In 100 days, beginning April 6, 1994, Hutu extremists in Rwanda mobilized tens of thousands of ordinary Hutu – the majority people – in an effort to exterminate all Tutsi in Rwanda. They almost succeeded. About 3/4 of all Tutsi were murdered, a total of between 600,000 and a million souls.

There are two dimensions to this terrible event from which lessons should be learned: the internal dynamics and the international response. As always, the obvious lessons from both aspects are far easier to delineate than to implement.

Internally, the situation was complicated by the simultaneous emergence of two apparently contradictory developments. Prior to the actual genocide, several massacres of Tutsi had occurred, death squads and death lists materialized, and blatant anti-Tutsi racism, much of it orchestrated by the Hutu government, was widespread and growing. Yet in the very same post-Cold War years, the Rwandan government reacted to external pressures to allow a certain semblance of democracy in the country. A flurry of political parties followed, many with their own youth militias and newspapers. In the ensuing competition for attention and support, the temptation to exploit extreme demagogic positions was often not resisted. Democratic culture as the negotiation of differences by peaceful means and the protection of minority rights was little understood.

Yet neither during this ominous build-up of violence and ethnic hatred nor during the genocide itself did the major powers take any of the actions that might first have prevented and later curtailed the genocide. Indeed the French government worked hand-in-glove with the government until the genocide was unleashed, while during the crisis the American government actively prevented reinforcements being sent to bolster a pathetic UN military mission. By the genocide’s end, not a single new soldier or weapon had reached the UN force.

Around the same time, a French military intervention allowed many of the genocidaire leadership and fighters to escape from Rwanda into Zaire, armed, unrepentant, and ready to continue their genocidal battle. It was that action by the French that led to the wars in the Congo in subsequent years.

Current questions

How was it possible for extremist leaders to persuade ordinary Rwandans to turn on their neighbors, friends, and fellow workers so viciously?

Why did the world not see the signs of disaster building before April 1994 and intervene accordingly?

Once the genocide was undeniable, why did the Security Council still refuse to intervene strongly?

Solutions/recommendations
The lessons to be learned from the genocide are easier to record than to implement.
A democratic culture is far more complex than allowing a multiplicity of political parties and media outlets to operate. In fact, these can be a recipe for disaster, a competition of extreme positions. The protection of minority rights, a commitment to the rule of law, and a full panoply of reliable institutions including the police, army, judiciary and public service are integral to a democratic rightsbased culture.

Greater regional integration – the creation of an identity and an economic interest larger than one’s ethnicity – can reduce ethnic divisions, although the process is fraught with complexity.

No one can force a nation, especially a great power, to intervene in a humanitarian cause against its will. That’s why early warnings are a necessary but by no means sufficient condition for intervention. The UN must have the capacity to identify and publicize a crisis and attempt to mobilize resources to deal with it.

Regional organizations, such as the Africa Union, and sub-regional organizations such as ECOWAS, should take a much greater responsibility for peacemaking in their own regions, as has begun to happen however erratically in Africa. But all such African organizations will continue to need substantial assistance in terms of resources and training for them to play the kind of role they envision.

Western nations need to accept that the ultimate fate of soldiers is to get killed, even in peacekeeping/making missions. The current concept, enshrined at the Security Council, of danger-free intervention has undermined the potential success of several missions already, including the mission for Rwanda during the genocide.

No lessons about genocide prevention can be learned if the genocides are blotted out of the world’s consciousness. That’s why it’s important that the 10th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide in April 2004 be commemorated in an appropriately large-scale and public way across the world. To this day, many of the leading perpetrators have refused to acknowledge their guilt, few of the Europeans who clandestinely supported the genocidaires have been exposed, no reparations to Rwanda have been discussed by states who remained “active bystanders, ” few of those states have acknowledged their responsibility for their failure to intervene or have told the truth about it, France refuses to acknowledge or apologize for its role either prior to the genocide or during its military intervention during the genocide, and the Roman Catholic Church has refused to accept any responsibility for its role during these years.

 

What serious lessons can be learned if this situation is allowed to prevail?