To What Extent Can The Rwandan Genocide, And Its Severity, Be Blamed On Foreign Powers?

To what extent can the Rwandan Genocide, and its severity, be blamed on Foreign Powers?

Introduction

The violence that took place in 1994 after the death of President Habyarimana, which resulted in ethnic cleansing type killings by the Hutu regime, eliminating around 800,000 Tutsis and forcing the majority of the surviving Tutsi to flee, was the result of several contributing factors that combined to result in the utter devastation of a country. Helen M. Hintjens, one of the most prominent scholars on the subject, argues that the causes can be split into three main camps (Hintjens, 1999). Firstly, the colonial impact that Germany and Belgium had during and after their dominion over Rwanda (and formerly Ruanda-Urundi). The colonial powers, rather than doing what was customary and forcing several different tribes under one administration, instead created a ruling class, the Tutsi, and a peasant class, the Hutu, out of a people that were united under the same language, culture, appearance and religion. The bias shown towards Tutsi for leadership positions and the introduction of identity cards with ethnic status lead to the exacerbation of what had previously been a barely noticeable ethnic divide. According to Mahmood Mamdani, Belgium created genocidal impulses natural to a conquered nation, the desire of the natives to eliminate the settler, furthermore, he argues, it was the common ideology at the time among the Belgian colonials that the Tutsi were an alien hamitic race that had come to rule the lesser Hutu beings (Mamdani, 2001), and it was this, completely untrue theory, that fuelled even more hatred towards the Tutsi, and the regard of their race as inner enemies or ethnic filth , a concept that Genocide Historian Donald Bloxham details in The Final Solution, A Genocide (2009), as a classical motive for genocide, used by the Nazi Regime for the Holocaust. The second type of cause lies domestically, as a means for the government to control the population. According to Mamdani, Genocidal Impulse is as old as the organisation of power (Mamdani, 2001), and the morally corrupt regime used Genocide on more than one occasion as a means to maintain power over their people, so much so that they became effective in Genocidaire strategy and believed in the method. Gerard Prunier cites the instinctive, very controlling Rwandan mentality, stemming from the density of the Rwandan population which leads to high social interaction and is a breeding ground for interpersonal conflicts and hatreds (Prunier, 1995), indeed some, such as Hintjens, have even suggested that the Rwandan history of mass killings, and the Genocide, was used as a means to control population growth. The final cause is the popularity of the genocide, the way in which the Hutu population responded so strongly to propaganda and orders to massacre their friends and neighbours, and the obedience of the Rwandan people. This essay examines the significance in particular of the first two factors, and attempts to come to a judgement on whether the events of 1994 are to be blamed more heavily on the Western Powers or on domestic factors.

Pre-Colonial Rwanda

All Rwandan people came from the same heritage, together they developed Kinyarwanda, a highly sophisticated language, created a common religion and philosophy, and their culture of song, dance and poetry is very similar, they even have the same myths and war stories, both sides sang the same songs of heroes from the past during the civil war and genocide. Throughout Rwanda`s history, the majority of the population were cultivators, while a smaller number depended on farming large herds of cattle, particularly those who lived in the drier, hotter east of the country. Crucially, there did not originally exist a tribal dynamic in Rwanda, all Rwandans were a part of the same tribe, due to their sharing of tribal characteristics, `they speak the same language, have the same names, follow the same cultural customs and worship the same gods` (Dowden, p239).

Rwanda as a country is blessed with fertile soil and regular rainfall, therefore was a productive farming country, and its population grew as such that it became the most densely populated African country in 1994. The Rwandan State grew in strength throughout the 18th and 19th century, and as this happened, the governing elite of the Rwandan people became clearer. The origins and development of the terms used to describe different ethnicities is disputed by historians, Alison Des Forges writes that the term `Tutsi` at first was a word that described `the status of an individual-a person rich in cattle` (Des Forges), on the other hand the word `Hutu`, was originally `a subordinate or follower of a more powerful person` (Des Forges), while Linda Melvern and Jan Vansina argue that the term at first originated in the army, where the combatants were named Tutsi while non-combatants were named Hutu (Melvern p14), however although there is no consensus as to the origins, what is agreed upon is that slowly, from whatever origins, the words evolved to the extent that `Tutsi` encapsulated the entire overlord class and `Hutu` became representative of the farmer majority. This dynamic of a ruling class and a peasantry was not yet firmly established throughout the country at the end of the 20th Century when the country was first assigned to German ownership (1884 Berlin Conference), as some of the smaller states within the country were Hutu, as well as power-holders and lineage heads elsewhere.

As a general rule, people tended to marry within their ethnical/social group, as was customary all around the world during this period therefore a gene pool was created within each group, which lead to differences in ethnicity and appearance between the two groups. The Tutsi, who were Pastoralists, and kept large herds of cattle, became `tall, thin and narrow-featured` (DF), whereas the Hutu, the cultivators, were `shorter, stronger and with broad features` (DF), intermarriages did happen, although not very often, and even less as the nineteenth century progressed into the twentieth century, as the divide widened. However, after the Tutsi lost their power in 1959, intermarriages began to increase once again, to the point that nowadays it is far more difficult to distinguish many of the population, as they have both Hutu and Tutsi characteristics.

However, despite the harmonious picture that historians such as Des Forges paints of the two tribes living together happily, in reality, according to others, such as African Historian Richard Dowden, the distinction between the two tribes was very noticeable despite intermarriages, however he maintains that there was a strong sense of national solidarity which helped defend them against other marauding Africans, and as a result both Rwanda and Burundi, which is also inhabited by Hutu and Tutsi, were strong and stable against other nations and the Slave Trade. (Dowden, p238). Jan Vansina also argues that the division was certainly present from as early as the end of the 19th Century, as evidenced by uprisings, particularly in the north-west, where a movement that showed anti-Tutsi sentiment and lead to the killings of elite citizens (Vansina, p81), however at this time the sentiment was more anti-elitism than anti-Tutsi, and as a whole Rwanda was a relatively peaceful and cohesive country internally, especially in comparison to other African nations at the time, but this was not to endure throughout colonial rule.

Impact of Colonialism on Rwanda

Western powers, in particular Belgium, created an entirely new national dynamic, by bringing their ideas of how to administrate the country. The Germans first took control of Rwanda after the Berlin Conference of 1884, but although they did exploit Rwanda and profit from it, they adopted more of a hands-off attitude towards change in the political system. However, after WWI, when the mandate was passed to the Belgians, the state was changed in order to create administrative efficiency in a country with extremely complex power systems.

The Belgians brought with them scientific facts , which had been popularised at the time, about the origins of the two ethnic groups, particularly the Tutsi. A large part of the reason that the Tutsi were given so much control is because racially the Belgians believed them to be superior, and believed them to be of a whole different race to the Hutu, almost European. One report from the Belgian Ministry of Colonies from 1925 described them as having nothing of the negro, apart from his colour , and gifted with a vivacious intelligence a refinement of feelings which is rare among primitive people. He is a natural born leader . On the other hand the Hutu were merely extroverts who like to laugh and lead a simple laugh . Experts theorized about the origins of the Tutsi, John Hanning Speke decreed that these carriers of a superior civilization were descended from Ethiopians, while others decided on their Hamitic or even Semitic descent. Gerard Prunier believes that this conception became deeply ingrained into perception of Rwanda as well as in decision making, and furthermore, lead to the exacerbation of the divide as it inflated Tutsi self-esteem while destroying the Hutu ego to the point that their feelings coalesced into an aggressively resentful inferiority complex . In this respect the colonials had a huge impact on national and ethnic identities.

But the more prominent, obvious impact that they had on the country was to completely rebuild the political and administrative structure of the country. They re-organised the areas into `chiefdoms` and `sub-chiefdoms`, removing the power of the autonomous states, replacing lineage powers with state officials, sometimes using force to impose them upon the area, ultimately eliminating the multiples chief system, replacing them with a single one, nearly always a Tutsi, so that by the end of their rule, 43 out of 45 chiefs were Tutsis (Dowden p242). In addition to this re-organisation, the human rights of the masses were severely reduced, firstly through the nationwide re-introduction of the much-hated ubuletwa forced labour system (Prunier), and secondly through the restriction of movement for the subordinates, mostly the Hutus, who formerly were free to leave elsewhere or seek protection from other leaders if they were neglected or mistreated, now found it far harder to do so, restricting inter-regional residential transfers, as well as banning new forest settlement (Des Forges), the choice was either to obey, or to emigrate, and as a consequence, the newly established chiefs were able to exploit their subordinates and give them unreasonable amounts of work to do in order to benefit the elite.

At the same time as enabling the exploitation of the masses, the Belgians decreed that all officials and leaders should be of Tutsi descent, removing any Hutu from positions of power and highly restricted their access to higher education, between 1945 and 1954 only 16 students were Hutu (Lemarchand) meaning that they had no opportunity to access a path to a higher administrative position (Des Forges). It was a combination of these two decisions that caused the formerly small divide between the two tribes to be exacerbated massively, and sowed the seeds for future conflict, creating an arrogant Tutsi tribe who believed themselves to be utterly superior in every way to the Hutu, who were understandably angry at their total loss of power, and who now had far fewer rights The Belgians totally ignored human treatment as long as officials collected their taxes and completed their necessary projects. Additionally, the Belgians regularly administered both beatings and corporal punishment (Melvern, p17) in order to force the Hutu to complete projects such as roads.

Consequently, inter-ethnicity hatred increased considerably, and the decision by the Belgians for a national registration in 1933 (Hintjens, 250) which required citizens to declare their ethnicity, and carry around an identity card with that ethnic identity on it, meant that the ethnic divide between the two became official and concrete, forming clear cut racial identities. Therefore a long history of violence began, kicked off by the uprisings of 1959, leading to thousands of Tutsis fleeing the country, while the Hutu parties won 84 per cent of seats in communal elections in 1960, it was clear that the balance of power was shifting significantly. The 1959 unrest was followed in 1963, 1968 and 1973 with similar pogroms disturbing the peace around the country (Mushikiwabo). It is obvious to see that inter-ethnic hatred to this extent was indisputably manufactured by western colonials.

However, relatively independent of the West, there was a culture of systematic and organised murder imposed by the state that began in around 1959, which certainly inspired the tragedy of 1994, although they were on much smaller scales, it had been done before, and could be done again. The first display of major violence in Rwanda was sparked by a relatively small event, the attack of Hutu sub-chief Dominique Mbonyumutwa, by young Tutsi activists. This was the spark that lit the fire in terms of the extreme political tension between Tutsi and Hutu, more specifically between the rival parties, the popular Hutu movement PARMEHUTU and the conservative, monarchist, UNAR Tutsi party (Prunier). The incident lead to Hutu activists gathering people to attack Tutsi chiefs and other members, which lead to days of fighting between the two groups, fighting which spread around the entire country, and meant that many Tutsi fled the country, eventually around 130,000 Tutsi refugees escaped to Congo-Zaire, Burundi and Uganda by the end of 1963 (Prunier). During this period, the Belgians were irrelevant, unable to impose any sort of control, and after the PARMEHUTU, led by Gregoire Kayibanda won the elections of 1960, they shortly gained official independence and separation from Burundi in 1962. Kayibanda really began to instil the Genocidal culture in 1963, after an invasion by the deposed King Kigeri V, formed an army of a mixture of monarchists and refugees in Uganda, where he had fled to. This army, who called themselves `Inyenzi` (Lema, Africa Divided), meaning `cockroach`, a name that was later used to describe Tutsi forces as a whole, got close to Kigali before their eventual defeat (Melvern). This threat to his control panicked Kayibanda, so in response he rounded up Tusi chiefs and executed them, and launched a wave of repression nationwide, Melvern describes it as an organised slaughter , in the southern province of Gikongoro alone, 5,000 were murdered (Melvern), and the overall death toll is estimated at around 10,000. This was something that Kayibanda repeated again in 1972 and 1973 when he felt his power slipping (Prunier), and he proved to be the creator of systematic murder which was utilised in a similar manner in 1994.

Kayibanda s actions were reflective of Prunier s thesis that Genocides, particularly the one in 1994, is due to traditional Rwandan mentality which has bred a culture of high amounts of social control. Prunier suggests that this stems from the fact that the land area is small, while the population is extremely high, leading to constant social interaction which breeds rivalries and hatreds. He even goes as far to suggest that the excessive population density was a reason for the genocide, that the peasants felt that too many people were taking up their small amounts of land, and that less people on their land would mean more benefits for the survivors. Furthermore, the power of the ruler, forged before colonial times with their god-like worship of the mwami, the King, who traditionally was so revered that he was not even allowed to be seen (Prunier) lead to unquestioned obedience to the leadership s will, another factor in the organised massacres of 1994.

Although Rwandans and their mentalities and conflicts after their independence and the precedent set by leaders such as Gregoire Kayibanda did factor majorly into the acts of 1994, there is no question that without the intervention of the colonials, and their beliefs on the superior Tutsi race and their dramatic reorganisation that caused the huge fractions in Rwandan society that did not previously exist, the inter-ethnic killings and violence would never have taken place, and the Genocide of 1994 was the fault of the Belgian Administration of the early 20th Century. However, it is unfair to pin blame solely on the Belgians, in the run up and during the tragedy, modern foreign powers were by no means powerless to stop, or at least, reduce the devastation caused in 1994, and there were many mistakes that they made that meant that the Genocide was far more severe than it could have been.

The Rwandan Civil War

Without the Civil war that preceded it, the Rwandan Genocide of 1994 would not have happened. The basic cause of the civil war was Rwanda s refugee problem, which in turn was caused by the long Rwandan History of persecution of the Tutsi minorities which lead to the exodus of mostly Tutsi Rwandans, and the diaspora that mostly formed in Uganda became the Rwandan Patriotic Force (RPF), who in October 1990 invaded Rwanda. The Civil War certainly never would have happened if not for foreign involvement in the past, as has been outlined above, but foreign countries were also heavily involved in the Civil War itself.

Civil War in Rwanda broke out on Monday, 1st of October, when around fifty RPF soldiers opened fire on guards at the Rwandese border post of Kagitumba, and were joined soon after by hundreds more men. Foreign powers had quite the part to play in the civil war, indeed some may even argue, it is certainly a popular opinion among the Banyrwanda, that the RPF was used as a puppet by Ugandan President Museveni, after all, the men who stormed Kagitumba were fully clothed in Ugandan Army Fatigues (Prunier). This, however, appears to be more of a conspiracy than the actual truth. Although Museveni must have known that an invasion was coming at some point, it was thought up by the Rwandese diaspora in Uganda, many of whom, including Paul Kagame, current president of Rwanda, held high positions in Rwandan government. This meant that even if he had wanted to stop it, he likely couldn`t, due the prominence of Rwandese refugees in Ugandan politics, any intervention would have caused politico-military chaos (Prunier), and anyway, the invasion threat, which President Habyarimana also must have known about, served as good leverage for any future negotiations they would have over refugee treatment (Prunier), so therefore it is much more likely that Museveni simply allowed it to happen without playing any active support role.

French was very quick to support, sending troops immediately, eventually numbering around 600, perhaps their show of unconditional support, which had been present since they had slowly replaced Belgium as their primary ally after 1975 following a military cooperation and training agreement (Melvern) meant that the regime felt confident that they were at liberty to do what they want internally and still not lose French backing. In addition to French support, the Belgians, their former colonisers, sent 400 paratroopers down from Brussels, and Mobutu Sese Seko, the President of neighbouring Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) sent several hundred more troops from the Division Speciale Presidentielle, an elite unit of soldiers.

Almost immediately, an internal backlash reminiscent of the massacres of the past broke out within Rwanda, due to the propaganda and orders of a regime so staunchly supported by Foreign powers such as France and Belgium, just over a week after the invasion, officials in Kilbilara were told that murder was part and parcel of the communal work that they were all required to carry out, targeting the impoverished cattle-herding Tutsi who lived apart from the rest of Rwandan society. These killings were mirrored around the country (Melvern). The gendarmerie (police force) and Rwandan soldiers were all part of killings, which sometimes included rounding up Tutsis to slaughter them, murdering them as ruthlessly and as systematically as if they themselves were cattle. In the capital Kigali over five thousand people who were allegedly `RPF supporters` were arrested, being detained in inhumane conditions such as sports stadiums, and told that upon any approach of an RPF army, they would all be executed. (Melvern) There was little foreign reaction, other than the French Colonel Ren Galini , the French defence attach , who warned the French government of the genocidal threat, human rights groups also implored the French to cease their support, but there was no effect on their support to the government, the Belgians on the other hand withdrew, due to the multiple violations of Human rights the Habyarimana regime had perpetrated, they cited a legal necessity to withdraw (Melvern).

Therefore from these interventions we can place a certain amount of blame on the French government for, although not actively doing so, being passive supporters of the human rights atrocities that the Habyarimana regime carried out, and therefore making it acceptable, and if they had taken action similar to that of the Belgian government, they perhaps could have motivated the regime to be less aggressive and could have prevented the genocide mentality from being as imprinted into governmental philosophy, therefore preventing the 1994 massacre.

The Arusha Accords

International powers during the Civil War became concerned at the violence occurring and the instability of the Rwandan government, in particular France, Belgium, the USA and finally the OAU (Organisation of African Unity), who pressured the two sides into negotiations that began in Arusha, a small north-eastern Tanzanian city. The negotiations that took place at Arusha were seen at the time as the most positive foreign contribution to Rwandan affairs in the country s history, mostly engineered by delegates from African states: Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi, Senegal and Zaire, but nevertheless observed by a small handful of western countries. The OAU managed to successfully broker a peace agreement between the Rwandan Government and the RPF, an agreement that covered a wide spectrum of changes, and provided for much more democracy with the inception of a Broad-Based Transitional Government , which provided shared power for all of the main parties including the RPF.

However, people more intimate with the situation were far more sceptical about the success of the agreements. Although the actual accords were very sound and covered most bases, and in theory were a good foundation for peace, it was the unwillingness of Juvenal Habyarimana and his supporters to co-operate, there did not seem to be a desire among them to make the accords work. This in turn lead to a complete lack of trust between the leadership of the parties, a truth that was acknowledged by Joyce Leader, the US deputy head of mission in Rwanda, who in a letter written to the US Secretary of State stated: although leaders of both sides have signed the peace accord, neither side trusts the intentions of the other . The RPF vice-president, Patrick Mazimhaka, corroborated this, as he also said that no member of RPF leadership believed Habyarimana s sincerity in signing the accords to be Genuine (Melvern). Furthermore, it was the lack of support from the international community and the UN to implement the terms of the accords and to send in military and economic support in order to uphold discipline and order. Paul Kagame certainly believed that there would be international support, he told Linda Melvern that he had been assured by diplomats that The whole world would be watching , and that Habyarimana would have no choice but to comply with the accords. In reality however, press coverage on the subject in the international press was extremely limited, the signing of the Arusha Accords was lucky if it was mentioned at all in most major western publications, meaning that barely anyone was watching Habyarimana s actions.

There was continued unrest nationally from the point of the ceasefire right up until the beginning of the genocide. The considerable animosity that remained after the accords should have worried the UN and spurred them to invest more capital and troops into implementing the accords, however, they failed to intervene, and the unrest began to be converted into violence, including ethnic massacres in Kibuye and more violence nationwide. These outbreaks could have been prevented by a more significant peacekeeping mission, however the UN declined to uphold the agreements that they had supported in the first place (Willard, 2014) leaving them as nothing more than written articles, and rather than creating peace, they merely delayed the fighting, only for absolutely devastating further consequences when the spark of President Habyarimana s death lit the fire that had been built since the ceasefire.