolton and others [ 20 ], to screen for depression. In a recently published study, Ertl et al. [ 16 ] critically discussed the unevaluated adjustment of a cut-off score developed in a different context – that is, for example, not appropriate to the given East African situation. Therefore, in future research, the HSCL might be better applied to investigate symptom severity instead of prevalence rates based on a specific cut-off value.

Suicidal tendencies were found in 25% of all survivors and in 7% of the group of former prisoners, occurring more often among women. Rates showed to be lower compared with an earlier reported study [ 7 ], but still displayed a considerable level of distress in a society where suicidal tendencies had not previously been commonly reported and were rejected by the majority of our sample as, to quote a participant, “an inappropriate way to solve problems for any Rwandan believing in God”. Alcohol consumption occurred twice as much in the group of former prisoners (15%) than in the survivors and was especially linked to males. This had not received much attention in earlier reported studies on Rwanda and is not easily admitted to by Rwandans, whose sense of disclosure prohibits openly talking about sensitive topics, even while the consumption of locally produced alcohol is a common phenomenon in rural areas and symbolic for good neighborhood relationships [ 30 ]. To further differentiate between general alcohol consumption and clinically relevant problems associated to alcohol and other substances, a recent representative study by the Rwandan Ministry of Health [ 23 ] examined a general population sample and found rates of drug and alcohol abuse ranging from 3%-6% and alcohol addiction of 5%-7%. Even while our data do not allow for any causal attribution, one might argue that these two specific features, suicidality and alcohol abuse, point to possible reactions and mechanisms for dealing with loss and trauma. Family dynamics might therefore be affected by these issues, especially if the broader family and community support is broken. Furthermore, it is possible that the experience of war and violence can lead to an elevated level of family violence, which often turns out to be moderated by alcohol abuse in a parent. Catani et al. [ 31 ] demonstrated an association between the father’s alcohol intake and maltreatment reported by his children in a Sri Lankan sample of children affected by long-lasting conflict. Although systematically collected data on domestic violence in Rwanda are scarce, another recent study reported that alcoholism ranges under the first three causes of aggressive and violent behavior towards intimate partners or children in this country [ 32 ]. Therefore, psychological disorders within the local population following experiences such as war and genocide, including alcohol and drug abuse, need to be considered in community-based interventions, which tend to diminish the risk of further violence on following generations.

Overall, the present study demonstrated a high degree of co-morbidity between diverse disorders, as postulated earlier [ 33 – 35 ]. Altogether, one quarter of all adult survivors suffered from PTSD, clinically relevant depression and/or anxiety, reflecting the serious mental health situation as well as the long-term consequences of massive violence even 16 years following the genocide [ 36 – 38 ].

With regard to the group of descendants, our study revealed that 16% of the descendants of survivors compared to only 1% of the descendants of former prisoners (and none of those born after 1994) fulfilled the DSM-IV criteria for the diagnosis of PTSD. In a study on a general sample of Rwandan youth interviewed during the direct aftermath of the genocide, Neugebauer et al. [ 39 ] reported a PTSD rate of 62%. Recent research on vulnerable groups such as orphans showed lower PTSD rates, between 24% and 34% [ 5 , 7 , 40 ]. With regard to those born before 1994, our sample of descendants of survivors manifested a similar level of PTSD to those reported by these last studies. Among these descendants, a particularly high trauma load was found and 50% showed to be half-orphaned. Their specifically vulnerable and life-threatening situation in 1994 and afterwards was strongly shaped by their families’ experiences. Due to persecution and death, parental protection throughout the period of violence was often missing. In the aftermath of the genocide, their families had to cope with severe circumstances and descendants often took over great responsibilities, which often continue today and might explain the ongoing sequelae of distress as depressive and anxiety symptoms [ 7 ]. The group of descendants of former prisoners within the present sample, however, differed even more from the youth described in Neugebauer’s study, though concrete comparable data is missing. Throughout the genocide, descendants of former prisoners did not necessarily flee with their families, but rather stayed at home or were individually sent to other remaining family members. When they had to take refuge with their families who were moving to the western parts of Rwanda, they often went in groups and the mainly Hutu background of their mothers offered them special protection in comparison to the descendants of survivors. Even if they had witnessed war and genocidal violence, they had never been specifically targeted, as the primary aim of the genocide perpetrators was to eliminate the group of Tutsi and their families [ 24 ]. Finally, information on what was going on in Rwanda in 1994 was scarce. A lack of cognitive understanding of the dimension of the events might therefore also have modulated the affect regulation and in turn have added a protective factor for those children [ 41 ]. Our data furthermore suggest that younger children born after 1994 did not specifically suffer from PTSD or other mental disorders. Further research is needed to better understand potential transgenerational effects of genocide on those children who did not live through the genocide in comparison to their older siblings [ 42 ]. Apart from these family issues, when referring to previous studies the broader social climate is in question as well, thereby demonstrating a clear association between mental health problems such as PTSD and feelings of hatred and revenge in the aftermath of conflict [ 22 , 43 ]. These possible adverse implications also need to be considered while developing initiatives to foster reconciliation and mutual understanding.

Another key finding of the present study was that the number of event types as well as physical health and social integration explained the biggest part of the variance of posttraumatic stress symptoms in the parent generation. The presently observed dose-effect of the number of traumatic event types on the PTSD symptom severity score – highlighting the impact of cumulative stress on mental health – has already been widely discussed [ 44 , 45 ]. The relationship between PTSD and lower self-reported physical health and other health problems has also been reported in previous studies [ 46 , 47 ]. In a recently published study by Schaal et al. [ 7 ], both physical illness and trauma exposure were the two main predictors for PTSD symptom severity in Rwandan widows and orphans, while social factors were not further differentiated. The authors discussed this association as a possible difficulty of survivors with PTSD for developing effective coping mechanisms to deal with somatic and chronic health problems or, conversely, that the latter might affect them in such a way that they are no longer able to take care of themselves. Our findings demonstrated chronic pain to be the main physical complaint. With regard to the hypothesis that both syndromes mutually maintain each other as, for instance, acute pain proves to be mediated by symptoms of arousal and vice versa [ 48 , 49 ], this offers an alternative explanation of why PTSD continues to occur at this level, even 16 years after the genocide. Recovery without any treatment or only basic medical-oriented services seem to be reserved to only a fraction of the population. While no evidence for direct prediction of PTSD symptom severity using economic factors was found, physical illness seems to function as a mediator between both, as its correlates with social as well as economic factors demonstrate. The direct consequences of genocidal violence such as HIV infection, chronic pain or disability, which were especially present in the group of survivors, have an immediate impact on the economic growth of a family in an already poor environment [ 50 ]. The respondents mainly worked as peasants, as is common for the rural Rwandan population. Therefore, as reported by an interviewed female survivor, when a widow was a victim of sexual violence during the genocide and, due to continued bleeding and other associated physical ailments, was no longer able to perform hard farm labor, her family’s economic status was subsequently and negatively impacted. Even if this kind of survivor were willing to receive psychological support, the challenges of the distance from home to center, money for travel and privacy from neighbors highlight the delicate interconnectedness of economic and social issues in this region.

The present study revealed that lower levels of social integration and activity were associated with elevated levels of PTSD symptoms, indicating a mutual maintenance effect. Interestingly, women in our sample had a lower social status than men, whereas no difference was found either between survivors and former prisoners or between widowed and non-widowed persons. One possible explanation for these results might be that especially vulnerable groups such as widows or genocide survivors infected with HIV tend to stick together and support each other, which is not necessarily the case with people currently suffering from PTSD [ 51 ]. According to our findings, genocide survivors had lost an average of 14 family members. In Rwanda, family and community support is crucial for the well-being as well as for the reputation and prosperity of individuals. Depressive moods and feelings of hopelessness in survivors, therefore, were often linked to this missing support, as reported by respondents. As remarriage is socially not necessarily tolerated, widows have difficulties taking care of their family in an appropriate way, especially when they are not further integrated in the community [ 52 ].

In comparison to this, former prisoners showed a better economic profile, but surprisingly no higher level of social activity and integration. In our study, while released prisoners rarely mentioned problems of reintegration following their release, their other family members such as their wives and children did. As Richters et al. [ 50 ] demonstrated, sources for ongoing conflicts might be found within families in which the father is extensively absent due to imprisonment. In such circumstances, the man returning home from prison may find that his wife has brought another man home or has even had children with other men. Additionally, there has been sharp economic decline and property loss – all factors leading to the father’s realization that he has limited authority in the new family system facing him following imprisonment [ 53 ]. Alcohol abuse and the aggressive behavior of released prisoners toward family members or, on the contrary, social withdrawal might also affect family dynamics. As several researchers have demonstrated, mistrust in the communities started to grow again after the first massive release of prisoners in 2003 in Rwanda, many of whom have since been presumed innocent or assigned to minor offenses. Alliances that had previously been made between, for example, genocide widows and wives of prisoners, were thereby once again put into question [ 54 , 55 ]. A large portion of our sample of former prisoners was released within about the same period of time and therefore took part “in the government confession program” that provided a reduced sentence for perpetrators who admitted guilt and remorse [ 56 , 57 ]. Released prisoners expressed being especially grateful to the government as well as for the introduction of the Gacaca tribunals, as most of them were released due to this new judicial initiative. At the same time, the majority felt that their own suffering due to imprisonment did not receive any recognition. Therefore, one can argue that social reintegration as a so-called aim of governmental-driven directions on how to behave when going back to their families and communities [ 56 , 58 ] might not necessarily be experienced by the individual former prisoner. This also includes the notion of being innocent and a victim of “someone else’s war” [ 59 ], as, in the present study, released prisoners frequently reported physical attack or incarceration as their worst experiences according to the PSS-I. These results are in line with data from a recently published study on incarcerated, accused perpetrators in Rwandan prisons [ 9 ]. Only 13% reported their participation in murder as their most stressful event; Schaal et al. thus argue whether high rates of mental health problems in this population are in fact due to the causes or the consequences of imprisonment.

These results highlight the ambiguous and complex nature of victimhood in post-conflict societies as well as the need for further empirical evidence and lead to a first limitation of the study: comparing survivors with former prisoners seems critical with regard to its restriction in conceptualization. As emphasized by numerous authors, dichotomous categories are inappropriate when describing and reflecting complex circumstances of life in and after wartimes [ 12 ]. A dynamic view on participation is required whenever a better understanding of the role and participation in periods of violence is in question. People do not often fit to one category alone, such as victim, perpetrator or bystander, and can change throughout time in their concrete behavior. This change and assumption of different positions within the same period of time could, therefore, influence the impact on their mental health situation. Following Bar-On [ 60 ] there might be an association between the use of interchangeable roles and reduced moral responsibility in a person, which together could have a disburdening effect. Therefore, one individual who protected and rescued a nearby Tutsi neighbor (who in turn survived the genocide) while having also participated in roadblocks and manhunts for the Tutsi might be a conceivable example of how one person could incorporate many roles at the same time. Our findings might not necessarily hold for the whole Rwandan population. As already demonstrated, results from different regions might vary and our data can therefore only be seen as representative for central Gitarama. Still, they offer initial insight into a local population consisting of families of survivors and former prisoners living next door to each other who had never before been examined together and compared with each other. Another limitation lies in our definition of family. In Rwandan families, older children in particular do not necessarily grow up near their parents or siblings, but often refer to the broader family context including uncles, aunts, or even grandparents as their parents or to cousins as their siblings as well. The present study does not provide further information about the previous childhood circumstances of descendants in order to draw further conclusions on potential protective factors in the aftermath of violence. Finally, conducting research in a post-conflict setting demanded a critical reflection upon data validity. Due to political restriction and oppression, speaking out loudly is not common in Rwanda. The effect of introducing local interviewers also needs to be taken into consideration. While local researchers normally benefit from their close relationships to the cultural background in question, the specific historically shaped relationships between Rwandans might sometimes foster an even stronger mistrust between Rwandans than toward foreigners.

16 years following the Rwandan genocide, survivors and their families continue to present with considerable rates of PTSD and substantial depressive and anxiety symptoms. The data revealed a strong association between health problems and psychosocial factors such as social integration. A high level of PTSD in the group of former prisoners – and thus the likely genocide perpetrators – demonstrated that psychological suffering affected the population at large, although the nature of traumatic stressors may have varied. By challenging the question of who “owns” trauma discourses in a post-conflict society such as Rwanda, mental health services should take the needs of the entire population into consideration when offering care – an idea that is still not mainstream in Rwanda. Finally, descendants of genocide survivors showed a higher risk for mental health problems than descendants of former prisoners. A high trauma load as well as missing family integration and support characterizes their specific vulnerable situation. Interventions and initiatives that stimulate reconciliation processes between future generations should take these particularities into consideration.

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Acknowledgements

First and foremost, we would like to thank all interviewees who participated in the study for their openness and trust while speaking with us. Seven highly motivated Rwandan colleagues worked as interviewers and interpreters of the Rwandan language and cultural background: warm thanks to Agnès Nyirabizimana, Ernest Hakizimana, Albertine Muhimpundu, Primitive Mukantwari, Pierre Bisengimana, Felix Harindintwari and Charles Ingabire. HR received a scholarship from the Ev. Studienwerk e.V. Villigst and is grateful to the foundation for its ongoing support and inspiration. We would like to thank Dr. Susanne Schaal, Kathrin Groninger and Ernest Hakizimana for valuable comments given on an earlier draft of this manuscript and Danie Meyer for editing. The study was supported by the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft).

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HR conceived and designed the study and coordinated and supervised data acquisition. She was responsible for statistical analysis and drafted the manuscript. TE participated in the study design, the analysis of the data and manuscript preparation. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Rieder, H., Elbert, T. Rwanda – lasting imprints of a genocide: trauma, mental health and psychosocial conditions in survivors, former prisoners and their children. Confl Health 7 , 6 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1186/1752-1505-7-6

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In recent years, the Rwandan genocide has generated a large and growing academic literature. The disciplines and themes within the scholarship are diverse. History, political science, law, and anthropology are well represented in the academic literature, but some of the most prominent contributions come from human rights practitioners and journalists. Thematically, Rwanda is a paradigmatic case of ethnic conflict and central to the rapidly growing field of genocide studies. The case is also a touchstone for students of transitional justice, humanitarian intervention, violence, and contemporary African politics — in addition to a number of other themes. Rwanda also commands attention beyond the university, in particular, from policymakers and lay audiences — the latter, especially, after a series of high profile feature films and documentaries. Thus, despite its relative recentness, the Rwandan genocide already has given rise to a very large body of work.

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I would like to thank Dan Stone for comments on earlier drafts of this essay. By and large, the arguments in this essay are drawn, in part, from S. Straus, The Order of Genocide: Race, Power, and War in Rwanda (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006).

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On these points, see (in addition to the sources in note 4) C. Newbury, The Cohesion of Oppression: Clientship and Ethnicity in Rwanda, 1860–1960 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988).

On the Hamitic Hypothesis and the racialization of Rwanda’s social categories, see in particular Chrétien, The Great Lakes of Africa , Ch. 4 and M. Mamdani, When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001).

For English-language accounts of the Revolution period, see in particular R. Lemarchand, Rwanda and Burundi (London: Pall Mall, 1970);

I. Linden, Church and Revolution in Rwanda (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1977); and Newbury, The Cohesion of Oppression.

L. Melvern, A People Betrayed: The Role of the West in Rwanda’s Genocide (London: Zed Books, 2000), p. 25.

P. Uvin, ‘Ethnicity and Power in Burundi and Rwanda: Different Paths to Mass Violence’, Comparative Politics , 31, 3 (1999), 253–71.

G. Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995).

There exists a thorough book on the multi-party process in French: J. Bertrand, Rwanda, le piège de l’histoire (Paris: Karthala, 2001). See also Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis , pp. 121–6.

The Rwandan media have received considerable attention. In English, see, in particular, the ‘media trial’ in which three Rwandan journalists were found guilty of genocide: International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, ‘The Prosecutor v. Ferdinand Nahimana, Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza, and Hassan Ngeze’, ICTR Case No. 99-52-T, Judgement and Decision, December 3, 2003, available at http://www.ictr.org . See also Article 19, Broadcasting Genocide: Censorship, Propaganda & State-Sponsored Violence in Rwanda 1990–1994 (London: Article 19, 1996); F. Chalk, ‘Hate Radio in Rwanda’, The Path of a Genocide: The Rwanda Crisis from Uganda to Zaire , eds, H. Adelman and A. Suhrke (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1999), pp. 93–107.

D. Li, ‘Echoes of Violence: Considerations on Radio and Genocide in Rwanda’, Journal of Genocide Research , 6, 1 (2004), 9–27.

For an extensive treatment in French, see J.-P. Chrétien et al., Rwanda: les médias du génocide (Paris: Karthala, 1995).

An excellent analysis of the Arusha negotiations is B. Jones, Peacekeeping in Rwanda: The Dynamics of Failure (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2001).

In addition to those works cited in the paragraph itself, this basic version of the historiography can be found in the background sections of the various judgments that have come from the ICTR; A. Destexhe, Rwanda and Genocide in the Twentieth Century , trans. A. Marschner (New York: New York University Press, 1995);

J. Hatzfeld, Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak , trans. L. Coverdale (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2005);

H. Hintjens, ‘Explaining the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda’, The Journal of Modern African Studies , 37, 2 (1999), 241–86;

Jones, Peacemaking in Rwanda ; R. Melson, ‘Modern Genocide in Rwanda: Ideology, Revolution, War, and Mass Murder in an African State’, The Specter of Genocide: Mass Murder in Historical Perspective , eds, R. Gellately and B. Kiernan (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 325–38;

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C. Scherrer, Genocide and Crisis in Central Africa: Conflict Roots, Mass Violence, and Regional War (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002);

A. Twagilimana, The Debris of Ham: Ethnicity, Regionalism, and the 1994 Rwandan Genocide (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2003);

P. Uvin, Aiding Violence: The Development Enterprise in Rwanda (West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press, 1998).

R. Dallaire with B. Beardsley, Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda (Toronto: Random House Canada, 2003).

République Rwandaise, ‘Dénombrement des victimes du génocide: Analyse des resultats, draft’ (Kigali: Ministère de l’administration locale et des affaires sociales, 2001), p. 7.

On this calculation as well as references to the other estimates cited here, see S. Straus, ‘How Many Perpetrators Were There in the Rwandan Genocide? An Estimate’, Journal of Genocide Research , 6, 1 (2004), 85–98.

Hatzfeld, Machete Season ; and J. Hatzfeld, Into the Quick of Life: The Rwandan Genocide. The Survivors Speak , trans. G. Feehily (London: Serpent’s Tail, 2005).

P. Rusesabagina with T. Zoellner, An Ordinary Man: An Autobiography (New York: Viking, 2006);

L. Mushikiwabo and J. Kramer, Rwanda Means the Universe: A Native’s Memoir of Blood and Bloodlines (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2006).

For a memoir primarily about Hutu refugees in Zaire after the genocide, but one that also deals with the period during and before the 1994 violence, see B. Umutesi, Surviving the Slaughter: The Ordeal of a Rwandan Refugee in Zaire , trans. J. Emerson (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004).

For a religiously oriented book emphasizing forgiveness, see I. Ilibagiza with S. Erwin, Left to Tell: Discovering God amidst the Rwandan Holocaust (Carlsbad, CA: Hay House, 2006).

R. Lyons and S. Straus, Intimate Enemy: Images and Voices of the Rwandan Genocide (New York: Zone Books, 2006).

T. Longman, ‘Genocide and Socio-Political Change: Massacres in Two Rwandan Villages’, Issue: A Journal of Opinion , 23, 2 (1995), 18–21.

M. Wagner, ‘All the Burgomaster’s Men: Making Sense of the Rwandan Genocide’, Africa Today , 45, 1 (1998), 25–36.

L. A. Fujii, Killing Neighbors: Social Dimensions of Genocide in Rwanda (PhD dissertation, George Washington University, 2006);

On structural violence, see Uvin, Aiding Violence ; on population growth and environmental stress, see J. Gasana, ‘Remember Rwanda?’, World Watch , 15, 5 (2002), 26–35;

C. André and J.-P. Platteau, ‘Land Relations under Unbearable Stress: Rwanda Caught in a Malthusian Trap’, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization , 34 (1998), 1–47;

S. Khan, The Shallow Graves of Rwanda (London: I.B. Tauris, 2000), p. 66;

J. Waller, Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killing (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 69; on a ‘culture of obedience’, see Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis , pp. 57, 245;

R. de Figueiredo and B. Weingast, ‘The Rationality of Fear: Political Opportunism and Ethnic Conflict’, Civil Wars, Insecurity, and Intervention , eds, B. Walter and J. Snyder (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), pp. 261–301;

On security fears or more specifically a ‘security dilemma’ see R. Lemarchand, ‘Disconnecting the Threads: Rwanda and the Holocaust Reconsidered’, Idea: Journal of Genocide Research , 4, 4(2002), pp. 499–518; online at http://www.ideajournal.com /articles.php?sup=11. and on ethnic antipathy and belief in anti-Tutsi ideology, see Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis , pp. 40, 246, 248; Destexhe, Rwanda and Genocide , p. 28; Gourevitch, We Wish To Inform You , p. 94; Khan, The Shallow Graves of Rwanda , p. 66; Mamdani, When Victims Become Killers , p. 14; Scherrer, Genocide and Crisis , pp. 119–22.

M. Mann, The Dark Side of Democracy: Explaining Ethnic Cleansing (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

M. Midlarsky, The Killing Trap: Genocide in the Twentieth Century (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

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B. Valentino, Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the Twentieth Century (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004).

E. Neuffer, The Key to My Neighbor’s House: Seeking Justice in Bosnia and Rwanda (New York: Picador, 2001), p. 276.

Human Rights Watch, ‘Shattered Lives: Sexual Violence During the Rwandan Genocide and Its Aftermath’, New York, September, 1996.

An analysis of gender and sexual violence during and before the genocide can be found in C. C. Taylor, Sacrifice as Terror: The Rwandan Genocide of 1994 (Oxford: Berg Books, 1999), Ch. 4.

See, in particular, the testimony of former RPF officer: A. Ruzibiza, Rwanda: L’histoire secrète (Paris: Éditions du Panama, 2005).

The investigation was led by Jean-Louis Bruguière; for a discussion of the report’s conclusions, see S. Smith, ‘L’enquête sur l’attentat qui fit basculer le Rwanda dans le génocide’, Le Monde (9 March 2004).

L. Marchal, ‘Il est grand temps de faire la clarté sur la tragédie rwandaise’, Le Soir (25 October 2005), p. 15.

Alan Kuperman, for example, claims that the RPF ‘provoked a retaliatory genocide’: A. Kuperman, ‘Provoking Genocide: A Revised History of the Rwandan Patriotic Front’, Journal of Genocide Research , 6, 1 (2004), 61–84.

International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, ‘The Prosecutor Versus Clément Kayishema and Obed Ruzindana’, Case No. ICTR-95-I-T, paragraph 275, available at http://www.ictr.org . On a pre-assassination plan for genocide, see also Jones, Peacemaking in Rwanda , pp. 35, 119 and J. Pottier, Re-Imagining Rwanda: Conflict, Survival, and Disinformation in the Late Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 31.

Existing treatments include P. Verwimp, ‘Testing the Double-Genocide Thesis for Central and Southern Rwanda’, Journal of Conflict Resolution , 47, 4 (2003), 423–42; Des Forges, Leave None , pp. 724–31; and Ruzibiza, Rwanda .

S. Feil, Preventing Genocide: How the Early Use of Force Might Have Succeeded in Rwanda , Carnegie Commission On Preventing Deadly Conflict, New York, April 1998.

A. Kuperman, The Limits of Humanitarian Intervention: Genocide in Rwanda (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2001).

See, for examples, A. Des Forges, ‘Shame: Rationalizing Western Apathy on Rwanda’, Foreign Affairs , 79, 3 (2000), 141–3.

S. Power, ‘Bystanders to Genocide: Why the United States Let the Rwandan Tragedy Happen’, The Atlantic Monthly , 288 (September 2001), 84–109

M. Barnett, Eyewitness to a Genocide: The United Nations and Rwanda (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002).

For an excellent review of the literature on the international decision to withdraw troops, see B. Valentino, ‘Still Standing By: Why America and the International Community Fail to Prevent Genocide and Mass Killing’, Perspectives on Politics , 1, 3 (2003), 565–76.

On this issue, see S. Straus, ‘Darfur and the Genocide Debate’, Foreign Affairs , 84, 1 (2005), 123–33.

For good overviews, see in International Crisis Group, ‘International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda: Justice Delayed’, Africa Report No. 30 (7 June 2001);

A. Des Forges and T. Longman, ‘Legal Responses to Genocide in Rwanda’, My Neighbor, My Enemy: Justice and Community in the Aftermath of Mass Atrocity , eds, E. Stover and H. Weinstein (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 51–7.

One of the keenest observers of the tribunal is: T. Cruvellier, Le Tribunal des vaincus: Un Nuremburg pour le Rwanda? (Paris: Calman-Lévy, 2006).

Victor Peskin, International Justice in Rwanda and the Balkans: Virtual Trials and the Struggle for State Cooperation (New York: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2008).

K. Moghalu, Rwanda’s Genocide: The Politics of Global Justice (New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2005).

P. Uvin and C. Mironko, ‘Western and Local Approaches to Justice in Rwanda’, Global Governance , 9 (2003), 223.

On this latter point and for a good overview, see Des Forges and Longman, ‘Legal Responses’, pp. 58–62; for a more positive account than Des Forges and Longman, see W. Schabas, ‘Genocide Trials and Gacaca Courts’, Journal of International Criminal Justice , 3 (2005), 879–895.

For an outstanding overview, see L. Waldorf, ‘Mass Justice for Mass Crimes’, Temple Law Review , 79, 1 (2006), 1–87.

For shorter accounts, see Uvin and Mironko, ‘Western and Local Approaches’, and Schabas, ‘Genocide Trials’; and, for a more thorough and historical account, A. Molenaar, ‘Gacaca: Grassroots Justice after Genocide. The Key to Reconciliation in Rwanda?’, Leiden African Studies Research Centre Research Report , 77 (2005).

On these points, see F. Reyntjens, ‘Rwanda, Ten Years On: From Genocide to Dictatorship’, African Affairs , 103 (2004), 177–210;

Front Line, ‘Disappearances, Arrests, Threats, Intimidation and Co-option of Human Rights Defenders 2001–2004’ (Dublin: Front Line, 2005);

Human Rights Watch, ‘Preparing for Elections: Tightening Control in the Name of Unity’, New York, 8 May 2003;

International Crisis Group, ‘Rwanda at the End of the Transition: A Necessary Political Liberalisation’, ICG Africa Report No. 53 (13 November 2002).

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Straus, S. (2008). The Historiography of the Rwandan Genocide. In: Stone, D. (eds) The Historiography of Genocide. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230297784_21

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Expert Commentary

Propaganda, media effects and conflict: Evidence from the Rwandan genocide

A 2014 paper from the Harvard Kennedy School on the impact of Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines, a key media outlet for the Tutsi-led government, on violence and killings of the Tutsi minority.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License .

by Martin Maximino, The Journalist's Resource December 3, 2014

This <a target="_blank" href="https://journalistsresource.org/politics-and-government/propaganda-conflict-evidence-rwandan-genocide/">article</a> first appeared on <a target="_blank" href="https://journalistsresource.org">The Journalist's Resource</a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.<img src="https://journalistsresource.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/cropped-jr-favicon-150x150.png" style="width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;">

The 1994 Rwandan genocide represents one of the most tragic episodes of political violence in recent history. Estimates suggest that in just 100 days, conflict between the Hutu majority and Tutsi minority resulted in the killing of between 500,000 and 1 million citizens. In response to the genocide, the United Nations created a criminal tribunal for Rwanda , and 77,000 people have been prosecuted for being members or accomplices of armed militias that carried out attacks and 433,000 for engaging in localized violence.

The role of the media during the genocide received considerable attention from scholars and human-rights activists: Some Rwandan media organizations urged individuals to take part in the killings and increased levels of violence, while international media organizations often gave scant coverage of the events. Addressing the Symposium on the Media and the Rwanda Genocide in 2004, former Secretary General of the United Nations Kofi Annan said: “Western news media for the most part turned away, then muddled the story when they did pay attention. And hate media organs in Rwanda — through their journalists, broadcasters and media executives — played an instrumental role in laying the groundwork for genocide, then actively participated in the extermination campaign.”

A 2014 paper published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, “Propaganda and Conflict: Evidence from the Rwandan Genocide,” looks at the impact of Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM), a key media outlet for the Hutu-led government, on violence and killings of the Tutsi minority. The study, by David Yanagizawa-Drott from the Harvard Kennedy School, analyzes how exposure to propaganda and inflammatory messages calling for the extermination of the Tutsis fueled violence by the Hutu population.

Using a village-level dataset, the author tests two hypotheses: The first examines the direct effect of exposure to RTLM broadcasts on violence levels in those villages, mainly through persuasion. The second analyzes the social interactions and spillover effects from RTLM listeners to non-listeners in nearby villages, through social interactions. Both militia-led violence and localized, individual violence were analyzed.

The paper represents a departure from previous qualitative studies, as it uses geographical tools (ArcGIS) to establish the difference in the levels of violence between a group of individuals that was within the reach of RTLM broadcasts and a control group that, because of the geographical features of Rwanda, was outside the station’s transmission area.

The study’s main findings are:

• Approximately 51,000 perpetrators (10% of overall participation in the Rwandan genocide) can be attributed to the station’s broadcasts, and almost one-third of the violence by militias and other armed groups.

• Full exposure to RTLM broadcasts increased the number of persons prosecuted for any type of violence (militia violence or individual violence) up to 69%. On average, a one standard deviation increase in radio coverage increased total violence participation as much as 13%. The estimated effects of RTLM reception were statistically significant at the 5% level.
• For low-level increases in radio coverage, there seems to have been no rise in the population’s participation in violence. However, when a critical threshold of coverage is reached, there is a significant rise in violence.
• Education levels and the relative proportions of the majority and minority populations played significant roles in the impact of RTLM broadcasts: “Propaganda encouraging violence against an ethnic minority appears to be more capable of inducing participation when the minority is relatively small and defenseless, and when the targeted audience lacks basic education.”
• Broadcasts effectively mixed exhortations to violence, threats and promises; and because they were endorsed by the government and armed forces, they had the weight of signaling official policy: “Taken together, these factors make it abundantly clear that Hutus listening to RTLM broadcasts had good reason to fundamentally revise their beliefs about the cost-benefit tradeoff of participation and non-participation.”
• For militia violence, spillover effects within 10 kilometers are statistically significant and substantially important: “A one standard deviation increase in the share of the population in nearby villages with radio reception increases participation in militia violence by 47.6%.”
• Direct effects and spillover effects may interact: “RTLM persuaded some militia members who listened to the radio to join the genocide [direct effect], and a consequence this led to higher mobilization among militia members in neighboring villages via peer influences [spillover effect].”

In conclusion, the author writes: “Allowing the station to broadcast had substantial human costs, with consequences detrimental for the targeted population. In addition, the violence may have had long-term impact on human capital formation, social capital, and political stability.”

Further readings : See more comments from Yanagizawa-Drott on his study and its implications for how we think about media and political violence:

A list of transcripts from all broadcasts by RTLM between July 1993 and July 1994 are available on the Rwanda File website . A 2013 paper published in the Annual Review of Law and Social Science , “The Justice Cascade: The Origins and Effectiveness of Prosecutions of Human Rights Violations,” present a cross-national view of trends in human rights prosecutions. The authors trace the origins of individual criminal accountability, the process by which this new norm has spread globally, and its impact on repression levels in those countries and regions where prosecutions have taken place.

Keywords: conflict, genocide, mass media, social interactions, propaganda, violence

About The Author

Martin Maximino

Rwanda’s genocide could have been prevented: 3 things the international community should have done – expert

Professor of Defence Studies, Royal Military College of Canada

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Walter Dorn receives a salary and funding from the Department of National Defence.

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As the world marks the 30th anniversary of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi ethnic group in Rwanda, it is important to understand what the international community could have done to prevent it.

In one hundred days an estimated 600,000 to 800,000 Rwandans were killed. The Tutsi were targeted primarily due to long-standing ethnic tensions between the Tutsi minority and the majority Hutu population. Tutsi sympathisers and moderate Hutus were also targeted.

As the mass killings were happening, the international community stood by in a stupor, even though the nations of the world had a legal and moral obligation to intervene in cases of genocide. The United Nations also had a responsibility to maintain international peace and security.

To its credit, the United Nations had already put in place a peacekeeping mission, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (Unamir). It was established in 1993 to support the Arusha accords , which aimed at ending the civil war in Rwanda.

Could Unamir have prevented the genocide? Being a student of peacekeeping history, I sought to learn from the UN experience. I wrote a detailed paper on whether the genocide could have been predicted and prevented. In my view this was possible but would have required three main things: detailed intelligence, preventive measures and political will.

These components can still be applied to genocide prediction and prevention, and to protection of civilians, in other war-torn countries – whether it be Gaza, Haiti, Sudan, Yemen, or Ukraine – though the methods to achieve these three components will be different in each case.

Detailed intelligence

In Rwanda, intelligence-gathering could have provided clear and sufficient clues about the genocide months in advance.

Information from many sources, including informants, journalists and human rights investigators, showed illicit arms flows , training and preparations by the Interahamwe (a Hutu extremist militia group), insider plotting for “the apocalypse”, the names and reputations of the plotters , and a long-standing pattern of ethnically based human rights violations.

Unfortunately, the UN mission felt deaf and blind in the field as it did not have the analytical capacity to synthesise these important pieces of evidence. It was also prevented by UN headquarters from taking measures to secure more information and taking steps for prevention.

Preventive action

Since early warning of the Rwandan genocide was clearly possible for the UN, could it have actually prevented the genocide?

Had the UN taken deterrent actions early on, it might have been able to stop the genocide at the outset. Later, a large deployment of troops would have been needed to bring a halt to the many senseless killings.

UN preventive actions should have dealt with people (both plotters and resisters), the genocide structures (networks) and the tools (weapons) of the genocide.

In response to illicit weapons flowing into Kigali, the peacekeeping force should have firmly applied the embargo.

Since a network of Rwandan officials was being trained to carry out genocide, a few selected individuals in the chain of command should have been influenced, isolated and turned by their foreign trainers and UN contacts.

International officials should have exposed the international aid diversion, which was suspected in Interahamwe training.

Additional pressure could have been applied to reduce the level of threatening propaganda and to shut down extremist radio stations.

After the start of the genocide on 6 April, the UN should have taken these steps. But high-ranking officials of both the UN and its member states, particularly the United States, failed even to recognise and publicly declare the genocide, even as tens of thousands were being slaughtered.

Early recognition of the unfolding genocide would have focused more international attention, increasing pressure by NGOs and an outraged public to stop the killings immediately, and caused the Security Council to strengthen Unamir at an early stage. Instead, the systematic killing of Tutsis was inaccurately portrayed as another example of “ethnic violence”.

Unamir commander Roméo Dallaire, myself and others have argued that a small, intervening force with a robust mandate could have intervened to prevent genocide, particularly in the early days. The UN secretary-general at the time, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, affirmed his belief in November 1994 that as few as 400 troops could have “saved the situation” . These remarks suggest that the killers were so lightly armed and poorly trained that even the most skeletal of intervening forces could have overwhelmed them.

Quick, decisive action by the UN might have isolated the genocide to the Kigali sector before it spread into the countryside. What was provided much later was a unilateral French force, under Operation Turquoise. Turquoise was not the right kind of intervening force – it didn’t have the mandate to actively stop the genocide. And it deployed too late.

Finally, the Security Council could have authorised a strong UN mission to establish safe havens in strategic locations in Kigali and the Rwandan countryside. In fact, the UN did protect some locations in Kigali – at the Milles Collines Hotel, the King Faisal Hospital, and the city’s main stadium. Some 15,000 refugees (mostly Tutsis) were saved at the hospital, thanks to the efforts of the Bangladeshi and later Ghanaian soldiers who guarded it.

Political will

So, the UN should have developed a better information system and taken preventive measures. What prevented it from doing so? The simple answer is a lack of political will.

The main reason for this broad lack of resolve was that the dominant member of the UN – the United States – was viewing UN peacekeeping cautiously and with fear of over-involvement.

The lack of US commitment was largely the result of a disastrous mission in Somalia the previous year.

Without US leadership and support, other states were hesitant to commit themselves politically or militarily. Instead Unamir was cut to just 10% of its personnel. Still, these peacekeepers managed to save 20,000 to 30,000 lives, showing what dedicated action from a small force can achieve.

Moving forward

What, then, is necessary for political will to be developed to prevent future atrocities like Rwanda?

Primarily it is a matter of fostering a sense of enlightened self-interest among all nations, linking human welfare around the globe with one’s own. It means recognising that when crimes against one section of humanity are committed, no matter where, it is a crime against all of humanity.

If this isn’t enough, then the fear of inaction should also be a motivating force.

Another motivating force can be international law. Under the Genocide Convention, nations are obliged to prevent this horrendous crime against humanity.

The lesson of Rwanda is clear: we must build international political will, as well as an enhanced UN capability, for prevention.

Traditionally UN peacekeeping missions were primarily mandated to monitor ceasefires and separate conflicting parties, but since 1999 they’ve been tasked with protection of civilians caught in conflict zones. But the means to achieve that goal are still lacking.

The UN has greatly developed its ability for gathering and analysing information in its peacekeeping missions, but it still needs rapid reaction forces.

The world community owes it to the hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings who were slaughtered during the Rwandan genocide to try to predict and prevent future genocides and mass atrocities.

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The Rwandan Genocide: A case of Ethnic Conflict?

The purpose of this paper is to identify the historic and political causes for the Rwandan Genocide through an “ethnic lens” in order to determine whether “ethnic division” was really the cause for the atrocities or was rather just a dimension of the conflict. In the first part the concepts of ethnic groups and ethnic conflict are discussed; the second part looks at the history of Rwanda in three sections: Pre-colonial, colonial, post-colonial; the third part describes the genocide and its actors and goes on to analyze the elements of “ethnic mobilization for political control, discussing the concepts “ancient hatred”, “structural disadvantages”, “victimization”, and “ethnic norms”.

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The 1994 Rwandan genocide was a very gruesome event that could have been avoided through many interventions as well as prevention measures. International law enforced by regional and international bodies could have played a crucial role in preventing the bloodbath. Media could have been used as a prevention mechanism, rather it was used as a way to promote the genocide by the Hutu extremists in the smoke screen of freedom of speech. The purpose of this research is to assess the preventive measures and interventions that could have been to avoid the genocide yet ignored. There will be an assessment of the situation in Rwanda and the ignored early warning messages that could be used for the study of modern genocide and its evolution giving better understanding of confronting conflict before it erupts in a disgruntled mutli-tribe or multi-ethnic society.

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Reflecting on the genocide in Rwanda 30 years later

Ohio state sociologist studies survivors, perpetrators of violence.

In her years of studying the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and its aftermath, Hollie Nyseth Nzitatira has helped increase our understanding of how ordinary people can be coaxed into committing atrocities and how human resilience after genocide helps shape a nation’s future. 

The genocide began on April 7, 1994, the day after the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi were killed when their plane was shot down over Kigali, Rwanda’s capital. Most of the victims were Tutsi, killed by the majority Hutus.  An estimated 1 million people were killed over several months in the genocide and the civil war that coincided with it.

Nyseth Nzitatira, associate professor of sociology at The Ohio State University , has led a team of researchers in examining thousands of pages of court testimony and documents and interviewing hundreds of perpetrators and survivors of the violence to shed light on the tragedy – one of 40 genocides that have occurred worldwide since the Holocaust. 

She sat down with Ohio State News recently to reflect on the work (see video). 

She said there are three characteristics of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda that combined to create a rare opportunity to learn from the people involved how the tragedy unfolded: It was only 30 years ago, meaning most people who committed violence are still alive, and the scale of participation – about 240,000 civilians joined killing groups – simply increases the odds that some are willing to talk about it. 

Further, a government court system held trials in every community between 2002 and up to 2012 to hold people accountable – meaning researchers knew where to find individuals who had been incarcerated for their crimes. 

“The people who planned the genocide actually encouraged civilian participation. They used propaganda, they used local leaders, they used peer pressure, and they encouraged ordinary civilians, most of whom had never committed violence, to go out and essentially join killing groups, join mobs and hunt their neighbors,” Nyseth Nzitatira said. 

Since 1994, the new government has focused on coming to terms with the country’s violent past. 

“Rwanda has been very purposeful in addressing that violence,” she said. “The government has said, we are going to talk about this. We’re going to have court trials about what happened. We’re going to have museums about what happened. We’re going to teach students about what happened. We’re going to have commemoration periods. We’re going to talk about what happened in many places in the world.” 

Though it can be troubling to learn that ordinary people were able to commit this most evil of crimes, she said it’s not an uncommon phenomenon. 

“This is a finding throughout genocide studies,” she said. “This does not mean that genocide itself isn’t evil. It’s more just that these individuals are actually quite ordinary. And this is in some ways good news because it means that there’s not something deeply psychologically wrong with individuals, which would be very hard to change.” 

Nyseth Nzitatira and colleagues have published papers based on interviews, testimony and analysis of extensive court records, finding that men who were tried for their role in the genocide believed that they were good people ; that middle-aged men led the violence ; and, most recently, that Rwandans released from prison articulated a “narrative of redemption” and were greeted with “gestures of openness” upon return to their communities . That outcome mostly applied to men, however. W omen were much less likely than men to be incarcerated for genocide, and the women who were imprisoned found the scale of their welcome home was much smaller than that of men.  

The genocide left the entire country affected by the killings, as well as sexual and property violence and displacement, and all of its institutions crumbled – meaning that in some ways, Rwanda as a country is only 30 years old, Nyseth Nzitatira said. The same people responsible for rebuilding every facet of society are those who experienced a very intimate genocide – one that was largely committed by neighbors who used machetes and clubs to target Tutsi.  

“It’s almost hard to fathom that as a country, that people can coexist in the same space. But when you arrive there, you see a thriving society,” she said. 

Nyseth Nzitatira cautioned, however, that reconciliation takes time, and that Rwandans are still healing from the wounds inflicted 30 years ago. And yet, they are committed to continually facing the past. 

“I think there are many settings in which violence occurs and people move on quickly. They don’t face the past or the injustices that happened,” she said. “And I think Rwanda teaches us that to move forward, you have to face the past. I think every person in every country can learn from Rwanda in that sense.”

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Remembering the Rwandan genocide 30 years on – how did it happen?

Local media, in particular, were crucial in aiding the mass killings while world media either ignored or underplayed them.

It has been three decades since the April 1994 Rwandan genocide when members of the majority Hutu ethnic group killed an estimated 800,000 minority Tutsis, moderate Hutus and members of a third ethnic group, the Twa, in one of the darkest episodes in world history.

A combination of colonial-era favouritism towards the Tutsis that angered other groups, a media landscape that was ripe for spreading hate and the slowness of the international community to respond to the crisis all combined to fuel the genocide.

Keep reading

A guide to the decades-long conflict in dr congo, rwanda’s kagame fires slew of military officials in big shake-up, paul kagame: africans can’t permanently stay in a ‘victim’ position, rwanda genocide survivors criticise un court’s call to halt suspect’s trial.

The killings have continued to reverberate in East Africa, leading to civil wars and ongoing violence in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Here is how it unfolded :

What caused the genocide?

Tensions were already brewing between Hutus and Tutsis before April 1994.

The Tutsis, who made up 8.4 percent of the population according to a 1991 census, were believed to be genealogically closer to white Europeans under now-debunked scientific theories and were favoured under Belgian colonialism.

The Hutus made up 85 percent of the population, but they could not in practice access education and economic opportunities that the ruling Tutsis could.

“What’s commonly understood from historians is that the Belgians used the Tutsis as proxies in ruling the country, and that’s why they became privileged,” said Lennart Wohlgemuth, a researcher and former professor at Sweden’s University of Gothenburg.

Being identified as Tutsi or Hutu before colonialism was “fluid” and based significantly on class with wealthy Hutus able to attain an honorary Tutsi title. “It was really based on how many cows you had, [but] the Belgians built up differences between the two and manipulated it. The Tutsis were better off already, and they, of course, used their privilege to improve their lives,” Wohlgemuth said.

In 1932, Belgian colonists further entrenched those differences when they introduced identity cards that included individuals’ ethnicity.

In 1959, as independence movements swept across Africa, the Hutus violently revolted against the Belgian colonists and the Tutsi elite. About 120,000 people, primarily Tutsis, fled the killings and attacks, taking refuge in neighbouring countries.

A Hutu government came to power after independence in 1962. The new state from the onset, however, faced threats from Tutsi refugees who had organised in exile.

One group, the Uganda-based Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), aimed to seize power and return exiled refugees by launching attacks on civilian and military targets in Rwanda. The RPF was supported by the Ugandan government of Yoweri Museveni and was led mainly by Tutsi commanders, including Rwanda’s current president, Paul Kagame.

By late 1990, a civil war had broken out between the RPF and the Rwandan government.

What was the trigger for the genocide?

The Hutu government cracked down on Tutsis during the war, claiming they were RPF accomplices. Government propaganda painted them as traitors, generating widespread anger against them.

After international intervention, however, the Rwandan president, Juvenal Habyarimana, signed the Arusha Accords in August 1993 to end the war, resulting in a pause in RPF attacks. The United Nations deployed troops to facilitate the peace process under the UN Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR).

However, some Hutus, even from within the government, seethed at the move, and some kick-started an “extermination” campaign by compiling lists of Tutsi targets.

On April 6, 1994, a plane carrying Habyarimana and Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira was shot down over Kigali. Habyarimana, Ntaryamira and many others on the plane died.

Although it has never been determined whether the RPF or Hutus shot down the aircraft, local media immediately pinned the assassinations on the rebels and told Hutus to “go to work”.

The killings began.

How did the genocide happen?

The murders were methodical. Members of government security forces assassinated Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana, a moderate Hutu, and 10 Belgian peacekeepers assigned to protect her in her home on April 7, hours after news broadcasts pinned the plane crash on the RPF.

Then, government forces, together with Hutu militia groups known as the Interahamwe, a name that means “those who attack together”, set up roadblocks and barricades in Kigali and began to attack Tutsis and moderate Hutus. The killings quickly spread to other cities.

Soldiers opened fire on crowds while men buoyed by media messages and government officials promising rewards went from house to house, using machetes and sharpened or blunt clubs to hack at those they knew to be Tutsis or any Hutus offering them refuge. They killed neighbours and family members. They raped women and looted homes. Later, victims were herded into large open areas such as stadiums or schools where they were massacred.

The killings ended 100 days later on July 4 when the RPF, which had restarted its advance, seized control of Kigali. Hutus who had taken part in the genocide as well as many Hutu civilians fearing retaliation fled the country into the DRC. Government leaders raided the state coffers and also fled as far as France.

How many people died?

It might never be known exactly how many people were killed as mass graves are still being found today. In January this year, for example, a site containing the remains of 119 people was discovered in the Huye District in southern Rwanda.

Estimates vary. The UN said 800,000 Rwandans were killed in the three-month genocide, but some said people included in that number are those who died of other causes. Other independent monitors put the number at about 500,000 people.

The size of the Tutsi population after the genocide is also unclear because many identified themselves as Hutus to avoid being killed and Rwanda has since scrapped any identification showing ethnicity in its censuses.

Before the genocide, the 1991 census pegged the Tutsi population at 657,000, or 8.4 percent, (although some allege without proof that Habyarimana’s government undercounted Tutsis to limit their access to education and other opportunities). Human Rights Watch estimated at least 500,000 Tutsis – 77 percent of their 1991 population – were killed.

An estimated 1.1 million people were killed in total, including thousands of Hutus who died at the hands of the RPF.

Kigali, Kibuye, Butare and Gitarama were some of the worst affected regions.

How did the media fuel the genocide?

Radio-Television Libres des Milles Collines (RTML) as well as state-owned Radio Rwanda were central to fuelling hatred against the Tutsis throughout the country. They both spread messages that fed on and escalated anxieties among Hutus that they might once again be ruled over should the advancing RPF succeed.

RTML attracted a young, hip demographic and was an alternative to Radio Rwanda. The station would play popular music and then, in the middle of a track, cut to presenters making demeaning statements like “those people are a dirty group”, referring to the Tutsis. The terms “cockroaches” and “snakes” were used frequently in the broadcasts.

RTML was the first to pin Habyarimana’s plane attack on the RPF. Months before the genocide, the radio station told listeners to expect a “big event”, according to media researchers who have studied its programmes.

During the genocide, attackers paraded in the streets with machetes in one hand and radio sets in the other, listening to Radio Rwanda and RTLM broadcasts that named Tutsis or their protectors and informed people where to find them.

What did the international community do?

Global leaders were aware of the genocide but didn’t intervene. For a long time, the UN avoided using the word “genocide” under pressure from the United States, which was reluctant to send in troops. Former UN chief Ban Ki-moon said on the 20th anniversary of the genocide that the organisation was still “ashamed” for its failure to prevent the genocide.

President Kagame, who headed the Tutsi rebel army that in 1994 ousted the Hutu government and ended the genocide, has since said he was so frustrated by world inaction during the genocide that he considered attacking the local UN mission and stealing its weapons to stop the mass slaughter of civilians.

Before the killings, in early 1994, the commander of UNAMIR, General Romeo Dallaire, had received intelligence about the looming killings and identified secret weapon caches stockpiled by Hutus. He sent five missives from January to March to the UN Security Council asking for the mission’s mandate to be expanded so those weapons could be seized and for troop numbers to be boosted. His warnings were ignored.

When the killings began, the UN and Belgian government withdrew UNAMIR peacekeepers. French and Belgian peacekeepers evacuated expatriates in vehicles, refusing to help Tutsis.

A small contingent who remained did protect thousands of people who hid in places like the Hotel des Mille Collines and Amahoro Stadium in Kigali. In one incident, however, soldiers guarding about 2,000 people sheltering in Kigali’s Ecole Technique Officielle (Official Technical School) left their posts and tried to evacuate expatriates. Their absence led to a massacre at the school.

France, which armed Habyarimana’s government despite having knowledge of plans to kill Tutsis, continued to ally itself with the caretaker Hutu government in the first days of the killings. At the time, France viewed the Uganda-backed RPF as a hostile “Anglophone” force that would negatively impact its “Francafrique” sphere of influence.

The UN finally passed a resolution on May 17, 1994, imposing an arms ban on Rwanda and reinforcing UNAMIR. New soldiers did not start arriving until June, however, when most of the killings had already occurred.

Western media channels have since been criticised for downplaying the murders by describing them as “civil” or “tribal” wars.

What happened afterwards?

The UN established the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in November 1994. It was based in Arusha, Tanzania, which agreed to host the tribunal because “some of those people would not be free to go to Rwanda, so it was the only possible way [for the UN] to create an independent justice system,” according to Wohlgemuth.

The court tried several high-profile leaders of the genocide, including caretaker Prime Minister Jean Kambanda, who was handed a life sentence for inciting, aiding, abetting and failing to prevent genocide. He was also sentenced on two counts of crimes against humanity. The tribunal convicted 61 people in total.

Trials in Rwanda itself began in 1996, focusing in particular on those who planned, instigated, supervised or led the killings. They also prosecuted rape. Twenty-two of the defendants found guilty of the worst crimes were sentenced to death by firing squad.

Most cases were tried in informal community courts because the judicial infrastructure was destroyed during the genocide and many legal staff had fled, been killed or imprisoned.

To address an enormous backlog of cases – about 150,000 people were imprisoned in the aftermath of the genocide – the government in 2001 launched the Gacaca system. The traditional mechanism, previously used to resolve community conflicts, was used to try defendants who were not government officials or top-level planners. The charges were filed in categories: planning or inciting genocide including sexual violence, causing grievous bodily harm, and looting or other property offences. Community members elected judges for more than 12,000 courts, who then tried the accused.

From 800,000 to a million people stood trial in the courts. Sentences ranged from prison terms for serious crimes like planning genocide and rape to community service for lesser offences.

The courts were criticised for exposing survivors as they gave evidence. They often faced threats and intimidation from people accused of crimes, and judges in some cases were revealed to have participated in the genocide themselves. Some also accused the system of failing to try cases of RPF attacks. However, others said it helped reconcile communities. The courts officially closed in 2012.

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Research Paper On Rwandan Genocide

Type of paper: Research Paper

Topic: Sociology , Politics , Economics , Community , Population , Turkey , Holocaust , Racism

Words: 3000

Published: 11/13/2019

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Introduction

The Rwandan Genocide of 1994 was one of the massacres that country witnessed in the course of its history. The genocide was responsible for the death of approximately 800000 Rwandans in a span of only three months. This death toll translated to about three quarters of the Tutsi community, which was a minority ethnic community in Rwanda. Ever since Rwandan’s colonization, ethnic composition played a significant role in shaping the political structure of the country. This implied that Belgium colonizers had a great impact on influencing the genocide that took place during 1994. With this regard, the principle cause of the genocide can be said to be a separation of the ruling class that mainly consisted of the Tutsi and the Hutus. During the onset of the colonization by the Belgians, they initially favored the Tutsi’s, who during the 1950s decided to claim an independent Rwanda. The Belgian colonizers did not find this welcoming and decided to provide military aid to the Hutus, resulting to their political mileage and increased military power due to the aid from supplies and aid from the colonizers. This rivalry between the Hutus and Tutsis is one of the key causation factors for the 1994 genocide. This research paper attempts to outline the various factors that could have caused the Rwandan Genocide of 1994.

Research aims

The research paper attempts to investigate the roles that Belgians colonizers played in separating the Hutus and Tutsis. The paper also provides an insight into the political faction that was in power during the onset if the genocide and the final event that triggered the onset of the massacre. With this regard, the paper reports about the people who were responsible for training the militia, established the RTLM and distributed the extermination list. In addition, the research aims at providing an overview of the genocide and the aftermath of the genocide.

Research question

The Rwandan Genocide took place in rather recent times with rather barbaric means. What social, political, or economic factors lead to this event? In addition, who armed the perpetrators of the genocide, and handed out the "extermination list"? Finally, what changes if any did this event foster.

Causation factors for the Rwandan Genocide

The causation factors for the genocide cannot be complete without a critical analysis of the external forces that played a significant role in influencing the onset of the massacre. In addition, internal pressures and other psychological factors came to play causing the genocide. The political state of Rwanda during the time was a central causation factor that accelerated the onset of the genocide. The key players involved during the actual genocide were the Rwandans themselves, with a few political actors. Arguing from the fact that Rwanda as a state influenced the onset of the genocide, it is important to analyze the pre-colonial tribal legacies and the colonial strategies that determined the establishment and the political structure of the country up to the times of the genocide.

Roles that the Belgians played in separating the Tutsis and Hutus

One of the possible causation factors of the genocide can be deduced by analyzing the roles that Belgian colonizers played in separating the Hutus and Tutsis. These historical pre-colonial legacies played an imperative role in fuelling the genocide that occurred later in the history of Rwanda. During the colonization era, the Tutsis, who were the ruling class, got an initial favor from the Belgians. The Belgians seemed to favor the Tutsi, even though they constituted a small percentage of Rwanda’s population compared to the Hutus, who comprised of about 85 per cent of the population. Such privileges awarded to the Tutsis only served to fuel the separating between the Tutsis and the Hutus, with the Tutsis being portrayed as superior to the Hutus, as a result, they formed most of the elite ruling class and received western treatment compared to their Hutu counterparts. Initially, the Belgians manipulated the Tutsis in order to rule Rwanda. The Belgians further accelerated the separation of the Tutsis and Hutus by focusing on race, they carried studies that were proved and claimed that Tutsis were superior to the Hutus. For instance, the studies conducted by the Belgians reported that Tutsis had larger brains than Hutus. In addition, the Tutsis were taller and more light skinned compared to their Hutu counterparts, because of this, the Belgians claimed that they had a Caucasian origin. This resulted to the issuance of racial Identity cards. This differences portrayed by the Belgians played a significant role in facilitating the separation between the Tutsis and the Hutus. The onset of the 1950s saw the Tutsis claim their bid to make Rwanda independent. Because of this, the Belgian colonizers began to provide military supplies and facilitated political aid to the Hutus. This led to the rise of new ruling elite that mainly consisted of the Hutus. In this privileged position, the Hutus had a better chance of overpowering their rivals, the Tutsis. The new leadership at the national level was under the leadership of the permahutu, whose main composition comprised of the Hutus and their main objective was to remove all the Tutsis who were holding positions of power, both at the national and local level. It can be argued that Rwanda was vulnerable to manipulation by the Belgian colonizers that resulted to political rivalry between the two ethnic communities. This ultimately resulted to the principle cause of the genocide, since the one of the driving factors for the genocide can be perceived as an ethnic cleansing strategy directed towards the Tutsis by the Hutus.

Social, political and economic factors that caused the genocide

Apart from historical accounts, there are social, political and economic accounts have been suggested as possible explanation for the 1994 genocide that rocked Rwanda. The three significant explanations for the genocide include the external influences, which are both colonial and postcolonial; domestic issues, which mainly constituted of ethnic factors and demographic issues; and psychological issues influenced by social conformism associated with Rwanda. An overview of the above accounts reveal that Rwanda’s fragile democracy was vulnerable to colonial manipulation that resulted to social and ethnic differences. In addition, overpopulation and its related social problems can also be a possible explanation for the cause of the genocide. All the above explanations have some factual basis with regard to explaining the principle cause of the 1994 genocide. With respect to external factors, it is believed that the genocide in Rwanda was a response to imperialist interventions that played a prime role in fostering social differences among the Rwandans. In addition, the genocide also served as a response to the social pressures associated with overpopulation and ethnic loyalties (Hintjens 252). One of the most evident social factors that caused the genocide was ethnic divisions in Rwanda, with the genocide aiming at inflicting mass killings towards the Tutsis. Such differences were evident after colonialism, with the Tutsis being subjected to more high profile lifestyle compared to the majority community, the Hutus. The Hutus felt disadvantaged due to historical aristocracies. Perhaps the only way to respond to such ethnical tensions was to organize mass murders that would eventually result to genocide. The political class of Rwanda was among the key players in facilitating hatred among the Tutsi community. In fact, the political affiliations in Rwanda were primarily based on ethnical orientations. As a result, the ethnic tensions were engineered in order to stimulate hatred directed towards the Tutsi community; this could later develop to genocide that resulted to mass killings of the Tutsi communities. Another element of ethnicity that steered the genocide was the need by the Hutus to eliminate their racial enemy, which in this case was the Tutsi community. The Tutsis had been branded as racial enemies because of the historical aristocracies and perceived superiorities over the Hutus. As a means of social response to such social differences, the Hutus organized a mass killing with the aid of their political elite. Reports indicate the main organizers of the 1994 genocide were the political class of the Hutu community under the Rwandan Patriotic Front (Hintjens 250). A number of political factors also came to play in influencing the onset of the 1994 genocide. The differences in the political factions of Rwanda also played a significant role in accelerating the genocide. During 1990, the RPF, which a political group comprising Tutsi refugees and later turned into a rebel group conducted an invasion on the northern part of Rwanda in order to overthrow the government led by the Hutu community. This saw the onset of the Rwandan Civil war during 1990 that was between the Hutu Regime and the Tutsi’s RPF, who had support from Uganda. This civil war resulted to ethnic tensions that later aggravated to the 1994 genocide. The Hutu Power ideology meant that the Hutus were to exercise control over Rwandans resources including the media. This ideology suggested that the Tutsis had the objective of enslaving the Hutus; as a result, the advance of the Tutsis towards power was to be opposed with every possible means. This resulted to ethnic rebels that resulted to an ethnic strife that saw killings of the Tutsis and Hutus any time they made contact. The peak of the ethnic and political differences was when the president of the government led by the Hutus was assassinated. This resulted into the Hutus embarking on a mass murder mission to eliminate the Tutsis and those Hutus who were promoting peace, usually being branded as traitors or cooperating with the Tutsi in their quest to defeat the then Hutu-led government (Hintjens 250). Reports suggests that the organizers of the genocide comprised of the Hutu political faction, referred to as the Akazu, and consisted of mainly top government officials, who played a significant role in issuing directives to the militia and civil officials in lower level government offices. It can be seen that the differences in the political factions played a significant role in influencing the onset of the genocide. In addition, the Hutus political party, the Coalition for the Defense of the Republic (CDR) was strongly opposed to the concept of power sharing with the Tutsi political faction RPF (Destexhe 23). Various economic factors also influenced the onset of the 1994 genocide. With the coffee prices falling significantly during 1987, the economic situation of Rwanda deteriorated significantly resulting to increased external debts because of foreign conditions. Initially, Rwanda had no internal management problems. Because of this, the trade deficit increased and the welfare policies resulted to increasing pressures. The only viable solution to this problem was to foster Hutu cohesion, with the intention of ensuring that the Hutus had absolute control of the prices and that economic enterprises were to be under Hutu control. The Tutsis on the other hand exhibited economic success and professional careers, which did not go well with the elites from the Hutu community. The 1990 saw the state limiting the economic operations of the Tutsis and the levels through which they supposed to seek employment in the sense that they had limited access to public offices. This resulted to a coexistence characterized by tension between the political and elite class from the Tutsi and Hutu communities. In addition, the RPF invasion of the 1990 worsened the economy of Rwanda (Dallaire and Brent 30). For instance, the devaluation of the currency by two-thirds, increased famine and budgetary shortages. This whole state of affairs made the life of Rwandans worse, with the blame being directed towards the Tutsis because of their invasion. The RPF invasion was brewing something that could later be a potential cause of the genocide; the state expenditure of Rwanda was being militarized, and the increase in corruption levels among the political elite in the Rwandan government. This saw the military size grow from 7000 troops to 30000 troops in a span of five years from 1989-1994. Coupled with military assistance from France, there were budgetary misappropriations that saw the state’s expenditure being directed towards to the purchase of military equipments while avoiding many basic needs of the Rwandans. The outcome of this was that Rwanda was witnessing a Para-militarization, with the intent of combating the RPF rebels (Hintjens 250). This misappropriated spending resulted to intense economic crisis, which the country did not respond to, instead directing their blame to the RPF. The Hutu-led government reduced to share power with the RPF so that the IMF could intervene in helping the situation. As result, the Hutu politicians, military officials saw mass killings of the Tutsis as a solution to the then economic problems that the country was facing. As the political problems and economic crises increased, the mass murders were extended to include all the Rwandan Tutsis, the Hutus who refused to cooperate, and any devotee of the Arusha Accords. Another political factor that could be a possible cause of the genocide was the political reforms adopted during 1991, which resulted to political divisions. This political division was not based on ethnic orientations; rather, they were aimed at doing away with the one-party state that resulted to divisions between the Hutu community in the Northern Rwanda and those in the Southern Rwanda. The northern Hutus were somewhat collaborating with the Tutsis as opposed to those from the south who were political elites and members of the military administrations. Just like the Tutsis, the southern Hutus faced discriminations that limited their right to use public services (Hintjens 250). It is not complete to summarize the cause of the genocide without taking a closer look to the roles that the militia, Radio Television Mille Collins (RTLM) and the extermination list played in accelerating the 1994 genocide. The media openly announced the plans to conduct a genocide directed towards the RPF and the Tutsi community. The ruling party MRND was responsible for organizing the execution of the genocide. In addition, the MRND trained and provided the militia with arms in order to execute the genocide effectively. The militia and the army conducted most of the killings during the genocide. The militias were equipped with various fighting techniques so that they could embrace violence. Their operations were within the local communities through avenues such as community self help groups in order to help hide their identity and their intentions towards genocide. The RTLM, which broadcasted in Kinyarwanda, was established by the ruling party. The RTLM played a significant role during the genocide since it used to broadcast the genocide plans and announcing the names of the Tutsi targets. In addition, the radio influenced the genocide by reporting the locations of those who were hiding from the militia (Dallaire and Brent 25). The militias were able to determine the whereabouts of its targets from the broadcast of the RTLM radio.

Aftermath of the genocide

The genocide resulted to approximately 2 million Hutus migrating to neighboring countries such as Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and Zaire. Those migrating were of the view that the Tutsis would retaliate after the genocide. The genocide saw the victory of RPF, thereby resulting to an increase in the size and strength of UNAMIR. The Ruling party, MRND was outlawed. The RPF strategized in organizing a coalition government in order to foster political healing in Rwanda. Despite the mass killings, the genocide of 1994 was an avenue for elimination of discrimination that is based on ethnicity or race (Lemarchand 23). In addition, the government aimed at fostering unity between the Tutsis and the Hutus by banning any political activities or affiliations that have ethnical backgrounds. Currently, the biggest problem that Rwanda faces is to the need to shift away from the genocide crisis and focus on long-term developments strategies. The post genocide effects also continue to haunt the Rwandan population and regaining the trust between the conflicting communities will not come easily (Dallaire and Brent 25).

It is evident that the genocide took place in recent times in barbaric manner. This implies that alternative strategies could have been adopted in order to solve crises that Rwanda was facing before embarking on genocide as a means of getting the solution to the problem. Approaches such as dialogue and involving the international community could have functioned effectively in this context, rather than engaging in a genocide (Rusesabagina and Zoellner 23). The current societal context does not warrant the concept of ethnic conflicts that would result to ethnic cleansing. Such strategies that the Rwandan ruling party deployed during the genocide is barbaric. This implies that the post genocide period was a time for Rwanda to practice political healing and eliminate any ethnical differences that would instill hatred between the ethnical communities in Rwanda (Verwimp 54).

Works cited

Dallaire, Rome and Brent Beardsley. Shake Hands with the Devil: the Failure of Humanity in Rwanda. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2004. Print. Destexhe, Alain. Rwanda and Genocide in the Twentieth Century. New York: New York UP, 1995. Print. Hintjens, Helen M. "Explaining the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda." Explaining the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda (37): 241-86. Http://www.jstor.org/stable/161847. Cambridge University Press. Web. 13 Mar. 2011. <Http://www.jstor.org/stable/161847.>. Lemarchand, René. "Review: A History of Genocide in Rwanda." Http://www.jstor.org/stable/410051. Cambridge University Press. Web. 03 Mar. 2011. . "Life Laid Bare » Other Press." Other Press. Web. 24 Mar. 2011. <http://www.otherpress.com/books/book?ean=9781590512739>. Rusesabagina, Paul, and Tom Zoellner. An Ordinary Man: an Autobiography. New York: Viking, 2006. Print. Verwimp, Philip. "Death and Survival during the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda." Population Studies 58.2 (2004): 233-45. Print.

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Rwanda: 30 years on, justice for genocide crimes more urgent than ever

As the 30th commemoration begins this Sunday, 7 April of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, in which an estimated 800,000 people were killed, including Hutu and others who opposed the genocide and the extremist government that orchestrated it, Amnesty International calls on the international community to urgently renew its commitment to ensure justice and accountability for the victims and the survivors.

While many perpetrators have been tried before national and community courts in Rwanda, as well as by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and by courts in Europe and North America under the principle of universal jurisdiction, recent developments underline the importance of urgently pursuing justice.

“Justice delayed is justice denied. The confirmed deaths of several of the most-wanted genocide suspects before they could face justice, and the indefinite suspension of the trial of another indictee due to age-related illness, show the importance of maintaining momentum to deliver justice for survivors and relatives of victims in Rwanda,” said Tigere Chagutah, Amnesty International’s Regional Director for East and Southern Africa.

The confirmed deaths of several of the most-wanted genocide suspects before they could face justice, and the indefinite suspension of the trial of another indictee due to age-related illness, show the importance of maintaining momentum to deliver justice for survivors and relatives of victims in Rwanda Tigere Chagutah, Amnesty International's Regional Director for East and Southern Africa

Between May 2020 and November 2023, the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals’ (IRMCT) Fugitive Tracking Team confirmed the deaths of four of the most wanted fugitives indicted by the ICTR.

The remains of Augustin Bizimana, Minister of Defence during the genocide, were identified in the Republic of Congo in 2020. The IRMCT also confirmed that Protais Mpiranya, commander of the Presidential Guard, had died in Zimbabwe in 2006. He had been charged with responsibility for the murders of senior moderate leaders, including Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana, the President of the Constitutional Court, the Minister of Agriculture and the Minister of Information, as well as ten Belgian United Nations peacekeepers. It was also confirmed that Phénéas Munyarugarama, the commander of Gako military camp and the highest-ranking military officer in the Bugesera region during the genocide, had died in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2002, and that Aloys Ndimbati, mayor of Gisovu, had died in Rwanda in 1997.

To honour the memories of the victims of the genocide and to deliver justice for survivors and victims’ families, we urge states to recommit to the tireless and timely pursuit of justice, including through prosecuting suspected perpetrators through universal jurisdiction where appropriate Tigere Chagutah

In May 2023, another genocide suspect and ICTR indictee, Fulgence Kayishema, who had been in hiding for decades, was finally arrested in South Africa. It was expected that he would be transferred either to the IRMCT in Tanzania or directly to Rwanda to face trial, but to date he remains in detention in South Africa facing immigration-related charges.

In August 2023, the trial of 90-year-old alleged chief genocide financier, Félicien Kabuga, who was caught after 26 years on the run, was suspended indefinitely due to age-related illness. The decision was made by appeal judges at the IRMCT following a ruling in June 2023 that Kabuga was unfit to stand trial as he was suffering from severe dementia. He was accused of funding and providing other logistical support to the Interahamwe militias, as well as promoting the broadcasting of genocidal hate speech by the Radio Television Libre des Milles Collines (RTLM). Survivors expressed anger and disappointment following the court’s decision.

“To honour the memories of the victims of the genocide and to deliver justice for survivors and victims’ families, we urge states to recommit to the tireless and timely pursuit of justice, including through prosecuting suspected perpetrators through universal jurisdiction where appropriate,” said Tigere Chagutah.

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Thirty Years On, Remembering the Victims of the Rwandan Genocide

For Immediate Release

Office of Press Relations [email protected]

Statement by Administrator Samantha Power

Today marks thirty years since hundreds of thousands of Rwandans were slaughtered during 100 days of unspeakable violence – the 1994 genocide. Every year starting on April 7, Rwanda solemnly remembers the genocide with a 100-day period known as Kwibuka, or ‘remember’ in Kinyarwanda. 

A decade ago today, I attended the twentieth anniversary memorial at Amahoro Stadium in Kigali. During the genocide, as the Interahamwe and Impuzamugambi raped and murdered Tutsis across the country, as well as Hutus, Twa, and others who opposed or refused to participate in the atrocities, the stadium hosted some 12,000 refugees seeking safe haven from the violence. During the memorial twenty years later, as survivors shared their testimonies and world leaders recalled the collective failure to come to their aid, the formality of the occasion was interrupted by piercing wails and screams of agony from people in the crowd – sounds capturing the pain that time cannot heal. 

The strength the Rwandan people have shown in the face of their unimaginable losses is nothing less than extraordinary. 

As Kwibuka 30 begins, we at USAID stand with them. And we redouble our commitment to promote the human rights of all people everywhere. 

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80 Rwandan Genocide Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best rwandan genocide topic ideas & essay examples, 📌 interesting topics to write about rwandan genocide, 🔎 good research topics about rwandan genocide.

• ❓ Rwandan Genocide Essay Questions
• The History of the Genocide in the Rwandan The Rwandan civil war led to the signing of the Arusha Accord that compelled the Rwandan government, which Hutu dominated, to form a government of national unity by incorporating marginalized Tutsi and the Hutu who […]
• Genocide in the “Ghost of Rwanda” Documentary In the colonial process, the Hutus were discriminated by the colonial power, which was Belgium with the help of the Tutsi. We will write a custom essay specifically for you by our professional experts 808 writers online Learn More
• Genocide: Darfur and Rwanda Cases When examining the case of Darfur, it can be noted that three specific factors prevented “true justice” from being administered, these encompass: the abstained votes from the U.S.and China in voting for a resolution for […]
• Rwandan Conflict as a Deep-Rooted and Identity-Based Conflict Many causes are examined as well as circumstances that led to the development of conflict or rather genocide that took place in 1994 which led to loss of hundred of thousands of lives, displacement of […]
• Hotel Rwanda’: The 1994 Rwandan Genocide’s History Besides, the assassination of the 1994 president, who belonged to ethnic Tutsi, was one of the main causes; the Hutus accused the Tutsis of having been responsible for the president’s assassination.
• Rwanda Genocide: “Shake Hands with the Devil” by Dallaire Romeo This paper will examine the issue in highlighting the theme that the main purpose of the book was to let the world know of its callousness and lack of precaution while the horrible and immoral […]
• The Rwandan Conflict and Social Network Approaches The structures and/or rules that the parties involved use to assemble and make interpretations of the conflicts provide a way in which people use the messages to achieve their goals concerning the issue of conflicts.
• Comparison of Genocide in Rwanda and Nazi Germany The proponents of the emancipation movement called the Rwandan Patriotic Front returned to the country in the fall 1990 to live within the population of Tutsi.
• Genocide Factors in Rwanda and Cambodia By the start of the last decade of the 20th Century, animosity between the Hutus and the Tutsis had escalated with the former accusing the latter of propagating socioeconomic and political inequalities within the country.
• Rwanda Genocide: Process and Outcomes It will describe the Tutsi-favored political system and land distribution system that contributed to the occurrence of the Genocide. The Europeans were of the opinion that the Tutsi did not originate from the region.
• Ethnic Conflicts and Misrepresentation of Rwandan Hutus Many people see the core of the conflict in the period of European colonization of Africa and especially the first part of the 20th century, when European nationalism spread all over the world.
• Stories of Rwanda’s Recovery From Genocide Today, the killers and the victims of the genocide live side by side, and the government focuses on finding the effective measures and legacies to overcome the consequences of the genocide and to state the […]
• The Rwandan Genocide: Hutus and Tutsi Ethnic Hatred People have always believed that the ethnic hatred between the Hutus and the Tutsi was the core cause of the genocide.
• In-class Reaction Paper: Rwandan Genocide The book offers a detailed description of the events that took place in the 1994 Rwandan genocide as told by the survivors of the massacre.
• Genocide in Rwanda: Insiders and Outsiders The paper will look into the Rwandese pre genocide history, factors that led to the genocide, the execution of the genocide and impacts of the genocide.
• The Main Factors That Influenced the Rwandan Genocide
• Causes and Events of the Rwandan Genocide and African Holocaust
• Hutu Tutsi Hutu Rwandan Genocide
• The Rwandan Genocide Was a One Hundred Day Slaughter
• Rwandan Genocide and the Lack of International Intervention
• Global Rwandan Genocide and Approximate
• Reaction of World on the Rwandan Genocide
• The Nature of Ethnic Civil Wars: Case Study of Rwandan Genocide
• Evidence From the 1994 Rwandan Genocide
• The Nuremberg Trials About Rwandan Genocide
• Lessons Learnt From the Rwandan Genocide
• Comparing Genocide, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Bosnian Genocide
• The Conflict With Rwandan Genocide Survivors
• Historical Representation of the Rwandan Genocide in “Murambi: The Book of Bones”
• Why Canadians Are Blame for the Rwandan Genocide
• Similarities and Differences Between the Rwandan Genocide and the Holocaust
• Propaganda and Conflict: Evidence From the Rwandan Genocide
• The Rwandan Genocide and Ethnic Conflict
• European Intervention in the Rwandan Genocide
• The Rwandan Genocide and Its Effects on Rwanda’s Society
• Crime Against Humanity and Peace – Rwandan Genocide
• The Causes and Consequences of the Rwandan Genocide
• Belgian and French Influence on the Rwandan Genocide
• Surviving the Genocide: The Impact of the Rwandan Genocide on Child Mortality
• Legal and Non-legal Responses to the Rwandan Genocide
• Propaganda for Mass Kill: Like the Rwandan Genocide
• The Political Causes of the Rwandan Genocide
• The Role of Responsibility in the Rwandan Genocide
• Rwandan Genocide Speech From the Perspective of the Victim
• State Capacity and Violence: Evidence From the Rwandan Genocide
• Intervention in the Rwandan Genocide
• Human Rights and Intervention in the Rwandan Genocide
• History of Ethnic Violence and the Rwandan Genocide
• Blaming Western Nations for Rwandan Genocide
• What Was the Cause of the Rwandan Genocide
• The United Nations and International Community Fail to Prevent the Rwandan Genocide
• Main Problems and Consequences of the Rwandan Genocide
• Local Economic Conditions and Participation in the Rwandan Genocide

❓Rwandan Genocide Essay Questions

• What Is the Rwandan Genocide?
• Why Did the US Not Help Rwanda?
• How Did Rwandan Genocide Start?
• Why Did No One Intervene in the Rwandan Genocide?
• How Did the United Nations Respond to the Rwandan Genocide?
• What Music Was Dedicated to the Rwandan Genocide?
• What Are the Causes of Rwandan Genocide?
• How Did Rwandan Recover From the Rwandan Genocide?
• Why Did the United States Not Want to Get Involved in Rwandan Genocide?
• What Brought the Rwandan Genocide to an End?
• How Did the Rwandan Genocide Start?
• How Did the World Help Rwanda During the Rwandan Genocide?
• How Long Did the Genocide in Rwanda Last?
• How Many People Died During the Rwandan Genocide?
• Who Was Convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal After the Rwandan Genocide?
• What Films Are Dedicated to the Rwandan Genocide?
• What Rights Were Violated in the Rwandan Genocide?
• How Many People Fled the Country During the Rwandan Genocide?
• What Was the Effect of the Rwandan Genocide?
• How Did the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe React to the Rwandan Genocide?
• Who Is to Blame for the Rwandan Genocide?
• How Was the Rwandan Genocide Carried Out?
• Why Was Rwandan Genocide So Vicious?
• What Are the Consequences of Rwandan Genocide?
• How Did the Rwandan Genocide Affect the Economy?
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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From the Horror to the Envy of Africa: Rwanda’s Leader Holds Tight Grip

Thirty years after a devastating genocide, Rwanda has made impressive gains. But ethnic divisions persist under an iron-fisted president who has ruled for just as long.

President Paul Kagame of Rwanda in 2021. The architect of the country’s stunning transformation, he achieved it with harsh methods that would normally attract international condemnation. Credit... Simon Wohlfahrt/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

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By Declan Walsh

• Published April 6, 2024 Updated April 7, 2024

Blood coursed through the streets of Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, in April 1994 as machete-wielding militiamen began a campaign of genocide that killed as many as 800,000 people, one of the great horrors of the late 20th century.

Thirty years later, Kigali is the envy of Africa. Smooth streets curl past gleaming towers that hold banks, luxury hotels and tech startups. There is a Volkswagen car plant and an mRNA vaccine facility . A 10,000-seat arena hosts Africa’s biggest basketball league and concerts by stars like Kendrick Lamar, the American rapper, who performed there in December.

Tourists fly in to visit Rwanda’s famed gorillas. Government officials from other African countries arrive for lessons in good governance. The electricity is reliable. Traffic cops do not solicit bribes. Violence is rare.

The architect of this stunning transformation, President Paul Kagame, achieved it with harsh methods that would normally attract international condemnation. Opponents are jailed, free speech is curtailed and critics often die in murky circumstances, even those living in the West. Mr. Kagame’s soldiers have been accused of massacre and plunder in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo.

For decades, Western leaders have looked past Mr. Kagame’s abuses. Some have expressed guilt for their failure to halt the genocide, when Hutu extremists massacred people mostly from Mr. Kagame’s Tutsi ethnic group. Rwanda’s tragic history makes it an “ immensely special case ,” Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, once said.

Mr. Kagame will commemorate the 30th anniversary of the genocide on Sunday, when he is expected to lay wreaths at mass graves, light a flame of remembrance and deliver a solemn speech that may well reinforce his message of exceptionalism. “Never again,” he often says.

But the anniversary is also a sharp reminder that Mr. Kagame, 66, has been in power for just as long. He won the last presidential election with 99 percent of votes. The outcome of the next one, scheduled for July, is in little doubt. Under Rwanda’s Constitution, he could lead for another decade.

The milepost has given new ammunition to critics who say that Mr. Kagame’s repressive tactics, previously seen as necessary — even by critics — to stabilize Rwanda after the genocide, increasingly appear to be a way for him to entrench his iron rule.

Questions are also growing about where he is leading his country. Although he claims to have effectively banished ethnicity from Rwanda, critics — including diplomats, former government officials and many other Rwandans — say he presides over a system that is shaped by unspoken ethnic cleavages that make the prospect of genuine reconciliation seem as distant as ever.

A spokeswoman for Rwanda’s government did not respond to questions for this article. The authorities declined accreditation to me to enter the country. A second Times reporter has been allowed in.

Ethnic Tutsis dominate the top echelons of Mr. Kagame’s government, while the Hutus who make up 85 percent of the population remain excluded from true power, critics say. It is a sign that ethnic division, despite surface appearances, is still very much a factor in the way Rwanda is governed.

“The Kagame regime is creating the very conditions that cause political violence in our country,” Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, his most prominent political opponent, said by phone from Kigali. “Lack of democracy, absence of rule of law, social and political exclusion — it’s the same problems we had before.”

Ms. Ingabire, a Hutu, returned to Rwanda from exile in 2010 to run against Mr. Kagame for president. She was arrested, barred from taking part in the election and later imprisoned on charges of conspiracy and terrorism. Released in 2018, when Mr. Kagame pardoned her, Ms. Ingabire cannot travel abroad and is barred from standing in the election in July.

“I agree with those who say Rwanda needed a strongman ruler after the genocide, to bring order in our country, ” she said. “But today, after 30 years, we need strong institutions more than we need strong men.”

Mr. Kagame burst into power in July 1994, sweeping into Kigali at the head of a Tutsi-dominated rebel group, the Rwandan Patriotic Front, which ousted the Hutu extremists who orchestrated the genocide. Randy Strash, a worker with the aid agency World Vision, arrived a few weeks later to find a “ghost town.”

“No gas stations, no stores, no communications,” he recalled. “Abandoned vehicles by the side of the road, riddled with bullets. At night, the sound of gunshots and hand grenades. It was something else.”

Mr. Strash set up his tent across the street from a camp where Mr. Kagame was quartered. Hutu fighters attacked the camp several times, trying to kill Mr. Kagame, Mr. Strash said. But it was not until a decade later, at an event at the University of Washington, that he met the Rwandan leader in person.

“Very polite and reasonable in his responses,” Mr. Strash recalled. “Clear, thoughtful and thought-provoking.”

Historical documents released by Human Rights Watch this past week show how much U.S. leaders knew about the slaughter as it unfolded. Writing to President Bill Clinton on May 16, 1994, the researcher Alison Des Forges urged him “to protect these defenseless civilians from murderous militia.”

Since coming to power, Mr. Kagame has had a reputation for spending aid wisely and promoting forward-looking economic policies. Although former aides have accused him of manipulating official statistics to exaggerate progress, Rwanda’s trajectory is impressive: Average life expectancy rose to 66 years from 40 years between 1994 and 2021, the United Nations says.

One of Mr. Kagame’s first acts was to publicly erase the dangerous divisions that had fueled the genocide. He banned the terms Hutu and Tutsi from identity cards and effectively criminalized public discussion of ethnicity . “We are all Rwandan” became the national motto.

But in reality, ethnicity continued to suffuse nearly every aspect of life, reinforced by Mr. Kagame’s policies. “Everyone knows who is who,” said Joseph Sebarenzi, a Tutsi who served as the president of Rwanda’s Parliament until 2000, when he fled into exile.

A survey published last year by Filip Reyntjens, a Belgian professor and outspoken Kagame critic, found that 82 percent of 199 top government positions were held by ethnic Tutsi — and nearly 100 percent in Mr. Kagame’s office. American diplomats reached a similar conclusion in 2008, after conducting their own survey of Rwanda’s power structure.

Mr. Kagame “must begin to share authority with Hutus to a much greater degree” if his country were to surmount the divides of the genocide, the U.S. Embassy wrote in a cable that was later published by WikiLeaks.

Critics accuse Mr. Kagame of using the memory of the events of 1994 to suppress the Hutu majority.

Official commemorations mention “the genocide of the Tutsi” but play down or ignore the tens of thousands of moderate Hutus who were also killed, often trying to save their Tutsi neighbors.

A perception of selective justice rubs salt into those wounds. Mr. Kagame’s troops killed 25,000 to 45,000 people, mostly Hutu civilians, from April to August 1994, according to disputed U.N. findings . Yet fewer than 40 of his officers have been tried for those crimes, according to Human Rights Watch.

The Hutu killings are incomparable in scale or nature to the genocide. But Mr. Kagame’s lopsided approach to dealing with those events is hampering Rwandans’ ability to reconcile and move on, critics say.

“Anyone not familiar with Rwanda might think that everything is fine,” Mr. Sebarenzi said. “People work together, they go to church together, they do business together. That is good. But under the carpet, those ethnic divisions are still there.”

Although Mr. Kagame has appointed Hutus to senior positions in government since 1994, including prime minister and defense minister, those appointees have little real power, said Omar Khalfan, a former official with Rwanda’s national intelligence service who fled into exile in the United States in 2015.

Tutsi loyalists are planted in the offices of senior Hutus to keep an eye on them, said Mr. Khalfan, a Tutsi. “The regime doesn’t want to speak about ethnicity because it raises the issue of power-sharing,” he said. “And they don’t want that.”

In the West, Mr. Kagame is a firm favorite at gatherings of the global elite such as the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he met with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine in January. But at home, those who publicly challenge him risk arrest, torture or death.

A decade ago, Kizito Mihigo, a charismatic gospel singer, was among Rwanda’s most popular artists. A Tutsi who lost his parents in the genocide, Mr. Mihigo often sang at genocide commemorations and was said to be close to Mr. Kagame’s wife, Jeannette.

But on the 20th anniversary, Mr. Mihigo released a song that in coded lyrics called on Rwandans to show empathy for both Tutsi and Hutu victims — effectively, a call for greater reconciliation.

Mr. Kagame was furious. A presidential aide said he “didn’t like my song, and that I should ask him for forgiveness,” Mr. Mihigo recalled in 2016 . If the singer refused to comply, he added, “they said I’d be dead.”

Mr. Mihigo apologized but was convicted on treason charges and imprisoned. Released four years later, he found he was blacklisted as a singer. In 2020, he was arrested again as he tried to slip across the border to Burundi and, four days later, found dead in a police station.

The government said Mr. Mihigo had taken his life, but few believed it. “He was a very strong Christian who believed in God,” said Ms. Ingabire, the opposition politician, who came to know Mr. Mihigo in prison. “I can’t believe this is true.”

Mr. Kagame’s reach extends across the globe. Rights groups have documented dozens of cases of Rwandan exiles being intimidated, attacked or assassinated by presumed agents of the state in at least a dozen countries, including Canada , Australia and South Africa .

Mr. Khalfan, the former intelligence officer, said he was approached at home in Ohio in 2019 by a man he identified as an undercover Rwandan agent. The man tried to lure him to Dubai — a similar ruse to the one that caused Paul Rusesabagina , a Hutu hotelier whose story featured in the movie “Hotel Rwanda,” to be tricked into returning to the country in 2020.

Mr. Rusesabagina was released from prison last year , after years of U.S. pressure. The episode only underscored how little real resistance Mr. Kagame faces at home. But a more immediate worry lies across the border , in eastern Congo.

There, the United States and the United Nations have publicly accused Rwanda of sending troops and missiles in support of M23, a notorious rebel group that swept across the territory in recent months, causing widespread displacement and suffering. The M23 has long been seen as a Rwandan proxy force in Congo, where Mr. Kagame’s troops have been accused of plundering rare minerals and massacring civilians. Rwanda denies the charges.

The crisis has cooled Mr. Kagame’s relations with the United States, his largest foreign donor, American officials say. Senior Biden administration officials traveled to Rwanda , Congo and, more discreetly, Tanzania in recent months in an effort to prevent the crisis from spiraling into a regional war. In August, the United States imposed sanctions on a senior Rwandan military commander for his role in backing the M23 .

U.S. officials described tense, sometimes confrontational meetings between Mr. Kagame and senior American officials, including the U.S.A.I.D. administrator, Samantha Power, over Rwanda’s role in eastern Congo.

Mr. Kagame has often denied that Rwandan troops are in Congo, but he appeared to admit the opposite tacitly in a recent interview with Jeune Afrique magazine .

In justifying their presence, he fell back on familiar logic: that he was acting to prevent a second genocide, this time against the ethnic Tutsi population in eastern Congo.

Arafat Mugabo contributed reporting.

An earlier version of this article misstated the circumstances surrounding Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza’s presidential bid and her arrest. She was arrested before the election, not after. She did not lose the election; she was barred from taking part in it because of the arrest.

How we handle corrections

Declan Walsh covers Africa for The Times from a base in Nairobi, Kenya. He previously reported from Cairo and Islamabad, Pakistan. More about Declan Walsh

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Rwanda’s genocide could have been prevented: 3 things the international community should have done – expert

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Rwanda’s genocide could have been prevented: 3 things the international community should have done – expert, embed video.

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10th April 2024

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In one hundred days an estimated 600 000 to 800 000 Rwandans were killed. The Tutsi were targeted primarily due to long-standing ethnic tensions between the Tutsi minority and the majority Hutu population. Tutsi sympathisers and moderate Hutus were also targeted.

As the mass killings were happening, the international community stood by in a stupor, even though the nations of the world had a legal and moral obligation to intervene in cases of genocide. The United Nations also had a responsibility to maintain international peace and security.

To its credit, the United Nations had already put in place a peacekeeping mission, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (Unamir). It was established in 1993 to support the Arusha accords , which aimed at ending the civil war in Rwanda.

Could Unamir have prevented the genocide? Being a student of peacekeeping history, I sought to learn from the UN experience. I wrote a detailed paper on whether the genocide could have been predicted and prevented. In my view this was possible but would have required three main things: detailed intelligence, preventive measures and political will.

These components can still be applied to genocide prediction and prevention, and to protection of civilians, in other war-torn countries – whether it be Gaza, Haiti, Sudan, Yemen, or Ukraine – though the methods to achieve these three components will be different in each case.

Detailed intelligence

In Rwanda, intelligence-gathering could have provided clear and sufficient clues about the genocide months in advance.

Information from many sources, including informants, journalists and human rights investigators, showed illicit arms flows , training and preparations by the Interahamwe (a Hutu extremist militia group), insider plotting for “the apocalypse”, the names and reputations of the plotters , and a long-standing pattern of ethnically based human rights violations.

Unfortunately, the UN mission felt deaf and blind in the field as it did not have the analytical capacity to synthesise these important pieces of evidence. It was also prevented by UN headquarters from taking measures to secure more information and taking steps for prevention.

Preventive action

Since early warning of the Rwandan genocide was clearly possible for the UN, could it have actually prevented the genocide?

Had the UN taken deterrent actions early on, it might have been able to stop the genocide at the outset. Later, a large deployment of troops would have been needed to bring a halt to the many senseless killings.

UN preventive actions should have dealt with people (both plotters and resisters), the genocide structures (networks) and the tools (weapons) of the genocide.

In response to illicit weapons flowing into Kigali, the peacekeeping force should have firmly applied the embargo.

Since a network of Rwandan officials was being trained to carry out genocide, a few selected individuals in the chain of command should have been influenced, isolated and turned by their foreign trainers and UN contacts.

International officials should have exposed the international aid diversion, which was suspected in Interahamwe training.

Additional pressure could have been applied to reduce the level of threatening propaganda and to shut down extremist radio stations.

After the start of the genocide on 6 April, the UN should have taken these steps. But high-ranking officials of both the UN and its member states, particularly the United States, failed even to recognise and publicly declare the genocide, even as tens of thousands were being slaughtered.

Early recognition of the unfolding genocide would have focused more international attention, increasing pressure by NGOs and an outraged public to stop the killings immediately, and caused the Security Council to strengthen Unamir at an early stage. Instead, the systematic killing of Tutsis was inaccurately portrayed as another example of “ethnic violence”.

Unamir commander Roméo Dallaire , myself and others have argued that a small, intervening force with a robust mandate could have intervened to prevent genocide, particularly in the early days. The UN secretary-general at the time, Boutros Boutros-Ghali , affirmed his belief in November 1994 that as few as 400 troops could have “saved the situation” . These remarks suggest that the killers were so lightly armed and poorly trained that even the most skeletal of intervening forces could have overwhelmed them.

Quick, decisive action by the UN might have isolated the genocide to the Kigali sector before it spread into the countryside. What was provided much later was a unilateral French force, under Operation Turquoise. Turquoise was not the right kind of intervening force – it didn’t have the mandate to actively stop the genocide. And it deployed too late.

Finally, the Security Council could have authorised a strong UN mission to establish safe havens in strategic locations in Kigali and the Rwandan countryside. In fact, the UN did protect some locations in Kigali – at the Milles Collines Hotel, the King Faisal Hospital, and the city’s main stadium. Some 15,000 refugees (mostly Tutsis) were saved at the hospital, thanks to the efforts of the Bangladeshi and later Ghanaian soldiers who guarded it.

Political will

So, the UN should have developed a better information system and taken preventive measures. What prevented it from doing so? The simple answer is a lack of political will.

The main reason for this broad lack of resolve was that the dominant member of the UN – the United States – was viewing UN peacekeeping cautiously and with fear of over-involvement.

The lack of US commitment was largely the result of a disastrous mission in Somalia the previous year.

Without US leadership and support, other states were hesitant to commit themselves politically or militarily. Instead Unamir was cut to just 10% of its personnel. Still, these peacekeepers managed to save 20 000 to 30 000 lives, showing what dedicated action from a small force can achieve.

Moving forward

What, then, is necessary for political will to be developed to prevent future atrocities like Rwanda?

Primarily it is a matter of fostering a sense of enlightened self-interest among all nations, linking human welfare around the globe with one’s own. It means recognising that when crimes against one section of humanity are committed, no matter where, it is a crime against all of humanity.

If this isn’t enough, then the fear of inaction should also be a motivating force.

Another motivating force can be international law. Under the Genocide Convention, nations are obliged to prevent this horrendous crime against humanity.

The lesson of Rwanda is clear: we must build international political will, as well as an enhanced UN capability, for prevention.

Traditionally UN peacekeeping missions were primarily mandated to monitor ceasefires and separate conflicting parties, but since 1999 they’ve been tasked with protection of civilians caught in conflict zones. But the means to achieve that goal are still lacking.

The UN has greatly developed its ability for gathering and analysing information in its peacekeeping missions, but it still needs rapid reaction forces.

The world community owes it to the hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings who were slaughtered during the Rwandan genocide to try to predict and prevent future genocides and mass atrocities.

Written by Walter Dorn , Professor of Defence Studies, Royal Military College of Canada

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article .

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