To what extent were ethnic tensions the primary cause of the Rwandan genocide?

After the installation of the coffee industry by the Belgians, this became Rwanda’s largest export crop.  During the 1980s coffee prices were very high which had enabled Habyarimana to retain power by subsidizing the farmers in return for their loyalty.  However, at the end of the decade there was a crash in the price of coffee which meant he had to shift tactics.  He switched to providing ethnic reasons for supporting the regime and the MRND began a propaganda campaign against the Tutsis along with brutal policies designed to keep the population in line.  Thus the coffee crisis contributed significantly to the overall escalation of the climate of violence.

The failure of the countries involved and also of the international community at large to deal with the Rwandan diaspora was a crucial mistake that could have prevented the genocide, as this eventually led to the formation of the RPF which would later invade Rwanda causing the civil war under which the genocide occurred.  The first wave of refugees fled in 1959 following the “Hutu uprising” or “Social Revolution” when the Belgians placed Rwanda under military rule.  A Belgian colonel, Guy Logeist, who was previously posted to the Congo, decided it would be better to democratise the country before Rwanda was formally decolonised rather than leaving the Tutsi hegemony in place.  This reversal of power caused a huge outpouring of violence to erupt against Tutsis and unfavoured Hutus.  Thus the idea that it was only Tutsis who lived in exile is a myth.  The Rwandan exiles comprised the largest refugee problem in the whole of Africa.  Refugee camps could not cope and there was not enough food to feed everyone.  People were dying at a rate of fifty per day.  The men were thus encouraged to work in the Ugandan army as even if they didn’t get paid; food, clothing and accommodation were guaranteed. 

King Ndahindurwa, who had been deposed in 1962 after a vote was taken in favour of turning Rwanda into a republican state, had fled to Uganda from where he formed a coalition of monarchists and refugees along with Tutsis still residing in Rwanda.  On 13 November 1963 they invaded Rwanda from the Burundi border in an attempt to overthrow the government.  However, this was a total failure which resulted in an internal crackdown on Tutsi “traitors” during the subsequent months in which it is estimated by the World Council of Churches that between 10-13,000 were murdered and many more left destitute.  This caused another mass exodus of Tutsi refugees to flow into the neighbouring countries of Uganda, Zaire, Burundi and Tanzania.

As a refugee, Paul Kagame, today’s President of Rwanda, became a high-ranking officer in the Ugandan army, following extensive training in Cuba in the early 1960s.  He was involved in the overthrow in Uganda of both Idi Amin and his successor Mobote in 1981.  Museveni (whom the RPF helped to establish power) therefore helped the displaced Rwandans with military equipment in the lead up to the Rwandan civil war of the early 1990s.  This was partly due to the debt he felt he owed to the Rwandans but perhaps mostly because if the RPF succeeded then the longstanding refugee problem would be overcome and Uganda’s demographic issues would be lessened.  During Rwanda’s civil war General Paul Kagame became the RPF’s Commander-in-Chief.

Glenn Stannard of Genocide Watch has described the process of creating genocide as occurring in eight distinct stages.  The first stage is classification.  Rwanda was a strongly bi-polar society and it is in these conditions that genocides are most likely to occur.  Tensions are further exacerbated when the opposing groups speak different languages.  In Rwanda, the vast majority of Hutu spoke only Kinyarwanda, very few spoke French or English.  Meanwhile, due to the length of time spent as refugees in Uganda and other Anglophone countries, members of the RPF had abandoned the French language for English.  In the lead up to the 1994 genocide, divisions between these two perceived ethnicities were exploited predominantly via the MRND media and in particular by the radio station, Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM).  Indeed, this polarization caused by the hate propaganda also widened the perceived gulfs in ethnic differences.

The amplification of ethnic tensions by Habyarimana’s regime does not however mean that there were no underlying feelings of hostility in the first place.  Elites in the lead up to the Rwandan genocide employed “social myths” which, according to Smith are based on “assumptions, perceptions and images about the world that are widely shared with others”.  There is a strong comparison here with Nazi Germany in that “the Nazis were masters at socially constructing enemies, but could not have succeeded without a base of everyday antisemitism from which to launch their campaigns”.  Mamdani further reiterates this point when he states that: “there is a link that connects the genocide of the Herero and the Nazi Holocaust to the Rwandan genocide.  That link was race branding, whereby it became possible not only to set a group apart as an enemy, but also to exterminate it with an easy conscience.”   As previously discussed, the Tutsis were seen as the “settler” race and this provided further justification for their ill-treatment during the post-colonial period.  A comparison can be made here with the Jews of Nazi Germany who were themselves seen as the settlers.  In both cases, these two final solutions were what Franz Fanon refers to as “violence to end violence.”

The use of propaganda to instigate ethnic violence was thus an extremely powerful tool in the years preceding and during the 1994 genocide.  Not only because of the existing ethnic tensions but also because of the high illiteracy rate of the peasant Hutu majority and also the wartime restrictions on movement that were put in place supposedly because of the continuing civil war between the RPF and the national army – Les Forces Armées Rwandaises (FAR).  Journalist Fergal Keane describes his reaction to the Rwandans during the genocide as follows: “A few gave the impression of being truly psychopathic individuals.  The mass of others were ragged and illiterate peasants easily roused to hatred of the Tutsis.”

The fact that the Tutsi were portrayed in the lead up to the genocide as still being an oppressing elite was clearly ridiculous due to their mass exodus from the country at various points in the post-colonial period.  However, when remembering that during both pre-colonial and colonial times the Tutsi had enjoyed favoured and superior status; it is certainly possible that the Hutus still felt what researcher Peter Glick describes as: “group envy... tinged with other attitudes including resentment, shrewdness, and fears of planetary takeover”.  Indeed, much of the propaganda told the Hutu peasantry that (following the Arusha Accords) the Tutsis were coming back to take over their land and to commit genocide against them.  During the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) trials, explanations given from some of the perpetrators were that “the government told us that the RPF is Tutsi and if it wins the war all the Hutus will be killed”. 

The dehumanization of the “other” ethnic group plays a crucial part in the orchestration of any genocide.  In Rwanda, Hutu extremists referred to Tutsi enemies as inyenzi meaning “cockroaches”.  Dysphemism is widely used in order to lessen any moral struggle that the masses may feel in perpetrating such crimes.  The target group are usually referred to as a type of animal or disease.  “It is “extermination” to the killers because they do not believe their victims to be fully human”, and thereby feel exemption from the repugnance one would normally feel at killing another human being.  Interestingly in this case, the RPF had given themselves the name inyenzi as they would scuttle into Rwanda under the cover of darkness, then make their assaults and return back across the border before daybreak.

The RTLM radio broadcasts spread propaganda and hate including the naming and whereabouts of those to be slaughtered.  The killing began in Kigali and started with prominent members of society, such as politicians, judges and journalists, then spread to the rest of the country and to the general public.  “For several years prior to the genocide Hutus were exposed to an ongoing and virulent campaign of anti-Tutsi brainwashing.”  The United Nations (UN) as well as NGO activists and US officials noted how the RTLM was “inciting the Rwandan population to mass violence” and considered jamming the station’s frequency but in the event never acted upon this. 

Incitement to genocide made by particular individuals also played a key role.  For example, in November 1992, a Hutu politician, Léon Mugesera, “made a long, fiery speech to over 1,000 Hutus” in person.  Due to the civil war started by the invasion of the RPF in October 1990, the Tutsis were made scapegoats as were the Jews in Germany during the interwar years.  The RPF became synonymous with the term Tutsi, despite their composition being made up of not only Tutsis but also moderate Hutus who wanted to be rid of Habyarimana, the MRND and its dictatorship and suppression of the masses.  This was facilitated by blaming the RPF, and by extension the Tutsis, for the assassination of president Habyarimana that was the tipping point for the genocide to begin. 

It is widely believed that Rwanda’s colonial legacy caused the conditions which led to the 1994 genocide: “The Rwandan genocide was a product of a post-colonial state.”  According to Arendt, colonialism entailed an extension of the laws of the mother country, whilst imperialism denied the inhabitants human rights and its primary goal was economic.  This view is contested, however, by Gines who cites the genocides which took place in the Americas and Australia where the colonizers “employed similar violent, religious, and even racist tactics for the purpose of economic expansion.”  This spread of racism by the European powers was a precursor to totalitarianism, according to Arendt.  At the time of writing, she was of course thinking of Nazism and Soviet communism but it can be equally applied in the case of post-colonial Africa where many of the independent premiers have enforced tyrannous conditions upon their subjects.  This is an important indicator for the 1994 genocide (and indeed in the Tutsi massacres over the preceding decades) for the higher social identity a person has, the more prone they are to totalitarianism and therefore more susceptible to propaganda which could incite them to carry out genocide.

When viewing the history of Rwanda it is important to note that not only was Rwanda subject to colonialism by the Germans and then the Belgians for approximately a century until independence in 1962; afterwards it also became a neo-colonial client state of the West, and in particular, of France.  Following independence, France took a great interest in this country on the edge of the Francophone world.  This was most certainly seen in Habyarimana’s close relationship with France’s President Mitterrand and his predecessors following the former’s take-over of power by a military coup in 1973.  But this can be traced back to 1962 when Hutu Grégoire Kayibanda became Rwanda’s first republican president.  France actively supported Habyarimana’s dictatorial regime, and indeed the system would have crumbled without this reinforcement.  Under an official agreement, France provided military training to the Rwandan army from 1975 onwards and also with weapons and vehicles.  This was seen most notably in the period leading up to the genocide of 1994.  Additionally, Mitterrand’s son had “serious business interests” in Rwanda. This again highlights the fuelling of tensions for financial gain.  Accordingly, the rise of the nation-state and global hegemony by Northern Hemisphere powers has contributed to conditions where genocide has become not unusual. 

France’s Premier from 1959 to 1969, De Gaulle’s, goal of promoting French interests abroad was clear and there is a striking correlation between France’s actions within the European Economic Community (EEC), and her sudden interest in this central African state.  There was also a lot of competition and animosity between France and England which was most notably seen by France blocking the UK’s entry into the EEC on two separate occasions, firstly in 1963 and again in 1967.  After De Gaulle’s Fouchet Plan was rejected by the other Member States of the EEC France declined to participate further resulting in the “empty chair crisis” of 1965.  De Gaulle was suspicious of anything that would undermine French sovereignty and reduce its influence.  The importance of this is that France propped up an extremely repressive regime which was said to be the most controlled non-communist state in the world.  This also indicates the strength of De Gaulle’s desire for France to increase its relative power position in the world of states compared with the UK, and that he used Rwanda as a pawn in this struggle.

During the 1990-1994 civil war, Habyarimana’s administration received financial aid from the European Union (UN) plus considerable bilateral aid from France, Germany, Belgium and the USA.  This included a military aid package from France.  They were also recipients of a $216 million International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank package which had Structural Adjustment Policies attached designed to curb inflation and to stabilize the country’s economy.  Much of this money was spent on arms sold to them by Egypt.  The Eqyptian arms deal was facilitated by the French investment bank, Credit Lyonnais, who ensured the transaction via the provision of a bank guarantee.  This provides further evidence that France had strong strategic and financial links with the MRND party and that this support contributed significantly to the militarization of Rwandan society in the years preceding the genocide.

Habyarimana distributed many Kalashnikovs to party members loyal to his regime ostensibly in order to arm the civilian population against the RPF insurgents.  Meanwhile, the RPF was heavily equipped with arms which originated predominantly from the ex-Eastern bloc countries which were widely available on the African continent at that time.  There was therefore a huge amount of armoury within Rwanda by the time of the 1994 genocide, not only within the military but also amongst the general public.  According to Human Rights Watch, these armed units were separate from the Interahamwe militia which carried out the genocide with machetes and other tools.  This view is widely contested though as the militias “were centrally organised, with a national president, vice-president and leaders down to the neighbourhood level,” and could not therefore have been “random groups of young thugs.”  There was also the creation of the hard-line Hutu party Coalition pour la Défense de la République et de la Démocratie (CDR) at this time which also created its own militia.  On top of this the government created a death squad known as “Network Zero”.  This concerted effort at obtaining weapons, creating militias and arming the civilian population shows a resolute effort at creating a genocide which would indicate that the intentionalists would most readily explain events from 1992-94.  Intentionalism stresses “the systematic, step-by-step implementation... [of] direct and explicit orders,” and that the genocide was not merely a sudden outpouring of violence due to long-harboured ethnic grievances.

After 1990, when the situation began deteriorating rapidly, Belgium removed its military support from Rwanda and instead brokered a power-sharing deal between the ruling MRND, the exiled RPF as well as other independent parties.  This resulted in the Arusha Peace Accords which were signed in August 1993.  The ruling Hutu elite were most unhappy about this situation and even Habyarimana himself openly vilified the agreements.  This would also have lessened France’s influence in the area.  It is for this reason that France provided the MRND with so much military support.  The French military even took part directly in the civil war.  This highlights the collusion between the MRND and the French government to crush the opposition arising from the RPF and their allies.

From this information it is clear to see how over the centuries that the ruling elites at each stage in Rwanda’s history have fuelled tensions and exploited differences between the Hutu and Tutsi ethnicities for political expediency.  Always using one faction to dominate and oppress the other.  The Arusha Peace Accords, had they been allowed to be implemented fully, would have seen a reversal of this trend and caused a change in attitudes and peaceful co-existence to occur.  It is for this reason that the 1994 Rwandan genocide is often referred to as the “preventable genocide.”  The overturning of the traditional Tutsi hegemony in 1959 was a decisive factor which created the first wave of ethnic violence and consequential refugee crisis to occur.  From this point forward ethnic rivalry would become engrained and yet the high levels of intermarriage would suggest otherwise.  France’s neo-colonial support for the successive Hutu-majority dictatorships from 1962 onwards played a vital role in providing military and political support for the “democratic” government.  This was a classic case of “the tyranny of the majority” of which de Tocqueville famously spoke of.  De Gaulle’s wish to promote Francophone cultural and political advancement; as well as Mitterrand’s financial interests precipitated this.  The coffee crisis of the late 1980’s meant Habyarimana could no longer buy the peasant’s loyalty with farming subsidies so began instigating violent ethnic hatred amongst the population.  Due to the authoritarian nature of Rwanda’s political system, the Rwandans were easily provoked by the MRND’s hate propaganda machine.  This was further expedited by the Hutus’ lack of education and access to free information.  So was ethnic hatred the primary cause of the genocide?  In short yes it was.  But crucially this was set off by the flip in power relations brought about in 1959 and by successive independent governments in order to retain power.  Ethnic tensions had undoubtedly existed since pre-colonial times but were certainly nowhere near the height to which they would become thereafter.  The 1994 genocide was coordinated by the MRND, and aided and abetted by France and her allies in order to maintain their mutual interests in the Rwandan state.  In the end, Habyarimana was the first casualty of his own genocide, which he and his supporters, both at home and abroad, orchestrated in order to maintain their political and financial interests.

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