Rwandan Political Violence in Time and Space
For approximately 20 years, GenoDynamics has been attempting to understand exactly who did what to whom in Rwanda during the incredibly important year of 1994. What everyone saw was that there was a significant amount of violence. What we did and do not know as well is exactly who was engaged in what activity at what time and at what place. The now iconic image to the left represented one of our earliest efforts to map the violence along with consideration of command-control (i.e., what troops were present from the respective sides when violence took place).
To commemorate the 30th anniversary of the genocide and internationalized civil war's termination, we engaged in an international retrospective of violence, politics and economics with an esteemed panel including Christian Davenport, David Himbara, Judi Rever, Dan Slater, Michela Wrong and Marijke Verpoorten. In addition to this, we release previously unreleased information (i.e., new data from the ICTR as well as new analyses regarding violence in 1994 and battle fronts). To see the retrospective, click here: https://www.mivideo.it.umich.edu/channel/channelid/339658312
Highlights from the Retrospective:
- the best death toll estimates for the Tutsi in 1994 are around 500-600k not the 1-2 million that the current Rwandan government puts forward;
- the current Rwandan governments complicity in violence during 1994 and after this time has revealed a clear pattern of violent behavior;
- some research suggests that the current Rwandan government did not stop the genocide but rather it followed its termination as it was establishing itself;
- while cloaked in the discourse and practices of political democracy, the current Rwandan government has revealed itself to be dictatorial if not totalitarian in nature;
- discussion of what Rwanda needs has moved from democracy and rule of law to economic development;
- the myth of economic development and the economic miracle discussed years ago appears to have fallen away as one considers data (e.g., Rwanda has been identified as one of the 25 poorest nations in the world)
- all observations of the violence, politics and economics noted above are largely constrained/hidden by a reactive and highly professionalized bureaucracy which hinders all such discussions;
- these insights are hidden by a group of western political, economic and social leaders who seemingly cannot reverse their earlier opinions about Rwanda; and,
- ironically as well as sadly this situation has resulted in a domestic context in Rwanda that is quite similar in nature to the period before 1994 but internationally the situation is quite worse as the Rwandan leader and political system have been received little open criticism internationally.
Review of the GenoDynamics Project: To shed some light on the violence of 1994, our research project consulted numerous sources both inside as well as outside Rwanda. Some sources directly interviewed/surveyed victims and survivors in Rwanda or refugee camps outside of it, asking them exactly what they lived through. Other sources interviewed/surveyed bystanders, asking them what they saw as well as who was lost and how. Still other sources interviewed perpetrators, asking them what they did and why. Some of the data collection was conducted by ourselves (e.g., focus groups of civilians, interviews with civilians as well as genocidaires and a survey in Butare). Some of the data was compiled by others: e.g., the Rwandan government, the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda (ICTR), Human Rights Watch, African Rights and Ibuka.
Our initial work was funded by the National Science Foundation as well as by some anonymous donors. Our project has always sought to be collaborative and over time we have established partnerships with a wide variety of institutions: the University of Maryland (the Center for International Development and Conflict Management as well as Government and Politics), Dartmouth College, the National University of Rwanda at Butare (The Centre for Conflict Management), the Office of the Prosecutor as well as the Office of the Defense at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the University of Notre Dame and the University of Michigan.
On this webpage, we provide a summary of our research to date, the sources employed, the methodology used to combine them, the data that emerged from our efforts as well as responses to the project that we received. In addition to this, you will find animations of diverse phenomenon relevant to the topic, links to other data that is generally not made available to the public as well as photographs of Rwanda that we took while in the field.
GenoDynamics makes all of this information available in order to facilitate the systematic and transparent examination of what took place during 1994. Indeed, what has been unique about this project from the beginning has been its reliance upon providing materials and research directly to an audience without intermediaries. We used the internet and social media before either was commonly employed. This has been purposeful. One of the difficulties with comprehending what occurred in Rwanda is that very few have had access to the information necessary to make an informed opinion. Only by making raw materials available are we able to overcome this problem. We encourage all of those studying and interested in the Rwandan case to do the same. There are still many data sources that have not been released. This lack of disclosure and transparency has hindered analysis, discussion as well as truth.
Sincerely
Christian Davenport - Political Science, Public Policy & Center for Political Studies, University of Michigan
Allan Stam - Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, University of Virginia
What's New on the webpage that merits a relaunch? A great deal actually.
The 30th Anniversary of Rwanda Violence in 1994 (2024)
Three decades ago, a great many people believed that President Paul Kagame and those affiliated with the current regime in Rwanda were the key to political and economic development for the country that was devastated by genocide, internationalized civil war, reprisal killings, human rights violations and random violence. In certain ways, it looks as though the promises have been kept. Rwanda is generally viewed as a “peaceful" nation where individuals are quite safe to walk the streets (especially in urban centers like Kigali) and the idea of overt collective violence is generally viewed as highly unlikely. In line with most conceptions of political democracy, the political system has engaged in periodic elections with mass participation, there has been extensive inclusion of a group that was previously under-represented in government (i.e., women) and there was discussion of as well as extensive action taken towards reconciliation through the process known as “Gacaca” – this system evaluated and dealt rulings on a million plus individuals. In addition to this, there has been extensive discussion as well as action taken regarding the importance of law. Domestic issues are not the only place where Rwanda appears to have excelled. Internationally, the government of Rwanda has offered itself up to assist other nations either by sending peace keepers (i.e., throughout Africa) or housing those seeking asylum (i.e., from the United Kingdom). Finally, Rwanda has been heralded by some as nothing less than an “economic miracle” providing a shining example of what is possible.
This is the view that one gets when they take a quick look. The situation becomes much more complicated and less positive when one takes a closer look.
In terms of political violence used domestically (by all actors including the government) it is clear that all forms of overt violence within the borders of Rwanda have declined. The price of this decline, however, is the veritable decimation of civil society and individual freedom. Across diverse databases (e.g., the Political Terror Scale, the Cingranelli and Richards Human Rights Dataset and the Varieties of Democracy Project), it is clear that Rwanda experienced very high levels of human rights violation and civil liberties restriction over that last 30 years just declining in the last 5 to 10. In addition to this, political power (i.e., the ability to create as well as implement policy across domains) has increasingly become concentrated in a single individual with no other political party or individual attempting to challenge Kagame being able to avoid persecution, harassment, exile or elimination. One can only speculate that the restrictions and intimidation of the ethnic majority Hutu has led to extensive resentment which could lead to another outbreak of resistance and collective violence if the government were to show any weakness – this actually justifies the continuation of extensive domestic repression. As a consequence, while some manifestations of violence are now unlikely (e.g., civil war or revolution), other manifestations of violence were involved in getting there (e.g., crimes against humanity, genocide, atrocities as well as human rights violation) and still other manifestations of contention have been rendered more likely (e.g., sabotage, terrorism, flight or internal withdrawal until the opportunity for change emerges [perhaps best signified by the high levels of unhappiness reported by the population]). Externally, there are numerous episodes of violent behavior that have been associated with the current government. There have been repeated direct incursions from the existing Rwandan government into the Congo under the guise of responding to the looming threat presented by former genocidaires but this situation is complicated by accusations of the Rwandans also being in country to extract resources. There has been indirect incursion from the existing Rwandan government as well through their support for M-23 rebels. There has been consistent effort to return political opponents from around the world back to Rwanda on the basis of government accusation regarding participation in genocide alone. Recently revealed through the Paul Rusesabagina and Pegasus case, there has also been a global network of covert repressive activityidentified which seeks to identify, constrain or eliminate political threats. This is added to the efforts to discredit all of those who challenge the regime through extensive use of marketing as well as political/legal leverage.
The political system is, at best, now consistently characterized as autocratic in nature if not fully personalist in the nomenclature of more recent work or, invoking an older conception, “totalitarian” with increasingly negative evaluations coming back regarding election fraud and limited rule of law (again placed on global display during the Rusesabagina trial). Most human rights groups who monitor political institutions now clearly place Rwanda in a non-democratic category. Perusing the hundreds of characteristics found in the Varieties of Democracy project or Polity Project or Freedom House, one is struck by the increasing consistency of this position. Most prominently, the shift has occurred over three elections which left Kagame the leader of the country but amidst serious questions about even the possibility of political competition in the evolving Rwandan landscape and serious concerns regarding the magnitude of each victory with 99% of the vote in the last election of 2017. The future suggests more of the same. Kagame has already declared that he will run for a fourth term which he is officially allowed to do since he successfully altered term limits. This would leave him in power to at least 2034, if not longer. In many respects, the myth of Rwanda political system as something to emulate has been tarnished. They are less the darling of the foundation world. Even American Universities, once a place where Kagame would consistently find a willing audience, has begun to step away from him.
And finally, once believed to be a developmental model, over the last 30 years Rwanda has revealed itself to be something of a developmental failure. Indeed, the economic system has been identified as one of the poorest 25 on the planet. Not only has there been no economic miracle but the Rwandan economy has been exposed to be largely propped up by foreign aid. What is intriguing is that this is nothing new. Rather, it has been found that the level of aid to Rwanda was more or less comparable to what other “poor”, “indebted” and “fragile” nations received. This makes the miracle more of an artifact than a reality. Data has emerged to reveal that key individuals manipulated information to make it look as if development had taken place. Moreover some scholars have noted that one could view “amazing growth” in the Rwandan economy as something largely derived from the exceptionally low starting point it began from in 1994.
And thus we arrive at the thirtieth anniversary of Rwanda’s emergence from political violence with many more questions. How much leeway and freedom to act should political leader’s be given in their efforts to recover from massive human tragedy? How could Kagame get away with the failures across violence, politics and economics noted above? While individuals in the Times like Anjan Sundaram have highlighted Kagame’s ability to use shame and guilt to hinder scrutiny from the West, there is an alternative explanation. It is the principle of “commitment escalation” – once humans have committed to something (like backing an individual or institution to remedy a problem) rather than open themselves up to updating and new information, they double down on the earlier decision, they close themselves off to new insights as well as updating and they even will attack those challenging their earlier judgement. I was once told regarding my research Rwanda (trying to understand what took place during 1994) that I would be hated for what I was doing. Not because I was wrong mind you but because the horror and evil of Rwandan political violence and the desire to have Paul Kagame and the Rwandan Patriotic Front deal with the problem was so clear in the popular imagination that it would not easily let go of it. Clearly some have moved in this direction. The revelations across the themes identified above have revealed massive shifts over time. Clearly thirty years later, there are still some minds yet to be changed. There are still some invitations, aid decisions and humanitarian efforts yet to be reconsidered. Hopefully it will not take another thirty years to shift these as well.
The Twentieth Anniversary of Rwandan Violence in 1994 (2014)
At the 20th anniversary of the political violence in Rwanda during 1994 many things had stayed the same since the 15th anniversary. On the one hand, the world came together to mourn one of the most horrific events in human history: the genocide of ethnic Tutsi that took place in 1994. On the other hand, barely anyone came forward to discuss the other violence that occurred during the same year. Part of the reason for this neglect was clear. The current Rwandan government has outlawed the discussion of any other form of violence - especially if the number of casualties begins to approach the number of ethnic Tutsi killed in the genocide. Accordingly,
Under the Rwandan constitution, "revisionism, negationism and trivialisation of genocide" are criminal offences.[275]
Hundreds of people have been tried and convicted for "genocide ideology", "revisionism", and other laws ostensibly
related to the genocide. Of the 489 individuals convicted of "genocide revisionism and other related crimes" in 2009,
five were sentenced to life imprisonment, a further five were sentenced to more than 20 years in jail, 99 were
sentenced to 10–20 years in jail, 211 received a custodial sentence of 5–10 years, and the remaining 169 received
jail terms of less than five years.[276] Amnesty International has criticized the Rwandan government for using these
laws to "criminalize legitimate dissent and criticism of the government."[277] In 2010, even an American law
professor and attorney, Peter Erlinder, was arrested in Kigali and charged with genocide denial while defending
presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire against charges of genocide.[278] - Wikipedia entry for Rwandan Genocide
(October 8, 2014)
Despite such laws as well as behavior relevant to sanctioning those who are believed to violate it, discussion has begun to emerge. In part this has been due to the post-genocidal violent activities of the existing Rwandan government in the Congo (under the leadership of Paul Kagame). While under the framework of finding those who engaged in genocidal activities in 1994, it is not always clear that violent activities undertaken in this region can be linked to genocidal violence. Restrictions on political and civil liberties within Rwanda (indexed by Freedom House or the Cingranelli and Richards Human Rights Measure) have not returned at a pace that many deem reasonable. And, political opponents to the Kagame regime often end up being treated in a somewhat violent or coercive manner. Many will speak of the requirements of bringing political and economic development as this is believed to involve some political violence. What is interesting however is the discussion of exactly how much violence is accepted along the way as one attempts to build their society? How many individuals are allowed to be killed both domestically and internationally in order to build a nation state? These conversations are only just beginning.
Not only should one look after 1994 to frame their discussions. There is also the issue that there was essentially little political violence being directed against anyone in Rwanda prior to the invasion - neither Tutsi or Hutu. Consulting the Political Terror Scale database which documents personal integrity violations within countries from 1976 to the present, it is clear that it is not until 1990 that human rights violations in Rwanda become relatively violent. The scale itself is described here. This prompt some interesting questions. For example, if there was no political violence before the international invasion, then how should we frame what takes place after 1989? Were the Tutsi in the country somehow communicating that life for them was unlivable and the RPF were simply responding to this call? If this is the case, where is that information? This is another discussion that we are beginning to have. Granted the issues now being raised are a bit more complicated than the ones that we have been having in the communities examining Rwandan violence in particular and those that have been examining violence as well as governance more broadly conceived. At the twentieth anniversary, however, we believe that these are the discussions that we need to start having. This is one of the reasons why we participated in the new BBC documentary "Rwanda's Untold Story" (which we imagine will be available on and then removed from the internet for quite some time until it comes to the US - if it comes).
Statements/Reflections regarding 15th and 10th anniversaries of the violence
To commemorate the 30th anniversary of the genocide and internationalized civil war's termination, we engaged in an international retrospective of violence, politics and economics with an esteemed panel including Christian Davenport, David Himbara, Judi Rever, Dan Slater, Michela Wrong and Marijke Verpoorten. In addition to this, we release previously unreleased information (i.e., new data from the ICTR as well as new analyses regarding violence in 1994 and battle fronts). To see the retrospective, click here: https://www.mivideo.it.umich.edu/channel/channelid/339658312
Highlights from the Retrospective:
- the best death toll estimates for the Tutsi in 1994 are around 500-600k not the 1-2 million that the current Rwandan government puts forward;
- the current Rwandan governments complicity in violence during 1994 and after this time has revealed a clear pattern of violent behavior;
- some research suggests that the current Rwandan government did not stop the genocide but rather it followed its termination as it was establishing itself;
- while cloaked in the discourse and practices of political democracy, the current Rwandan government has revealed itself to be dictatorial if not totalitarian in nature;
- discussion of what Rwanda needs has moved from democracy and rule of law to economic development;
- the myth of economic development and the economic miracle discussed years ago appears to have fallen away as one considers data (e.g., Rwanda has been identified as one of the 25 poorest nations in the world)
- all observations of the violence, politics and economics noted above are largely constrained/hidden by a reactive and highly professionalized bureaucracy which hinders all such discussions;
- these insights are hidden by a group of western political, economic and social leaders who seemingly cannot reverse their earlier opinions about Rwanda; and,
- ironically as well as sadly this situation has resulted in a domestic context in Rwanda that is quite similar in nature to the period before 1994 but internationally the situation is quite worse as the Rwandan leader and political system have been received little open criticism internationally.
Review of the GenoDynamics Project: To shed some light on the violence of 1994, our research project consulted numerous sources both inside as well as outside Rwanda. Some sources directly interviewed/surveyed victims and survivors in Rwanda or refugee camps outside of it, asking them exactly what they lived through. Other sources interviewed/surveyed bystanders, asking them what they saw as well as who was lost and how. Still other sources interviewed perpetrators, asking them what they did and why. Some of the data collection was conducted by ourselves (e.g., focus groups of civilians, interviews with civilians as well as genocidaires and a survey in Butare). Some of the data was compiled by others: e.g., the Rwandan government, the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda (ICTR), Human Rights Watch, African Rights and Ibuka.
Our initial work was funded by the National Science Foundation as well as by some anonymous donors. Our project has always sought to be collaborative and over time we have established partnerships with a wide variety of institutions: the University of Maryland (the Center for International Development and Conflict Management as well as Government and Politics), Dartmouth College, the National University of Rwanda at Butare (The Centre for Conflict Management), the Office of the Prosecutor as well as the Office of the Defense at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the University of Notre Dame and the University of Michigan.
On this webpage, we provide a summary of our research to date, the sources employed, the methodology used to combine them, the data that emerged from our efforts as well as responses to the project that we received. In addition to this, you will find animations of diverse phenomenon relevant to the topic, links to other data that is generally not made available to the public as well as photographs of Rwanda that we took while in the field.
GenoDynamics makes all of this information available in order to facilitate the systematic and transparent examination of what took place during 1994. Indeed, what has been unique about this project from the beginning has been its reliance upon providing materials and research directly to an audience without intermediaries. We used the internet and social media before either was commonly employed. This has been purposeful. One of the difficulties with comprehending what occurred in Rwanda is that very few have had access to the information necessary to make an informed opinion. Only by making raw materials available are we able to overcome this problem. We encourage all of those studying and interested in the Rwandan case to do the same. There are still many data sources that have not been released. This lack of disclosure and transparency has hindered analysis, discussion as well as truth.
Sincerely
Christian Davenport - Political Science, Public Policy & Center for Political Studies, University of Michigan
Allan Stam - Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, University of Virginia
What's New on the webpage that merits a relaunch? A great deal actually.
- A new 30 year retrospective video discussion concerning violence, politics and economics with Christian Davenport, David Himbara, Judi Rever, Dan Slater, Marijke Verpoorten and Michela Wrong.
- Better links to RW-94 a comic that attempted to popularize and bring to a wider audience what is generally hidden within/behind academic research into the events of Rwanda in 1994.
The 30th Anniversary of Rwanda Violence in 1994 (2024)
Three decades ago, a great many people believed that President Paul Kagame and those affiliated with the current regime in Rwanda were the key to political and economic development for the country that was devastated by genocide, internationalized civil war, reprisal killings, human rights violations and random violence. In certain ways, it looks as though the promises have been kept. Rwanda is generally viewed as a “peaceful" nation where individuals are quite safe to walk the streets (especially in urban centers like Kigali) and the idea of overt collective violence is generally viewed as highly unlikely. In line with most conceptions of political democracy, the political system has engaged in periodic elections with mass participation, there has been extensive inclusion of a group that was previously under-represented in government (i.e., women) and there was discussion of as well as extensive action taken towards reconciliation through the process known as “Gacaca” – this system evaluated and dealt rulings on a million plus individuals. In addition to this, there has been extensive discussion as well as action taken regarding the importance of law. Domestic issues are not the only place where Rwanda appears to have excelled. Internationally, the government of Rwanda has offered itself up to assist other nations either by sending peace keepers (i.e., throughout Africa) or housing those seeking asylum (i.e., from the United Kingdom). Finally, Rwanda has been heralded by some as nothing less than an “economic miracle” providing a shining example of what is possible.
This is the view that one gets when they take a quick look. The situation becomes much more complicated and less positive when one takes a closer look.
In terms of political violence used domestically (by all actors including the government) it is clear that all forms of overt violence within the borders of Rwanda have declined. The price of this decline, however, is the veritable decimation of civil society and individual freedom. Across diverse databases (e.g., the Political Terror Scale, the Cingranelli and Richards Human Rights Dataset and the Varieties of Democracy Project), it is clear that Rwanda experienced very high levels of human rights violation and civil liberties restriction over that last 30 years just declining in the last 5 to 10. In addition to this, political power (i.e., the ability to create as well as implement policy across domains) has increasingly become concentrated in a single individual with no other political party or individual attempting to challenge Kagame being able to avoid persecution, harassment, exile or elimination. One can only speculate that the restrictions and intimidation of the ethnic majority Hutu has led to extensive resentment which could lead to another outbreak of resistance and collective violence if the government were to show any weakness – this actually justifies the continuation of extensive domestic repression. As a consequence, while some manifestations of violence are now unlikely (e.g., civil war or revolution), other manifestations of violence were involved in getting there (e.g., crimes against humanity, genocide, atrocities as well as human rights violation) and still other manifestations of contention have been rendered more likely (e.g., sabotage, terrorism, flight or internal withdrawal until the opportunity for change emerges [perhaps best signified by the high levels of unhappiness reported by the population]). Externally, there are numerous episodes of violent behavior that have been associated with the current government. There have been repeated direct incursions from the existing Rwandan government into the Congo under the guise of responding to the looming threat presented by former genocidaires but this situation is complicated by accusations of the Rwandans also being in country to extract resources. There has been indirect incursion from the existing Rwandan government as well through their support for M-23 rebels. There has been consistent effort to return political opponents from around the world back to Rwanda on the basis of government accusation regarding participation in genocide alone. Recently revealed through the Paul Rusesabagina and Pegasus case, there has also been a global network of covert repressive activityidentified which seeks to identify, constrain or eliminate political threats. This is added to the efforts to discredit all of those who challenge the regime through extensive use of marketing as well as political/legal leverage.
The political system is, at best, now consistently characterized as autocratic in nature if not fully personalist in the nomenclature of more recent work or, invoking an older conception, “totalitarian” with increasingly negative evaluations coming back regarding election fraud and limited rule of law (again placed on global display during the Rusesabagina trial). Most human rights groups who monitor political institutions now clearly place Rwanda in a non-democratic category. Perusing the hundreds of characteristics found in the Varieties of Democracy project or Polity Project or Freedom House, one is struck by the increasing consistency of this position. Most prominently, the shift has occurred over three elections which left Kagame the leader of the country but amidst serious questions about even the possibility of political competition in the evolving Rwandan landscape and serious concerns regarding the magnitude of each victory with 99% of the vote in the last election of 2017. The future suggests more of the same. Kagame has already declared that he will run for a fourth term which he is officially allowed to do since he successfully altered term limits. This would leave him in power to at least 2034, if not longer. In many respects, the myth of Rwanda political system as something to emulate has been tarnished. They are less the darling of the foundation world. Even American Universities, once a place where Kagame would consistently find a willing audience, has begun to step away from him.
And finally, once believed to be a developmental model, over the last 30 years Rwanda has revealed itself to be something of a developmental failure. Indeed, the economic system has been identified as one of the poorest 25 on the planet. Not only has there been no economic miracle but the Rwandan economy has been exposed to be largely propped up by foreign aid. What is intriguing is that this is nothing new. Rather, it has been found that the level of aid to Rwanda was more or less comparable to what other “poor”, “indebted” and “fragile” nations received. This makes the miracle more of an artifact than a reality. Data has emerged to reveal that key individuals manipulated information to make it look as if development had taken place. Moreover some scholars have noted that one could view “amazing growth” in the Rwandan economy as something largely derived from the exceptionally low starting point it began from in 1994.
And thus we arrive at the thirtieth anniversary of Rwanda’s emergence from political violence with many more questions. How much leeway and freedom to act should political leader’s be given in their efforts to recover from massive human tragedy? How could Kagame get away with the failures across violence, politics and economics noted above? While individuals in the Times like Anjan Sundaram have highlighted Kagame’s ability to use shame and guilt to hinder scrutiny from the West, there is an alternative explanation. It is the principle of “commitment escalation” – once humans have committed to something (like backing an individual or institution to remedy a problem) rather than open themselves up to updating and new information, they double down on the earlier decision, they close themselves off to new insights as well as updating and they even will attack those challenging their earlier judgement. I was once told regarding my research Rwanda (trying to understand what took place during 1994) that I would be hated for what I was doing. Not because I was wrong mind you but because the horror and evil of Rwandan political violence and the desire to have Paul Kagame and the Rwandan Patriotic Front deal with the problem was so clear in the popular imagination that it would not easily let go of it. Clearly some have moved in this direction. The revelations across the themes identified above have revealed massive shifts over time. Clearly thirty years later, there are still some minds yet to be changed. There are still some invitations, aid decisions and humanitarian efforts yet to be reconsidered. Hopefully it will not take another thirty years to shift these as well.
The Twentieth Anniversary of Rwandan Violence in 1994 (2014)
At the 20th anniversary of the political violence in Rwanda during 1994 many things had stayed the same since the 15th anniversary. On the one hand, the world came together to mourn one of the most horrific events in human history: the genocide of ethnic Tutsi that took place in 1994. On the other hand, barely anyone came forward to discuss the other violence that occurred during the same year. Part of the reason for this neglect was clear. The current Rwandan government has outlawed the discussion of any other form of violence - especially if the number of casualties begins to approach the number of ethnic Tutsi killed in the genocide. Accordingly,
Under the Rwandan constitution, "revisionism, negationism and trivialisation of genocide" are criminal offences.[275]
Hundreds of people have been tried and convicted for "genocide ideology", "revisionism", and other laws ostensibly
related to the genocide. Of the 489 individuals convicted of "genocide revisionism and other related crimes" in 2009,
five were sentenced to life imprisonment, a further five were sentenced to more than 20 years in jail, 99 were
sentenced to 10–20 years in jail, 211 received a custodial sentence of 5–10 years, and the remaining 169 received
jail terms of less than five years.[276] Amnesty International has criticized the Rwandan government for using these
laws to "criminalize legitimate dissent and criticism of the government."[277] In 2010, even an American law
professor and attorney, Peter Erlinder, was arrested in Kigali and charged with genocide denial while defending
presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire against charges of genocide.[278] - Wikipedia entry for Rwandan Genocide
(October 8, 2014)
Despite such laws as well as behavior relevant to sanctioning those who are believed to violate it, discussion has begun to emerge. In part this has been due to the post-genocidal violent activities of the existing Rwandan government in the Congo (under the leadership of Paul Kagame). While under the framework of finding those who engaged in genocidal activities in 1994, it is not always clear that violent activities undertaken in this region can be linked to genocidal violence. Restrictions on political and civil liberties within Rwanda (indexed by Freedom House or the Cingranelli and Richards Human Rights Measure) have not returned at a pace that many deem reasonable. And, political opponents to the Kagame regime often end up being treated in a somewhat violent or coercive manner. Many will speak of the requirements of bringing political and economic development as this is believed to involve some political violence. What is interesting however is the discussion of exactly how much violence is accepted along the way as one attempts to build their society? How many individuals are allowed to be killed both domestically and internationally in order to build a nation state? These conversations are only just beginning.
Not only should one look after 1994 to frame their discussions. There is also the issue that there was essentially little political violence being directed against anyone in Rwanda prior to the invasion - neither Tutsi or Hutu. Consulting the Political Terror Scale database which documents personal integrity violations within countries from 1976 to the present, it is clear that it is not until 1990 that human rights violations in Rwanda become relatively violent. The scale itself is described here. This prompt some interesting questions. For example, if there was no political violence before the international invasion, then how should we frame what takes place after 1989? Were the Tutsi in the country somehow communicating that life for them was unlivable and the RPF were simply responding to this call? If this is the case, where is that information? This is another discussion that we are beginning to have. Granted the issues now being raised are a bit more complicated than the ones that we have been having in the communities examining Rwandan violence in particular and those that have been examining violence as well as governance more broadly conceived. At the twentieth anniversary, however, we believe that these are the discussions that we need to start having. This is one of the reasons why we participated in the new BBC documentary "Rwanda's Untold Story" (which we imagine will be available on and then removed from the internet for quite some time until it comes to the US - if it comes).
Statements/Reflections regarding 15th and 10th anniversaries of the violence
This research was supported by a grant (Mass Killing and Oases of Humanity: Understanding Rwandan Genocide and Resistance)
from the National Science Foundation
Here is our original grant proposal:
Introduction
State of the Literature
Towards a Better Understanding of Genocide
Conclusion
Appendix 1
Appendix 2
Appendix 3
References
from the National Science Foundation
Here is our original grant proposal:
Introduction
State of the Literature
Towards a Better Understanding of Genocide
Conclusion
Appendix 1
Appendix 2
Appendix 3
References
