GENERAL INFORMATION
Rwanda lies on the East African plateau, with the divide between the water systems of the Nile and Zaire rivers passing in a north-south direction through the western part of the country. To the west of the divide, the land drops sharply to Lake Kivu in the Great African Rift Valley; to the east, the land falls gradually across the central plateau - its grassy highlands are the core areas of settlement of Rwanda's population - to the swamps and lakes on the country's eastern border. Rwanda is a landlocked country surrounded by Uganda (to the north), Tanzania (to the east), Burundi (to the south), and the Democratic Republic of Congo (to the west).
Most of Rwanda is 3,000 ft above sea level, with much of the central plateau being higher than 4,700 ft. In the northwest, on the border with Zaire, are the volcanic Virunga Mountains; the highest peak, Mount Karisimbi (14,870 ft) is snowcapped. Lake Kivu, 4,700 feet above sea level, drains into Lake Tanganyika, through the sharply descending Ruzizi River. The Kagera River, which forms much of Rwanda's eastern border, flows into Lake Victoria.
Rwanda’s population as of 2006 was 8.6 million people with an average life expectancy of 42 years for men and 45 years for women. The primary official language is Kinyarwanda, though many Rwandans speak French as a second official language. Due to animosity regarding France’s participation in the genocide of 1994, however, English is rapidly becoming more common and has recently been added as a third official language. Swahili is also spoken by many Rwandans. The dominant religious is Roman Catholicism, though other forms of Christianity, particularly Evangelism, and Islam are gaining converts. Indigenous religious beliefs, such as kubandwa, are seriously declining and are rarely practiced today.
EARLY HISTORY
Deciphering Rwanda’s early history is complicated. The vast majority of historical evidence comes from an extensive oral historical tradition which was largely maintained by members of the Rwandan royal court and then passed on to colonialists throughout the last 100 years. While some archaeological excavations have been conducted in the region, beginning in the 1940s, important dates and time periods in Rwanda’s early history remain general. Its early history remains under-researched by Rwandans and foreigner alike.
Despite such concerns, archaeological evidence suggests that Rwanda has been a fertile home for humans since the early Iron Age. With regards to its modern populations, early colonialist studies have argued that Rwanda was first settled by pygmoid hunter-gatherer communities who would later come to be known as the Twa people (Twa). Sometime before 700 BCE, the Twa were then joined by the Bantu Hutu, who introduced agriculture to the region and quickly became the majority in the region. Finally, around the 10th century CE, the Tutsi arrived, introducing cattle raising, a formal kingdom with fixed boundaries and a hierarchical society ruled by a Tutsi monarch.
It is important to note that prior to colonization, Rwanda did not suffer from ethnic divisions. While its people were known to engage in both domestic and foreign wars, these wars were typically small, and primarily fought against foreign tribes or kingdoms or between chiefly lineages. The Tutsi, Hutu and Twa people were not tribal groups as they shared the same Bantu language, lived within the same communities without requiring a division of territory, and freely intermarried. In fact, over time it was possible for a lineage to shift from being identified as Tutsi to Hutu and vice versa, according to the economic status of the family. Thus, an individual could change his identity by engaging in ubuhake, best described as a form of unequal clientship contact entered into by two men, whereby the wealthier patron (shebuja) would give a cow to a client (mugaragu). Traditionally, Hutu were not allowed to own cattle, which were valued as a symbol of wealth and power, so this shift in ownership allowed the client not only economic improvement but an opportunity for social mobility. Future calves would be shared between the patron and his client. Thus, once the gift of a cow had been accepted, the Hutu lineage of the patron would become Tutsi.
GERMAN COLONIALISM
Germany was assigned the region of Ruanda-Urundi during the Berlin Conference of 1885 as part of German East Africa. Upon discovering that their new territory had a highly organized power structure and administration, the German government decided to establish indirect rule, whereby they used the pre-existing hierarchy to manage the territory by converting its upper class and monarch to Christianity and encouraging loyalty to Germany. Thus, German representatives decided that the best policy for ruling their new colony was to strengthen the existing monarch (King Kanjogera) by supporting his position in the country and helping him to gain control of otherwise lightly-controlled peripheral regions. This created a policy of indirect rule which left a great deal of power in the hands of the Rwandan monarchy and a select number of Tutsi chiefs, and oppressed the Hutu and Twa populations.
BELGIAN COLONIALISM
With the outbreak of World War I, however, German occupation in Ruanda-Urundi came to an end. In 1916, Belgium invaded the territory and began a new colonial era which was formally recognized by the international community in 1919 when the League of Nations officially entrusted the region to Belgium. Like the Germans before them, the Belgians decided to use existing power structures to rule the colony and encourage loyalty to Belgium by committing to economic reforms, improved infrastructure and mass conversion to Roman Catholicism. Likewise, the Belgians remained intrigued by the social distinctions apparent between the different communities in Rwanda and embarked on a scientific program to measure, record, and compare the physical characteristics of members of the different indigenous groups.
It was during this period that the Hamitic hypothesis was introduced to Rwanda society. This theory asserted that the Tutsi were the descendents of Noah’s son, Ham, and had immigrated from Israel through Ethiopia to Rwanda. This theory was based on “scientific” observations that the Tutsi had more Caucasoid features, namely, increased height and intelligence, gracile features and lighter colored skin. Thus, due to their Caucasian heritage, the Tutsi were perceived by the Belgians as the natural rulers of the allegedly “primitive” indigenous Hutu population, who were said to be distinguishable by their slow wits, short stature, stocky build and darker skin. The Twa, meanwhile, were dismissed as “an atavistic throwback to the ape” who were destined to disappear.
While the Hamitic hypothesis had a number of serious social impacts for Rwandan society, the most important of these was the introduction of identity cards in 1935 which served to definitively fix the Rwandan people as of either Twa, Hutu or Tutsi ethnicity. Ethnicity was determined by the physical characteristics of the cardholder. In instances where a conclusion based on physiology was difficult to determine, a family which owned more than 10 cattle was categorized as Tutsi. Simultaneously, those identified as Tutsi were granted increased access to education and better employment opportunities in relation to their Hutu and Twa counterparts, because the Tutsi were perceived as more intelligent and capable of leadership. This led to a tradition of Hutu and Twa political and social domination by the Tutsi, the living memory of which motivated a number of Hutu extremists to perpetrate atrocities during the Rwandan Genocide of 1994. The identity cards, meanwhile, provided a tangible mechanism by which extremists could identify their victims with minimal effort.
Then in 1945 the United Nations was formed, allowing for the introduction of a charter which promised basic human rights, including the right to freedom, to colonized populations around the world. At this point, Ruanda-Urundi became a United Nations Trust Territory while it made the transition to independence from Belgian rule. A visit by a UN mission in 1948 resulted in the publication of a report that was critical of Belgian rule, particularly due to the Belgians decision to rule through the Tutsis, while oppressing the Hutu and Twa communities. Subsequent visits further entrenched the belief that Ruanda-Burundi should be granted its independence.
Meanwhile, increased recognition of the hardships facing the Hutu and Twa communities led to the emergence of a distinctive Hutu voice in the early 1950s which demanded recognition for the majority. Future Rwandan president Grégoire Kayibanda began to gain popularity at this time for his stance against colonialism and domination by the Tutsi. Thus, in order to meet the demands of Hutu activists the system of ubuhake was formally abolished, though the practice was maintained for several years more. Likewise, in 1957 the Superior Council of Rwanda began to call for independence ahead of schedule so as to allow the Hutu majority to take power in Rwanda. Simultaneously, a group of Hutu intellectuals released the first Hutu Manifesto, which challenged the structure of the Rwandan administration, highlighted the injustices and inequalities facing the Hutu majority and proposed a series of solutions which the international community was expected to support.
The Catholic Church decided to support the demands of the Hutu majority, and so began to encourage the creation of political parties intended to bring about the end of Tutsi domination. Thus, parties such as the openly sectarian and pro-Hutu Association pour la Promotion Sociale des Masses (APROSOMA) and the more moderate Rassemblement Démocratique Rwandais (RADER) appeared on the scene. The goal of these parties was to affect a transformation to a more democratic system prior to Rwanda’s independence so as to ensure that the injustices of the current system would not continue after independence. In light of the growing momentum toward Hutu equality and democracy, Belgium decided to reverse its previous policy of supporting the powerful Tutsi minority in Rwanda, and switched its allegiance to the Hutu majority instead.
With the death of Mwami Rudahigwa in July 1959, the first violence between Tutsis and Hutus erupted in Rwanda. On November 1st, the beating of a Hutu chief loyal to the Parti du Mouvement de l’Emancipation Hutu (PARMEHUTU) by members of the Union Nationale Rwandais (UNAR) caused organized Hutu gangs to take to the streets throughout the country with the goal of burning and looting property, and killing Tutsis. An estimated 300 civilians died in the hostilities, and in an attempt to regain control Belgian Colonel Guy Logiest was brought in to establish military rule. Logiest was openly pro-Hutu and determined to right the injustices of colonization. As a result, he soon began replacing Tutsi officials with Hutus, and Tutsis began fleeing Rwanda in large numbers in order to escape the outbursts of anti-Tutsi violence which became increasingly common under Logiest’s watch.
It was in the midst of this atmosphere of increasing violence and instability that Rwanda’s first, but unrecognized election occurred in 1960. The PARMEHUTU party gained power and began working toward declaring Rwanda an independent republic. Thus, in January 1961, Rwanda’s elected administrators and a crowd of an estimated 25,000 Rwandans gathered in Gitarama to declare Rwanda a republic. In the face of this ultimatum, the UN had no choice but to recognize the new nation with the condition that new, formally-recognized elections be held in September 1961. Once again, the PARMEHUTU party won. Its right to rule the new republic was formally recognized by the UN in July 1962, with Grégoire Kayibanda as its new president.
Unfortunately, the achievement of democracy did nothing to cease the atrocities being afflicted on the Tutsi majority in Rwanda. In the following years, anti-Tutsi violence became increasingly common with an estimated 135,000 Tutsi civilians fleeing the country by the end of 1962. It was during this period that Paul Kagame, future leader of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), left Rwanda as a refugee.
THE NEW REPUBLIC OF RWANDA
Once in power, the PARMEHUTU party began reinforce its supremacy. As part of this, a quote system was introduced whereby Tutsis, who made up 9% of the population of Rwanda, were allocated only 9% of the available seats in schools and the workforce. Tutsi refugee groups, meanwhile, began conducting small raids into Rwanda, which resulted in an estimated 10,000 Tutsis dying as a result of reprisal killings in 1963. It was during this period that the international community began commenting on the human rights abuses that were occurring in Rwanda, culminating in the publication of a report entitled “Attempted Genocide in Rwanda” in the March 1964 issue of The World Today (Vol. 20, No. 3).
Despite such instability and the increasing corruption of the regime, however, Kayibanda continued to be elected every four years. In 1969, however, PARMEHUTU was renamed the Mouvement Démocratique Réublicain (MDR) and the extremist policies of the parties increased dramatically. As a result, in 1973 the Minister of Defense, Juvenal Habyarimana, was able to capitalize on increasing concern among all Rwandans following the violence purge of Tutsis from all educational establishments, and overthrow Kayibanda in a military coup. In the short term there were signs of improvement in Rwanda, particularly where the treatment of Tutsis were concerned.
However, in 1975 Habyarimana abolished the multi-party system and introduced a new political party called the Mouvement Révolutionnaire et National pour le Développement (MRND). “Democratic” elections continued to be held, with Habyarimana reconfirmed as president in 1978, 1983, and 1988. The election results should not be taken as a sign of public support, however, as Hayarimana and the MRND were the only option when voting. Conversely, it seemed Habyarimana’s tendency to engage in regional discrimination slowly undermined his support base, as he was increasingly accused of favoring Hutus from the north where he was from, while his inability to deal with the gradual collapse of commodity prices further contributed to the dissatisfaction of the public.
Meanwhile, events in Uganda began to further threaten stability in Rwanda. Refugees of conflicts in Rwanda in 1959 to 1961, and 1963 to 1964, the majority of whom were Tutsi, had fled to Uganda, and in the aftermath of the conflicts been refused the right to return to their traditional homes. The resulting Banyarwanda community formed a distinct cultural minority within Uganda, which was widely perceived by native Ugandans to be a diaspora community and thus, should not be allowed citizenship. The Banyarwanda community was thus forced to pursued civil rights within Uganda in the 1970s, culminating in the formation of the Rwandan Refugee Welfare Foundation (RRWF) in 1979, which became the Rwandan Alliance for National Unity (RANU) in 1980. In 1981, Yoweri Museveni convinced RANU leader to join him in a guerilla war against Ugandan president Milton Obote by offering to support their mission to return to Rwanda or gain civil rights in Uganda should he be successful in overthrowing the current regime. The resulting civil war resulted in the massive displacement of Banyarwandan civilians who tried to flee to Rwanda in order to avoid reprisal killings by Obote and his political youth groups. The Rwandan government quickly closed its border with Uganda, leaving many Banyarwandan civilians trapped in southern Uganda or refugee camps in northern Rwanda, and faced with harsh living conditions and the continued threat of attack.
Museveni’s National Resistance Army finally managed to overthrow Obote in 1986, at which point Museveni became the new president of Uganda. In the meantime, RANU had gained important combat experience. In 1987, RANU was renamed the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) and continued to garner support from an increasing number of Rwandan and Ugandan Rwandans who opposed Habyarimana’s increasingly corrupt and hostile regime. Then, a military coup in Burundi in late 1987 caused a flood of Burundian Tutsi refugees to leave for Rwanda in search of stability. These refugees were met by hostility by the Habyarimana regime, which was hindered from giving assistance in part by its anti-Tutsi politics and in part by the fact that the Rwandan economy was severely affected by a decline in the price of coffee, Rwanda’s main export. As reports of mismanagement, human rights abuses and corruption began to appear in the local and international media in 1990, the international community placed pressure on Habyarimana to return Rwanda to a multi-party democracy. While Habyarimana accepted this demand on paper, he failed to make the necessary reforms.
THE CIVIL WAR
As a result of this lack of action within the Habyarimana regime, the RPF invaded Rwanda on October 1st, 1990. At this time, the RPF was led by Major General Fred Rwigyema, whose primary objective was to resolve democracy in Rwanda. This initial incursion by the RPF into Rwanda was suppressed and resulted in the death of Rwingyema. However, the RPF were successful in forcing Habyarimana to take the them seriously. In recognition of this new threat Habyarimana enlarged the Rwandan National Army and began buying large quantities of arms from France, South Africa and the United States. In addition, Habyarimana initiated a series of reprisals against Rwandan civilians, primarily Tutsis and Hutus from the southern provinces, who were perceived as being at risk of maintaining loyalties to the RPF.
In response to the renewal of human rights violations against Tutsis and Hutu moderates, the international community placed increased pressure on Habyarimana to reintroduce a multi-party system and discontinue the use of identity cards that stated the holder’s ethnic affiliation. Once again, Habyarimana agreed to these demands, yet refused to implement them. Instead, the Rwandan National Army began to train and arm civilian militias, later referred to as the Interahamwe. The Interahamwe would later be responsible for the worst killings during the Rwandan genocide of 1994.
Meanwhile, Major Paul Kagame succeeded Rwigyema as leader of the RPF and continued to gain recruits for his cause. The RPF continued to make small incursions into Rwanda, resulting in more instability and increased international pressure to come to an agreement. The RPF’s stated purpose was to reintroduce democracy to Rwanda, and as such it was largely supported by the international community. The main exception to this statement was France, which continued to support the Habyarimana regime, providing funds, training and other forms of support aimed at enlarging and improving the Rwandan National Army. Despite this controversial activity on the part of the French government, in August 1993 the international community was successful in bringing Habyarimana and the RPF to the negotiating table. The result of these negotiations was the Arusha Agreement signed in August 1993, which committed Habyarimana to a number of reforms, including political power-sharing, the establishment of the rule of law, the repatriation and resettlement of refugees of previous human rights violations, and the integration of the RPF with the Rwandan National Army. Upon signing, Habyarimana was expected to implement the reforms within 37 days – a process which was to be overseen by a United Nations force. The terms of the agreement proved difficult to implement however, as both MRND and RPF extremists continued to stall for more concessions. In response to deepening ethnic tensions, the local radio stations and newspaper began publishing polarizing anti-Tutsi propaganda.
Following the assassination of the Burundian president, a Hutu man named Melchior Ndadaye, on the 21st of October, 1993, ethnic tensions increased in Rwanda yet again. The UN sent a force called UNAMIR, led by Roméo Dallaire, to Rwanda in the hopes of encouraging the implementation of the Arusha Agreement. As the situation in Rwanda continued to escalate, UNAMIR’s mandate proved to be hopeless ineffective at maintaining peace. The Interahamwe began actively trying to provoke UNAMIR troops in the hopes that they would break their mandate and use force, thus giving the Interahamwe a reason to begin killing the peacekeepers, a move which was believed would force the withdrawal of all foreign troops. Meanwhile, Dallaire began receiving reports that the Habyarimana regime stockpiling weapons in preparation for the widespread systematic massacre of Tutsi civilians. His attempts to warn the UN and his requests to have UNAMIR’s mandate expanded to include the use of force to protect civilians fell on deaf ears.
Thus, with the assassination of Habyarimana on April 6th, 1994, there was little that could be done to stop the violence. Unknown assailants shot down Habyarimana’s plane on the evening of the 6th as it approached the Kigali airport for landing. Within hours, the systematic massacre of Tutsis and Hutu moderates began.
THE GENOCIDE
Contention exists regarding the primary factors responsible for the genocide. Initial studies of the genocide, conducted by experts such as Alison Des Forges, highlighted the importance of the media, particularly the Rwandan radio station, Radio-Télévision Libre des Milles Collines (RTLM), in inciting the violence. The radio had a strong impact on the Rwandan people, due to the fact that few Rwandans at the time could read or write, and thus relied on the radio for information of state affairs. Based on this realization, the goal of the Habyarimana regime was to mobilize the illiterate Hutu majority as a “self-defence force” capable of identify and annihilating the RPF threat, a threat which as the conflict progressed included the Tutsi minority as a whole. With the RPF invasion in 1990, the Habyarimana government saw an opportunity “to stop the erosion of their popularity and to try to craft a new Hutu solidarity” by using the radio to turn the Hutu public against the Tutsi minority. Thus, reports claiming that the Tutsis were supporting the RPF invasion were immediately broadcast to the masses. These more subtle broadcasts were followed, beginning in 1992, by programs that sought to dehumanize the Tutsi by referring to them as cockroaches, and openly promoted the killing of Tutsi civilians using speeches and songs written and performed by Hutu extremists. In this manner, the RTLM primed the Hutu civilian population for massacre, directed them in their killing of Tutsi civilians, and finally, provided a source of authority which suggested that these atrocities could be perpetrated with impunity.
Other commonly cited factors believed responsible for inciting Hutu extremists to participate in the genocide include material opportunism, population pressure, frustration, peer-pressure and reluctance to go against orders. International media reports, meanwhile, tended to incorrectly cite tribalism, described as a predisposition to violence due to a tradition of tribal conflict, as the primary motivator of the genocide.
More recently, Scott Straus has argued that it was an environment of uncertainty and instability born of civil war which provided the primary motivation for the Rwandan genocide. This conclusion is based on careful statistical analysis of interviews conducted with convicted perpetrators. Straus argues that the leaders of the genocide were primarily adult males with above average levels of education and families to support, while the most violent individuals among the perpetrators were younger males with minimal amounts of education. An estimated 10% were elites who leveraged their political power and access to weapons to incite others to perpetrate atrocities against Tutsi civilians who were alleged to be supporters of the RPF and responsible for the assassination of President Habyarimana. The overwhelming majority of subjects interviewed by Straus acknowledged the threat to their existence posed by the RPF invasion as central to their reasons for assisting the genocide, while other factors such as material opportunism, population pressure, frustration, peer-pressure and reluctance to go against orders were found to be only minimal motivators.
That said, it is unlikely that the genocide would have occurred had it not then been for the assassination of Habyarimana. Habyarimana’s assassination provided Hutu extremists with an opportunity to implement their plan for the destruction of the Tutsi minority. Within hours of Habyarimana’s death, local radios were blaming the RPF and Tutsis, more generally, for the assassination while the Presidential Guard and other troops led by Colonel Bagosora moved through Kigali murdering moderate Hutu government officials and leaders of the political opposition. Simultaneously, roadblocks began to appear throughout the cities as a means of culling the population of Tutsis who might try to flee. At this point, the identity card system introduced by the Belgians became incredibly dangerous for Tutsis, who ethnic affiliation was clearly marked on these documents and was typically cause for immediate and brutal execution if discovered by the Interahamwe and their followers. In the absence of identity cards, physical markers, such as the size and shape of the person’s nose, their height or the color of their skin, were used to determine whether they were likely to be Tutsi, and thus targeted for execution.
In the following three months, during which the genocide continued unabated, an estimated 800,000 to 2,000,000 civilians died. Upon realizing the severity of the violence that was affecting Rwanda, the RPF decided to launch a major offensive against the Hutu extremists on April 8th in order to save Tutsis from slaughter and remove the Hutu extremists from power once and for all. At this point, UNAMIR had 2,500 troops but was nonetheless helpless to stop the violence because of limitations placed on their mandate by the UN. The situation worsened dramatically following the torture and execution of 10 Belgian peacekeepers. Belgium quickly withdrew the remainder of its troops, and UNAMIR’s troops were cut to 250. On April 30th, the UN Security Council began to discuss the “Rwanda crisis” more seriously, however, the decision-making process was slow. In May, the UN agreed to send 6,800 troops to reinforce UNAMIR and change the mission’s mandate to include the protection of civilians, but delays due to arguments over funding and equipment resulted in the reinforcements never being sent.
Allegedly faced with the realization that the UN was unable and/or unwilling to provide reinforcements in a timely manner, in June the French announced that they would deploy 2,500 troops to Rwanda as part of Opération Turquoise, which counted as its official goal the creation of a “safe zone” in the southwest. Skeptics have argued that the real motive behind this decision was the RPF’s success in fighting the Hutu extremists. France had traditionally maintained close relations with the Habyarimana regime prior to the genocide, and French troops are believed by some to have been responsible for shooting down Habyarimana’s plane in 1994. Thus, skeptics argued that French intervention was intended to stop the RPF advance, which at this point had taken control of the Kigali airport and the Kanobe barracks, and provide an escape for any remaining Hutu extremists. And while the French troops did not engage the RPF at any point, Opération Turquoise nonetheless provide a safe area through which Hutu extremists could escape the RPF advance. In this manner, many Interahamwe fled to refugees camps in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where they continue to contribute to instability in the region today.
On July 4th, the RPF captured Kigali and introduced an interim government. The fighting, however, continued in the western and northern provinces of Rwanda. Thousands of refugees continued to flee to the French “safe zone,” while others sought refuge in the DRC. Intensive fighting continued until July 18th, at which point the RPF announced that they had won the war and declared a ceasefire. They established a new Government of National Unity to be led by President Pasteur Bizimungu and Prime Minister Faustin Twagiramungu. The RPF commander, Major General Paul Kagame became the new Minister of Defense and Vice President. Stability slowly returned to the country, and by the end of August, Opération Turquoise was terminated and replaced by UN forces. At the same time, the RPF government agreed to allow the UN Security Council to establish an international criminal tribunal (ICTR) in Arusha, Tanzania to deal with alleged large-scale perpetrators of the genocide.
THE LEGACY OF GENOCIDE
The excessive violence with which many Tutsis and Hutu moderates were killed by extremists continues to be a source of shock. The genocidaires typically used machetes and masus (a type of club) to kill their victims, though when faced with the massacre of large groups of civilians grenades and bullets might also be used. In the initial stages of the attacks, guns and grenades would be used to kill, injury or stun the majority of the victims, at which point the perpetrators would then engage in face-to-face killing using machetes and masus. In some instances, individual victims could pay their attackers to shot them if they could afford the cost of a bullet. That said, this relatively humane form of execution was the exception, rather than the rule during the genocide. Physical and testimonial evidence suggests that excessively brutal, close proximity killings perpetrated by groups of armed civilians and militia were the norm. Such patterns of execution likely resulted from the widespread availability of machetes and related implements, as well as the realization that these instruments would inflict a great deal of pain upon the victims prior to their death. In addition, such modes of execution meant that multiple individuals would often contributed to the death of a single individual, meaning that complicity in the genocide would be shared among all participants.
In addition, observers have noted that Tutsi women and children were often singled out for particularly brutal forms of torture and execution during the genocide. Susana SàCouto has written on the subject of mass rape during the genocide and believes that this form of violence was inflicted upon Tutsi women in a systematic manner. Furthermore, it had communicative value, meaning that there was absolutely “no confusion between the victim and perpetrator over the content of the message.” The rapes were rarely sexual in nature, and in many instances implements such as machetes, knives and spears were used to penetrate the victims. By targeting Tutsi women in this manner, the perpetrators simultaneously inflicted countless physical injuries, which in severe cases culminated in permanent gynecological injury that destroyed the victims’ capacity to reproduce, exposed the women to a variety of sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS, potentially impregnated the victims with children who would be perceived as outsiders, and finally, undermined the unity of victim community by dishonoring the women. This last point relates to an initial source of trauma associated with the experience of rape, namely the tendency for rape to be used as a weapon of genocide in those societies where the victim group is more likely to stigmatize the rape survivors rather than the rapists. In Rwanda, it is nearly impossible for a woman who is known to have been raped to marry, a social factor that has forced many women to remain silent about their experiences and the resulting trauma they suffer from.s Genocidal rape is thus particularly brutal because in addition to the initial physical rape of the victim, the survivor experiences a “second rape” whereby she is ostracized by her community for having tarnished the honor of the ethnic group. Several victims were told by their attackers that they were being allowed to survive the rape so that they would “die of sadness.” An awareness of such factors contributed to the ICTR’s statement that “sexual violence was a step in the process of destruction of the Tutsi group – destruction of the spirit, of the will to live and of life itself.”
Rape was not the only form of sexual violence inflicted upon Tutsis during the Rwandan Genocide, however. Sexual slavery, otherwise referred to as forced marriages, whereby Tutsi women were captured and held against their will in houses where they were forced to perform sexual favors for Hutu men for extended periods of time, was also widespread. In this atmosphere, rapes were perpetrated by many men in succession against few women. Furthermore, the rapes of Tutsi sex slaves were often staged publicly to multiple the terror and degradation of the victim, as well as emphasize their sexual vulnerability and demonstrate their community’s inability of to protect her.
Meanwhile, some Tutsi women were subjected to forced maternity during the Rwandan Genocide, a factor which adds an additional element of trauma for the rape survivor because evidence of the rape gradually becomes visible on the victims’ bodies. Nowrojee has argued that a large number of Tutsi women became pregnant as a result of rape and sexual slavery. Because abortions are illegal in Rwanda, few women were able to secure medical treatment to end their pregnancies and have since given birth to children who are now ostracized by the Tutsi community as “children of hate” or “children of bad memories.” In 1996, there were an estimated 2,000 to 5,000 children born to these circumstances, many of which had been abandoned by their mothers. Those mothers who chose to kept children born as a result of rape were often stigmatized by their communities. Thus, SàCouto has argued that in practicing forced maternity “the perpetrators of rape no doubt knew that the victim and her community would experience forced pregnancy as a way to transmit a new ethnic identity to the child” because in patriarchal societies, the family name passes through the male. Thus, as in the case of mass rape, forced maternity was intended to undermine the victim community.
THE "AFTERMATH" OF THE GENOCIDE
The 1994 genocide, while officially over, continues to affect the lives of many Rwandans on a daily basis. For approximately three years following the official cessation of hostilities, sporadic outbreaks of small-scale ethnic violence continued, particularly within Rwandan refugee camps and by DRC-based Interahamwe who made regular incursions into Rwandan territory. Nonetheless, the RPF remained in control of the government and provided enough stability that the UN forces felt it was safe to leave the country in March 1996.
In 1999, two major breakthroughs occurred in Rwanda. First, local elections were held at the sector and cellule level, and second, the Lusaka Agreement was signed, thus formally ending the war in the DRC. President Bizimungu resigned in March 2000, and was succeeded by Major General Paul Kagame, who remains the current president of Rwanda.
National unity became one of the primary goals of Kagame’s government. In June 2002, the Gacaca Judicial System was introduced to help deal with the massive backlog of prisoners awaiting trials due to their alleged participation in the genocide. Then, in early 2003, an estimated 30,000 genocide suspects were released from prison and forced to participate in “re-education” programs intended to facilitate their reentry into Rwandan society. Those released included small-scale perpetrators whose sentences for their alleged crimes would have been less than the sentence already served by 8 years in prison, as well as those who were under the age of 18 at the time of the genocide, and those who were too elderly or ill to stand trial. These releases now continue each year.
Retaliation killings, while relatively rare considering the number of alleged perpetrators who are returning to their communities each year, are nonetheless a serious concern. Survivors of the genocide, in addition to suffering from severe mental and/or physical trauma, are now often placed at risk by being forced to live close to the alleged genocidaires they once gave testimony against. In extreme cases, those who have or will testify in the future, are being murder. One example of this occurred on January 13, 1997 when a woman who had testified against Jean Paul Akayesu was murdered, along with her husband and seven children by unknown Hutu extremists loyal to Akayesu. While this situation is far from ideal, it is nonetheless widely accepted as an inevitable part of national reconciliation in Rwanda.
Such reforms seem to have the widespread approval of the population. In August 2003, Kagame was elected for a second term as president, having received 95% of the vote. One month later, parliamentary elections took place at which point Rwanda became the country with the highest number of women members of parliament (49%). Simultaneously, international organizations have indicated their support for Kagame’s government by providing large-scale debt relief and continued to renew grants aimed at HIV/AIDS education and research, infrastructure repair, the management of natural resources, and primary and secondary education. A recent poll conducted by The Ibrahim Index found Rwanda to be the most-improved sub-Saharan nation based on its performance over the past five years.
PRESENT DAY
The present situation in Rwanda is thus one of relative stability and optimism, as the last thirteen years have seen marked improvements on a wide range of issues. The current government has launched a project called Vision 2020 that, if successful, will rapidly transform a depressed agricultural economy into one driven by information communications and technology (ICT) and make Rwanda a regional ICT hub for the Great Lakes. This project will cause a shift in Rwanda’s workforce - while at present 90% of Rwanda’s population is involved in farming, by the year 2020 this is expected to drop to 50% as more civilians specialize in ICT. Furthermore, it is hoped that this project will give Rwanda a positive future. At the moment, the densely populated, landlocked country has few mineral or oil deposits with which to attract foreign investors. Vision 2020 is thus seen as a viable option for Rwanda, which will simultaneously encourage the development of Rwanda’s people into a skilled workforce capable of competing with in international market.
Despite such initiatives, however, living conditions in Rwanda are nonetheless far from perfect. Social problems, such as widespread unemployment and poverty are affecting the nation’s development. An estimated two thirds of the country’s population are currently living below the poverty line. 50% of the population is illiterate and an estimated 80% live outside of the main city centers. Finally, HIV/AIDS and the 1994 genocide have created an estimated 600,000 orphans who, in the absence of family support networks, lack the financial and social means to provide for themselves, gain education and employment, and otherwise improve their living conditions.
Meanwhile, instability and ethnic conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo continues to threaten the current stability in Rwanda. Following the Rwandan genocide, many Interahamwe fled to the DRC as refugees and settled in refugee camps along the Rwandan border where they mixed with civilian refugees, including women and children. In response to continuous raids into Rwanda by Interahamwe, the Rwandan Patriotic Front invaded and conducted a number of massacres which the international community has since condemned as serious human rights violations. Thousands of innocent civilians refugees are known to have been killed in the fighting between the RPF and the Interahamwe, and their bodies dumped in unmarked mass graves. Since this period, President Kagame is rumored to have taken a more subtle approach to the conflict. Instead of sending RPF troops in to do battle with the Interahamwe, Kagame is now rumored to be giving funds, trained troops, equipment and arms to Tutsi General Laurent Nkunda in order to help him occupy and maintain an area along the border with Rwanda and Uganda. While this has served to keep the ethnic conflict from directly impacting Rwanda, it has significantly contributed to destabilizing the government in the DRC. General Nkunda maintains that the DRC government is collaborating with the Hutu extremists responsible for the Rwandan genocide, and as such continues to conduct organized raids on government forces and infrastructure, as well as a number of human rights abuses. In 2007, an estimated 30,000 refugees have fled the North Kivu province where the worst of the fighting has occurred, while an estimated 10,000 women and children have been raped as part of the conflict. Over the past decade, however, these numbers run in the hundreds of thousands.