Genocide: - DIIS

Comparing the Killing Fields: Rwanda, Cambodia and Bosnia
The killing machine in Rwanda consisted of the central planners, the rural
organizers, the militias, and the Presidential Guard. The fi rst were all part
of a closely-knit group of relatives and friends of Habyarimana, the socalled
akazu (“little house” in Kinyarwanda); the second were drawn from
the communal and prefectoral cadres and consisted of a mix of communal
councillors, burgomasters and prefects, all of whom belonged to the ruling
party, the Mouvement pour la Revolution Nationale et le Developpement
(MRND); the militias, numbering several thousands, are best known by
their Kinyarwanda name, interahamwe (“those who stand together”) and
impuzamugambi, (“those with a single purpose”) identifi ed, respectively
with the MRND and another extremist, all-Hutu party, the Coalition pour
la Défense de la République (CDR). Their pedigree is traceable to youth
wings of the parties, the membership of which increased in proportion to
the number of Hutu internally displaced persons (IDPs) seeking refuge in
the towns after the RPF invasion. Recruited by party offi cials, trained and
armed by the Rwandan military, and led by communal cadres and party
hacks, they became the most active and dedicated participants in the killings.
46
Much the same pattern of central control emerges from accounts of the
“cleansing” conducted by Serbian irregular forces in Bosnia. The chief
planner and orchestrator was President Milosevic himself, assisted by a
handful of cronies among high-ranking offi cers of the federal army and
the Ministry of the Interior. But if the brains behind the organization of violence
were in Belgrade, the para-military units – the closest equivalents to
the Rwandan militias – were locally recruited. 47 The most notorious were
the Serbian Volunteer Guard (later known as The Tigers), led by Zeljko
Raznjatovic (aka Arkan), and the Cetnik, organized and led by Vojislav
Seselj, head of the extremist Bosnian-based Serbian Radical Party (SRP).
Arkan is described by Noel Malcolm as “a mafi a-style criminal wanted by
Interpol for several offences”; Seselj, once asked what would happen to the
46 For a detailed analysis of the command structure of the Rwanda genocide, see Des Forges
(1999), p. 222-62.
47 On the role of the paramilitaries in Bosnia, see Laura Silber and Allan Little (1997), Yugoslavia:
Death of a Nation. New York, p. 223 ff.
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