Dictionary of Genocide - D Ank Unlimited

that FAR soldiers played a major part in the Rwanda genocide, and many of its leaders
have been indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). Many of
the common soldiers who were with FAR in the early to mid-1990s are now ensconced in
the Congo, from which they periodically carry out border raids against Rwanda.
Rwandan Genocide. A genocide committed against Tutsi and liberal democratic
(“moderate”) Hutu by the extremist Hutu Power regime of the Mouvement Révolutionnaire
Nationale pour le Développement (National Revolutionary Movement for Development, or
MRND), in the central African country of Rwanda between April and July 1994. Though
the actual genocide lasted a mere one hundred days, the three murderous months had a
long background tracing back to the German and Belgian colonial period (1880s to
1961), when Hutu and Tutsi were identified as distinctly different peoples. The Tutsi were
accorded a higher social status than the majority Hutu, who were perceived as belonging
to a lower socio-economic order. The end of colonial rule overturned this ranking of peoples,
with the Hutu claiming majority rights politically. This triggered periodic outbursts
of escalating violence in 1959, 1962, and 1973. In the early 1990s, extensive and somewhat
transparent plans were laid to carry out a campaign of extermination of the Tutsi and
their Hutu political allies. The blueprint included an intense propaganda campaign
broadcast over Radio-Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM) and the organization of
killing units, the Interahamwe and the Impuzamugambi militias, together with the ethnic
politicization of the Rwandan armed forces. The proverbial last straw was the assassination
of President Juvenal Habyarimana (1937–1994) on April 6, 1994, after an airplane
in which he was traveling was shot down by a missile attack as it approached Kigali airport.
There has been intense debate regarding who was responsible for this attack: some
argue that the missiles were fired by radical Hutu enraged by Habyarimana’s willingness to
negotiate with rebels from the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) and his agreement
to forge ahead with the Arusha Accords; others state that it was a Rwandan Patriotic
Front (RPF) attack on the president. The truth may never be known. What is certain,
however, is that the death of Habyarimana acted as a tocsin for radical Hutu across the
country to commence the long-planned operation to completely eliminate the Tutsi population
of Rwanda.
A major feature of the killings was the manner in which they took place. Most victims
were butchered by handheld agricultural tools, particularly machetes, as well as nail-studded
clubs which had only one possible function. Moreover, the government exhorted every
Hutu to kill Tutsi, wherever they could be found. As mass murder thus became a civic
virtue, neighbor killed neighbor and even family members killed each other (where there
were Tutsi or moderate Hutu in the family). What was striking was the efficiency of the
génocidaires; there was little improvisation and not much room for doubt that this was a
bona fide case of genocide. It also became clear early on that only outside intervention
could stop the process of genocidal killing, but such help never materialized. Among the
bystanders unwilling to intervene was the UN Security Council. It failed totally to prevent
the genocide or to stop the killing once it had begun. Over and above that, the Security
Council actually reduced by nine-tenths the small peacekeeping force already in Rwanda,
UNAMIR (United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda) under the command of
Canadian general Romeo Dallaire (b. 1946). The United Nations also oversaw the evacuation
of all foreigners from the country, within days of the outset of the genocide. Were it
not for the intervention of the RPF, the genocide might have been total.
RWANDAN GENOCIDE
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