By the time of the Genocide against the Tutsi in 1994, media in the West often portrayed Rwanda as consisting of warring tribes. But this was not so.
Hutu and Tutsi and the smaller Twa minority have lived in Rwanda for many centuries. Hutu were largely agricultural people, Tutsi were mainly cattle herders and the Twa, hunter-gatherers.
Genocide never happens by chance. It takes time to plan and organize. The warning signs are always there. In Rwanda, these were not acted upon effectively. World leaders ignored detailed warnings from UN peacekeepers on the ground that mass killings were imminent.
Particularly in its early days, many journalists dismissed the Genocide against the Tutsi simply as ‘fighting between rival tribal factions’. If genocide is misread and misreported by civil society and journalists, that can contribute to a lack of appropriate action by world leaders.
Minority groups are often at increased risk during times of economic crisis, political instability or war. Competition over resources, along with a history of tension between minorities and the majority, can also heighten the danger.
These conditions can foster the growth of a set of ideas about the ‘superiority’ of the majority group and hatred for the minority, who are seen as a threat. This is called an ideology of exclusion.
Hutus must know that the Tutsi wife, wherever she may be, is serving the Tutsi ethnic group. In consequence, any Hutu who does the following is a traitor:
All Hutus must know that our Bahutukazi daughters are more worthy and more conscientious in their role of woman, spouse and mother. Are they not more beautiful, good secretaries and more sincere!
Bahutukazi, be vigilant and bid your husbands, brothers and sons to come to their senses.
All Hutus must know that all Tutsis are dishonest in business. Their only goal is ethnic superiority.
In consequence, any Hutu who does the following is a traitor:
The strategic political, administrative, economic, military and security positions must be reserved for the Bahutu.
The education sector (pupils, students, teachers) must be of the Hutu majority.
The Bahutu must stop taking pity on the Tutsi.
The Rwandan Armed Forces must be exclusively Hutu. The war experience in 1990 teaches us this lesson.
No military man should marry a Tutsi woman.
The Bahutu, wherever they are, must be united, interdependent and worried about their Bahutu brothers’ fate.
The Social Revolution in 1959, the1961 referendum, and the Hutu ideology, must be taught to all Bahutu and at all levels.
All Muhutu must widely spread this message. Every Muhutu who persecutes his Muhutu brother is a traitor, for his brother has read, spread and taught this ideology.
Religion can be misused to reinforce belief in a majority group’s superiority over a minority group.
In Rwanda, for example, extreme groups used religious symbolism to exclude Tutsis. The ‘Hutu Ten Commandments’ urged the Hutus to separate themselves from the Tutsis. Extremists can easily use such discriminatory ideology to typify ALL members of the target group as sub-human – men, women and children – and to incite their extermination.
Excluded communities are often barred from politics and have limited access to employment or public services. Crimes against them may go unpunished. Their citizenship may be denied. They may be subjected to forced labour. As exclusion deepens, so does the risk of ethnic cleansing or genocide.
“– I am sick doctor!! –What is your sickness?! –The Tutsi…Tutsi…Tutsi.” Hassan Ngeze portrayed in cartoon in Rwanda Rushya in January 1992. The RPF are demonised as controlling the Arusha peace process. Cartoon published in Le Courrier du Peuple in March 1993.
Genocide is almost always planned and masterminded by small groups with authoritarian or dictatorial powers, but in most cases is carried out with the involvement of the population at large. Leaders often allege that the targeted group is a threat to the rest of the community in order to gain support from the public. Democratic governments can give way to genocidal dictatorship if authoritarian leaders take over government institutions and use them to divide citizens along ethnic, racial or religious lines.
Genocide cannot take place without society’s acceptance. Genocidal leaders often use propaganda to gain that acceptance. Propaganda stereotypes and dehumanizes members of the targeted group and legitimizes hate.
By reducing the humanity of the target group, extremists make it easier for society to accept mass killings. The rest of the community can even see such a campaign as self-defence against a ‘vile’ group of people. At the forefront was Kangura, which in 1990 published the ‘Hutu Ten Commandments’ against the Tutsis.
In Rwanda in the early 1990s, more than 20 newspapers and journals incited hatred towards the Tutsis. They were accompanied by Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM), which came to be known as Rwanda’s hate radio.
In December 2003, two former directors of the station, Ferdinand Nahimana and Jean Bosco Barayagwiza, were convicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda of both incitement to genocide and genocide itself. Barayagwiza was sentenced to 35 years’ imprisonment; Nahimana to imprisonment for the rest of his life.
“RTLM exploited the history of Tutsi privilege and Hutu disadvantage, and the fear of armed insurrection to mobilize the population,whipping them into a frenzy of hatred and violence that was directed largely against the Tutsi group…
Radio heightened the sense of fear, the sense of danger and urgency giving rise to the need for action by listeners.
The denigration of the Tutsi ethnicity was augmented by the visceral scorn coming out of the airwaves, the ridiculing laugh and the nasty sneer. These elements greatly amplified the impact of RTLM broadcasts… without a firearm,machete or any physical weapon, [Nahimana and Barayagwiza] caused the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians.”
Leaders intending to commit genocide often create militias or paramilitary youth movements to promote hatred towards the target group and frighten political opponents. Sometimes such groups become the main instruments of genocide. High unemployment can often boost their ranks.
A number of youth militias were created in Rwanda in the early 1990s. The largest and best known, the Interahamwe, staged lively rallies and offered significant material incentives to new recruits. The militia were also trained by members of Rwanda’s military. When the genocide began in April 1994, Hutu militia members were estimated at nearly 30,000. They were armed and unleashed upon Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
In January 1994, the Commander of UN forces in Rwanda, General Romeo Dallaire, was warned by a Hutu informant that weapons were being stockpiled around the capital city, Kigali. General Dallaire was denied permission to seize the weapons because this was seen as going beyond the authority of the UN observer mission.
Forced displacement of members of a target minority from their homes may be a prelude to genocide. It indicates an ideology of exclusion.
Those displaced may be concentrated in locations where they can be easily controlled, or dispersed into isolated areas, such as a desert, with little or no food or water.
After German occupation in 1939, Jews in Poland were forced to move to ghettos. During the three decades preceding the 1994 genocide, hundreds of thousands of Tutsis were displaced from and within Rwanda. When people are forced to flee, within their countries or crossing borders, it is often a warning sign that threats or mass atrocities are already underway.
“We… say to the Inyenzi [cockroaches] that if they lift up their heads again, it will no longer be necessary to go fight the enemy in the bush. We will… start by eliminating the internal enemy… They will disappear.”
Ntarama church, located in the Bugesera region. Decades before the genocide,Tutsis from elsewhere in Rwanda were forcibly displaced to Bugesera in large numbers.
It was regarded as a hostile environment that would not favour the incoming population. In 1994, thousands were massacred at this church.
A sequence of events took place prior to the genocide which demonstrate the process underway:
Rwandan Army officer informed the UN of a ‘Machiavellian Plan’.
Belgian intelligence report states that ‘the Interahamwe are armed to the teeth… waiting for the right moment to act.’
General Dallaire faxed UN headquarters with information provided by a Hutu Power informer, who disagreed with the planned anti-Tutsi extermination and the registering of all Tutsi living in Kigali. The informer reported that there were 1700 trained men in Kigali, all armed. They could kill 1000 people in 20 minutes.
Dallaire’s request for permission to take immediate preventative action was denied.
UN Special Representative reported special training camps for militia.
Radio Mille Collines broadcast a call for Hutu to ‘defend themselves’.
Human Rights Watch published information on arms entering the country directly and indirectly from France.
Papal Nuncio gave ItalianAmbassador two lists showing Tutsi to be killed.
Ruling party official discloses that ‘if things go badly, the Hutu will massacre them [Tutsi] without pity.’
Belgian military intelligence informed by Rwandan military that if Arusha Peace Accords were implemented, they were ready to liquidate the Tutsi.
Hutu Power leader Bagasora informed UN officials that ‘the only plausible solution for Rwanda would be the elimination of the Tutsi’.
President Habyarimana in further discussions about the Arusha accords with neighbouring heads of state. Returning to Kigali airport, his plane was hit by ground-to-air missiles, killing all on board, including Burundi’s President Cyprien Ntaryamira.
Genocide occurs differently in different places and at different times in history. The Nazis built death camps in Poland for Europe’s Jews and ‘non-Aryans’ and transported millions of people to their deaths. Rwandan extremists achieved it by turning the whole country into a killing zone – where neighbour was turned against neighbour.
Tutsis taking refuge in schools, hospitals and churches were surrounded, attacked and massacred. Roadblocks all over Rwanda served as killing sites for Tutsis trying to escape.
The efficient Rwandan bureaucracy helped to ensure that orders to kill were passed on and carried out swiftly and systematically, aided by a culture of unquestioning obedience to government.
Once society has been led to accept the exclusion of a group, genocidal leaders often ensure that the identity of that group is simplified and highlighted so that its members can be isolated effectively. In Nazi Germany, Jews were forced to wear yellow stars in order to make them easy to identify.
In 1932, Rwanda’s colonial rulers, the Belgians, introduced identity cards as a means of controlling the population. Each card stated the ethnicity of the holder. After independence, the cards were retained. During the 1994 genocide, they were used to differentiate Hutus from Tutsis.
