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Rwanda has been called 'a tropical Switzerland in the heart of Africa'. It's about a third the size of Belgium, the country that colonized Rwanda from 1919 until it got its independence in 1962. Visitors think it's a beautiful country. ('Beautiful?' said one Rwandan. 'After the things that have happened here?') Most of the Rwandan population belong to the Hutu ethnic group, who were traditionally crop growing farmers. For many centuries, Rwanda attracted people from the Tutsi ethnic group - traditionally cattle herders - from northern Africa. For 600 years, the two groups shared the business of farming, essential for survival, between them. They also shared their language, their culture, and their nationality. There have been many intermarriages. While they were two different ethnic groups, they became increasingly connected as time passed. Because of their different roles in farming, Tutsis tended to be land owners and Hutus were the people who worked the land. Because a society needs more land workers than land owners, the Hutus naturally outnumbered the Tutsis. Despite living peacefully for 600 years, a wedge was driven between the two groups when the European colonists moved in. It was common for the European colonizers to select a group to be favored, and to serve as their representatives to the native people. The Belgians chose the Tutsis to be the favored group: the Tutsis were landowners, they were tall, and to European eyes, they were more aristocratic in appearance. This division hurt the stability of Rwandan society. Some Tutsis began to behave like rich people, and the Hutu began to feel treated like peasants. Tension grew between the two groups.
European colonial powers also introduced modern weapons and modern methods of waging war. Missionaries, too, came from Europe, bringing a new political twist: the church taught the Hutu to see themselves as oppressed, and this helped to start a revolution. In 1956 the Hutu rebellion began (it would cost over 100,000 lives). By 1959, they had seized power and were stripping Tutsi communities of their lands. Many Tutsis left Rwanda to live in neighboring countries, where they formed the Rwandan Patriotic Front (a Tutsi army), trained their soldiers, and waited. After gaining independence for Rwanda, a politically inexperienced Hutu government began to face challenges. Tensions grew between communities. Tutsi resistance continued to grow as they became more oppressed; in 1972, they were excluded from secondary schools and the university. In 1990, the Rwandan Patriotic Front, the Tutsi army, seized the moment and attacked: civil war began.After 3 years of fighting, a ceasefire was achieved in 1993, but Hutu leaders and extremists fiercely opposed any Tutsiinvolvement in government. On April 6, 1994, the plane carrying Rwanda's president was shot down, though it was unclear if it was the work of Hutus or Tutsis. This was the trigger needed for the Hutus' planned 'Final Solution' to go into operation. The Tutsis were accused of killing the president, and Hutu civilians were told, by radio and word of mouth, that it was their duty to wipe the Tutsis out. First, though, moderate Hutus who weren't anti-Tutsi should be killed. So should Tutsi wives or husbands. Genocide began.
Although many people were killed, the method was very brutal. This genocide was carried out entirely by hand, often using machetes and clubs. The men who'd been trained to massacre were members of civilian death squads, called the Interahamwe ('those who fight together'). Transport and fuel supplies were given to the Interahamwe so that they could travel the entire country to kill the Tutsis. If the Interahamwe faced opposition, the Rwandan army backed them up with manpower and weapons. The Rwandan government, which was run by the Hutus, encouraged and bribed the killers to do their work.
Local government leaders helped to round up victims and find places to kill them. Tutsi men, women, children and babies were killed by the thousands in schools. They were also killed in churches: some clergy even helped in the crime. The victims, in their last moments alive, were also faced by another appalling fact: their cold-blooded killers were people they knew - neighbors, colleagues, former friends, sometimes even relatives through marriage. The killers were willing to turn on their friends and family to rid the country of the Tutsi. People around the world watched footage of the Rwandan Genocide on the evening news. Journalists and news crews were on the group in Rwanda, filming and conducting interviews, but they were unable to help. Even aid agencies like the Red Cross and the United Nations were helpless; they would set up a refugee compound to help protect the Tutsi, but they were forced to leave them there. Once the protecting forces, left, the Hutu groups would descend and kill everyone in the compound. Few survived.
The international response to the Rwandan Genocide was hurt by the
fact that no one was willing to call the killings a genocide. The problem was that if the killings were determined to be genocide, then the United Nations law says that all countries would be forced to intervene to stop the violence. There'd been at least 10 clear warnings to the UN of the 'Hutu power' action, including an anxious telegram from the commander of the UN forces to the then UN Secretary- General three months before the event. The UN Security Council met in secret after the start of the violence. Council members resisted admitting 'that the mass murder being pursued in front of the global media was in fact genocide': genocide involved action no-one wanted to take. Once it was clear that genocide was indeed going on, it was too late.
The USA sent 50 armored personnel carriers to help the UN forces save whoever they could before they had to leave. But when the United States was asked to use its high tech skills to get the killers radio station off the air, America replied, 'the traditional US commitment to free speech cannot be reconciled with such a measure'. France, a supporter of most French-speaking African governments, had been backing the genocidal Hutu government: it was one of their generals who advised the Hutu to 'improve their image' (hence, perhaps, the order to keep corpses out of the sight of cameras).
Once the Tutsi army, the Rwandan Patriotic Front, gained power, around 2 million Hutu perpetrators, their families and supporters fled over the Rwandan borders to the Congo. At first it wasn't hard to find Hutu men in the refugee camps who admitted to their part in the killings, or even bragged about it. But within a year they'd realized such discussions were risky. By the end of 1995 it was hard to find anyone who would admit there had been a genocide at all. Civil war, yes; some massacres, possibly; but no genocide.
For a time, the Hutu lived in the refugee camps, which had been set up to aid the victims of the genocide, not the killers. Aid workers could not and would not separate those involved in the massacres from innocent refugees. Hutu extremists used this time and opportunity to set up a new power base, recruit new militias, and make new plans. This angered the new Tutsi-led government in Rwanda, who wanted to bring the guilty to trial. The Congo, too, wanted to clear the camps; in 1996 the refugees were forced out. Many returned home - a long and ragged procession, watched in profound silence by Rwandan Tutsi as they crossed the border.
The government of Rwanda surprised everyone by declaring a halt to the arrests of suspected killers. This was a practical move aimed at dealing with an impossible situation; nearly a million suspects were already in prison awaiting trial; thousands more - the most wanted - were known to be among the returning refugees, still eager to fight for the Hutu cause.
No-one expected, either, the speed with which the mind-set seemed to shift from murderous killings with machetes, back to peaceful coexistence. Only two years after the genocide, killers and survivors found themselves living side by side - sometimes, for lack of choice, in the same house. Radio stations urged the Tutsis to welcome the returnees as brothers and sisters. The new President's message was endlessly repeated: 'The Rwandan people were able to live together peacefully for six hundred years and there is no reason why they can't live together in peace again. Let me appeal to those who have chosen the murderous and confrontational path, by reminding them that they, too, are Rwandans: abandon your genocidal and destructive ways, join hands with other Rwandans, and put that energy to better use.' Vice-President Paul Kagame said: 'People can be changed. Some people can even benefit from being forgiven, from being given another chance.' There were and are people in Rwanda capable of forgiving: for example, the survivors among those who in 1994 had helped others to escape, saving lives at the risk of their own. One particular group - orphaned girls - has shown a particular readiness to forgive, in the interests of the future. But there are also survivors, impoverished and scarred, who are being asked for tolerance but not given the moral, psychological and practical support they need. 'We were beginning to forget, but now the wound is opened again.'
In 1995, an International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda was set up in Tanzania to force war criminals to stand trial for their actions. At this tribunal, the former prime minister of Rwanda confessed to genocide and conspiracy to commit genocide. The tribunal has done over 50 trials, and convicted more than 50 people. In addition to giving out sentences to war criminals, the tribunal has ruled that rape should be considered a war crime, which is a groundbreaking change. In the Rwandan Genocide, between 250,000 and 500,000 women were raped, and it is estimated that up to 20,000 children were born to women who had been raped. In addition, a study in 2001 found that 70% of Rwandan survivors who had been raped tested positive for HIV/AIDS. The former UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, requested an independent study to look into UN failures during the genocide. The study condemned the UN leadership for ignoring the evidence that a mass murder was planned, for failing to act when the killing began, and for removing the UN staff and abandoning the victims when they most needed help. The report also criticized the USA and other major powers for 'deplorable inaction' and a 'lack of political commitment'. Kofi Annan responded by admitting a 'systematic failure', and his own deep remorse.
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