Dictionary of Genocide - D Ank Unlimited

BARAYAGWIZA, JEAN-BOSCO
istan for what seemed to be the singular purpose of coercing the people into accepting a
continuance of Pakistani rule over the region. In the end, the strategy did not work. From
the ruins arose the independent country of Bangladesh, supported by intervention
from the army of neighboring India and the consequent defeat of the Pakistani forces. But
the human cost was staggering, and an argument can be made that, to this day, the war of
1971, and an unsettled political situation, have still not enabled Bangladesh to settle into
a confident nation-building environment.
Bangladesh Genocide, U.S. Response to. The independence struggle that took place
in 1971 on the Indian subcontinent, in which East Pakistan seceded from West Pakistan,
resulted in an paroxysm of violence in which the army of Pakistan, dominated by West
Pakistanis, engaged in extreme acts of terror. In a short span of time, some 3 million
Bangladeshis (a term the East Pakistanis preferred to be called) lost their lives, an estimated
250,000 women and girls were raped, and approximately 10 million fled to India.
It was a calculated policy of genocide initiated by the government of West Pakistan for
what seemed to be the singular purpose of coercing the people into accepting a continuance
of Pakistani rule over the region. Observing this, the U.S. administration of President
Richard M. Nixon (1913–1994) seemed little concerned to intervene. Cold War
politics featured as an important determinant of how the U.S. government approached
third world developments. Because Pakistan enjoyed a close positive relationship with the
United States as a counter to Soviet influence in India, Nixon did not wish to upset that
delicate balance by issuing a protest over Pakistani actions in East Pakistan. Added to his
concerns about the Soviet Union, Nixon knew that Pakistan was a useful conduit to
opening and maintaining contacts with Communist China. The Chinese enjoyed good
relations with Pakistan owing to their mutual enmity of India, and Nixon saw that this
could be played on provided there was no boat-rocking over Pakistani excesses in Bengal.
Though it was reported that some U.S. diplomats and other members of the U.S. State
Department expressed their disgust and distress over Washington’s adoption of a realpolitik
perspective at a time of immense human catastrophe, the Nixon administration’s path
was set—a path that would lead to the opening of a dialogue between the United States
and China later that year and pave the way for Communist China to take its seat at the
United Nations.
Barayagwiza, Jean-Bosco (b. 1950). Anti-Tutsi media executive in Rwanda, active
before and during the genocide of 1994. Barayagwiza was born in Mutura commune, in
Gisenyi, western Rwanda. He was a cofounder, with Jean Shyirambere Barahinura
(b. 1956), of the extremist Coalition pour la Défense de la République (CDR) party and
presided over the party’s affairs in Gisenyi Prefecture from February 6, 1994, up to and
including the period of the genocide. Barayagwiza, with Dr. Ferdinand Nahimana (b. 1950),
also founded the anti-Tutsi radio station, Radio-Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM),
which was largely responsible for sustaining the Hutu public’s focus on the extermination of
the Tutsi both before and after the start of the genocide on April 6, 1994.
Prior to the genocide, Barayagwiza was director of political affairs in the Rwandan
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, having studied law in the Soviet Union. As Rwanda was progressively
overrun by troops of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) during the genocide in
June and July 1994, Barayagwiza, along with most other high-ranking génocidaires, left
the country. He was arrested in Cameroon on March 27, 1996, and—after incarceration
for 330 days without being informed of the charges against him—was transferred to the
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