genocide in rwanda

Second opinions

"A judgement about life has no meaning except the truth of the one who speaks last, and the mind is at ease only at the moment when everyone is shouting at once and no one can hear a thing." Georges Bataille

It wouldn't surprise me to find a site out there just like mine, exploring the Rwanda genocide just like mine, analyzing propaganda just like mine, which didn't agree with a single point that I've made here on mine. It shouldn't surprise you, either; for I don't expect you to take the points I've made on faith or at face value any more than you would an article in Kangura or The New York Times. It would be a bit disappointing, really, if nothing you'd read so far had made you narrow your eyes with gravest suspicion and make a note to go check up on things for yourself. Below you'll find sources which may help you to figure out what you believe. I won't tell you which ones I've drawn from in my research and which disagree with me—that's quite possibly the least relevant thing about them; and besides, until you go and see them for yourselves, how could you know whether they really support the points I claim they do? There are also some suggestions for topics I haven't touched on in any depth which complicate and make the subject even more vast, more murky, more incomprehensible. May you get very confused and frustrated and excited and cynical and hopeful and and love every minute of it too.

http://www.preventgenocide.org
includes a page on nations' use of ID cards to codify ethnic divisions.

http://www.ictr.org
The official site of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, estabished by the United Nations Security Council in 1994.
In French, English and Kinyarwanda.

http://www.diplomatiejudiciaire.com
provides detailed coverage of the trials at the Arusha tribunal.
In French and English.

http://www.geocities.com/hassanngeze
the personal site of Hassan Ngeze, editor of Kangura, which caused ever such an uproar during the Arusha 'Media trial' when it was found that he was posting to the site while in prison, distinctly contravened, as did the next site.

http://membres.lycos.fr/barayagwiza
Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza, also illicitly updated by the defendant.
In French.

http://www.angelfire.com/al/abukar/afrah.html
offers a personal perspective on events in Somalia.

http://www.inshuti.org
a site from Spain posting anti-RPF messages and pieces with titles such as "We will be disinformed if we continue reading Gourevitch on Africa". You'll also find the Hutu manifesto of 1957 here.

http://pages.infinit.net/glp
The home page of Great Lakes Press. According to their mission statement their reporters are anonymous (the three members whose names are made public are based in Canada) and they are explicitly "dedicated in particular to the memory of Father Claude Simard, friend and brother of the Hutu and the Tutsi of Rwanda, savagely assassinated by the Tutsi forces of the RPF" (translation mine). Includes an article which charges the Tutsi with "social engineering on a vast, murderous scale."
In French and English.

http://www.rdrwanda.org
Netherlands-based Republican Rally for Democracy in Rwanda is 'a political organisation whose aim is to establish a Rule of Law, Justice, Democracy, Republican values and Truth on the Rwandan tragedy, as the foundations for true reconciliation, sustainable development and peace'. I originally became interested when I found a quote on their site reading "Only RPF is the sole mastermind of the killings that appalled the world", though I don't see it there any longer. Does enumerate over 15,681 Hutu civilians they assert the RPF has murdered while unarmed and secretly buried under pretence of summoning them to political meetings. Alleges that the "RPF dominates all the State powers in Rwanda and is carrying out a policy of political and ethnic exclusion".

http://www.udayton.edu/~rwanda/subjectindex.html
Offers a wide range of readings on Rwanda. I love that I can read an article here which contains the assertion "the violence which happened in Rwanda was not motivated by ethnic or racial hatred" and be completely unsure whether I agree with the author or not. You need to keep reading to find out the whole story, and that's the way it ought to be. (And incidentally, I think he's right in concluding that such an interpretation ignores the political opportunism both in Rwanda and abroad which exploited anti-Tutsi sentiment to its own ends. I say genocide, he says no genocide, but here we can agree.)

Le Sang des Hutu il n'est il Rouge? by Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza

Rwanda and Genocide in the Twentieth Century by Alain Destexhe (translated by Alison Marschner)

A People Betrayed: The role of the West in Rwanda’s genocide by L. R. Melvern

Macbeth by William Shakespeare (unless it was Kit Marlowe) (or Bacon) (or someone else entirely) Seriously. Read it. Read about the galvanizing of the human psyche to atrocious deeds through language which seems to make nonsense of traditional morality.

Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky

Broadcasting Genocide: Censorship, Propaganda and State-Sponsored Violence in Rwanda 1990-1994 by Kirschke, Carver & Coliver/Article 19

In The Rwandan Torment by Georges Ruggiu
As you read, don't forget the errata: in his plea agreement at Arusha Ruggiu conceded that "pregnant women were disembowelled, pillaged and eaten" by RPF soldiers may have been a somewhat "exaggerated" claim.

We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families by Philip Gourevitch

Read more about Burundi.
The two countries share a similar ethnic division between Hutu and Tutsi, and their histories have been closely intertwined. Find out why, after Burundi's president died in the same crash that killed Habyarimana, that country did not suffer the same horrors with which Rwanda will forever be associated.

Read more about France.
France has a long and complex history in Rwanda. Read more about the concept of Francophonie, "the world-wide association of nations which share the French language, an organization allowing France to pursue its interests and influence via a cultural and linguistic crusade" and why the exiles raised on English in anglophone Uganda were so threatening to France's interests in Great Lakes Africa. Find out why French president Mitterand was laughingly called "Mitterahamwe" for his goodwill toward the political actors behind that militia. Read the sixth issue of Kangura, whose cover carried a photo of him with the caption "It is when times are bad that you discover your true friends".
When the first French plane arrived to evacuate its nationals, a Senegalese peacekeeper saw several tons of ammunition unloaded; the cargo was picked up by Rwandan army vehicles, and taken to Presidential Guard quarters. But maybe he didn't; the French quite fervently deny it. L.R. Melvern posits that "without the French, the RPF could easily have taken Kigali [in spring 1993]... In this event, the genocide would have been avoided." Is she right? What does France have to answer for?

Read more about Bosnia.
This ethnic conflict played out simultaneously with Rwanda; both American and UN actions in the Balkan conflict clarify the respective administrations' policy on foreign military intervention. What kind of propaganda was at work, in the former Yugoslavia and here at home? I don't know. You tell me.

Read more about tensions between northern and southern Rwanda.
Habyarimana surrounded himself with a network of extended families and allies from his native region in northern Rwanda. Before him, Grégoire Kayibanda relied on support from and gave patronage in return to partisans in the southwest. Find out more about the implications for each leader's security and power base. Read about Habyarimana's connection by marriage to a powerful clan of gorilla poachers implicated in the murder of researcher Dian Fossey. Anything that grabs hold of you and sucks you in, follow it up, read more about it.

Read more, and even more.
Write down what you think.
Make media of your own.
Talk back.