Rwanda, DRC, and the New Scramble for Africa – Part 1: The Genocide’s Historical Context

AFRICA, 4 Nov 2024

Rusere Shoniwa | A Plague on Both Houses – TRANSCEND Media Service

Rwanda’s first President Gregoire Kayibanda visits the Oval Office in 1962.
Wikimedia Commons

17 Oct 2024 – This four-part piece was sparked by James Corbett’s May 2024 video about the 1994 Rwandan genocide, with the eye-catching and provocative title: The Rwandan Genocide Is A Lie.

If, like me, you thought there was something not quite right about the Standard Official Narrative, but you hadn’t delved any deeper, that video report is revelatory. Once I dug deeper into the story, I was both fascinated and taken aback by the sheer scale of the gaping holes in the official narrative of one of the most shocking events of the late 20^th century.

Despite the high quality of evidence brought to bear by Corbett, I found myself questioning whether the video title was misleading. Is it possible to be persuaded by most of the arguments and facts laid out in the video, and yet be unsure about the title? Facts don’t necessarily lend themselves to one interpretation. It wasn’t that I entirely disagreed with the title. Sure, I knew a whole lot more about the Rwandan genocide at the end of the video than I did at the start. But still, I was unsure about that title, and sometimes that can be more unsettling than outright disagreement, because it’s accompanied by confusion. This is a complicated story, and I knew that I just had to write about it, because that was the only way I’d come close to straightening things out in my head.

I wasn’t the only one discombobulated by the title of the video. The very first response from a reader called garfieldfan in the comments section says:

“I’m sorry, but the Rwandan genocide is NOT a lie. I read a book written by one of the few people that survived….”

Garfieldfan was promptly set upon by a few Corbett Report groupies, and may still be licking his/her wounds today. It seems that for some people, you’re allowed to question the Standard Official Narrative, but you’re not allowed to question the Questioners of the Standard Official Narrative. The groupies in my opinion have not grasped a very important point about the video, a point that garfieldfan grasped – blowing holes in the narrative is one thing, but should that necessarily lead to the conclusion that there was no genocide? That’s what Corbett said. (In Part III, I’ll quote him directly so you can be satisfied that I’m not putting words in his mouth.) So garfieldfan, if you’re out there somewhere, this questioning of the Questioner might just be for you. Whether or not the Rwandan genocide is a lie depends on what “lie” means. And I won’t lie to you – things are going to get complicated.

I did what Corbett always tells you to do at the end of his podcasts – question the Questioner. So I rolled up my sleeves and looked into it myself. If you can temporarily put the tragic loss of life to one side, not only is this a complicated story, it’s also a fascinating story in its own right. It’s a story about migration, feudalism, class, ethnicity, colonialism, revolution, exodus, war, supremacism, victimhood, greed, psychopathy, injustice, conscience, lies, propaganda, empire, and the Great Reset. Yep, it’s got it all. And, if you’re interested in it, I’m going to try to stitch it together in such a way that you walk away saying quietly to yourself, “I get it now.” That is not going to be easy. In attempting to do this, I’m also going to directly address the truth of the title of the Corbett Report video by turning it into the question that it throws out: is the Rwandan genocide really a lie?

After following links that told part of the story but not all of it, I went in search of a book – one reliable, thoroughly researched compendium that would tell the whole story from start to finish. One book to rule them all. I should have known better. If there is one thing that the covid build-back-better scam should have taught me, it’s that there is no ‘single source of truth’ on complex issues. I ended up reading two books and many articles, including references provided by the Corbett Report.

The first book I hit on is Do Not Disturb by Michela Wrong. If I’d read the author’s introduction before I clicked ‘buy’, I might not have bought it. Wrong asserts that “this is not a book about the genocide”. Despite some buyer’s remorse at that stage, I read on, determined to extract every penny of value from the £9.23 price tag. I’m glad I got the book because it turned out to be useful for its elucidation of events leading up to the genocide and, crucially, it provided important insights into the event that set the genocide in motion, more of which in Part II.

For a book that is supposedly not about the genocide, Wrong manages to say a fair bit about it. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that her disavowal was disingenuous. My preferred characterisation is that it was wily. I think she succeeded in striking a very effective and skilful glancing blow at what she describes as “the smooth contoured shape of a widely accepted narrative”.[i] Anchored in an account of the assassination of a high-ranking Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) insider and defector, Patrick Karegeya, the book peels away the constructed layers of propaganda to reveal a more truthful account of what really happened in 1994 and, above all, it exposes a dictatorship as corrupt and ruthless as any that ever existed.

(If you’re new to the Rwandan story, the RPF is the Tutsi-led rebel group that overthrew the Hutu-led government of Rwanda in 1994 and is now the party in power under Paul Kagame’s one-party dictatorship that has ruled since 1994. RPF will be used interchangeably throughout this piece to signify the political party or its rebel army, the RPA, which then morphed into the RDF, Rwandan Defence Force, following the RPF’s ascent to power in 1994.)

Following the Karegeya assassination story in Do Not Disturb is like being taken on a tour of a labyrinthine palace, but being given strategically timed glimpses into anterooms and dungeons, all leaving a subliminal imprint about the genocide story the author insists the book is not about. When you put the book down, the imprint is transferred from the subliminal to the conscious, and you’re left with a satisfying aha moment about a story that you either previously thought you understood but didn’t, or that you knew you didn’t understand but now suddenly do.

The book is also enlightening for the grim picture it paints of the Kagame regime’s modus operandi. The world has been getting exponentially uglier in the last 20 years and, after reading this book, one is inclined to conclude that the Kagame regime has positioned itself as a trend setter in the pursuit of the grotesque. Rwanda’s ignominious role in the new Scramble for Africa is only hinted at. I got a strong sense that the author really doesn’t know how the sausage is made, and doesn’t want to either.

But Wrong’s account is valuable in providing a fuller historical context and buildup to the events of 1994 and after. As Wrong correctly asserts, genocides do not happen in a vacuum, and unless you have the context, much of the detail about the event itself, however well explained, just won’t make sense.

The second reference book I used was Judi Rever’s In Praise of Blood, which is a compendium of the crimes committed by the RPF before, during and after the genocide. It draws on Rever’s harrowing first-hand experience in Rwanda and the refugee camps of Zaire, copious leaks and testimonies from RPF defectors, leaked reports from the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), and numerous other journalistic sources. If Wrong’s work is a framework couched in a fascinating side story, Rever’s work is the bricks and mortar.

I chose to read both books because they challenge the official narrative. We know what the official narrative is. It’s short and sweet and designed for pre-teens whose prefrontal cortexes have not fully developed. A plane carrying the Rwandan president is shot down but the mainstream media professes total ignorance about who did it or why. One of the poorest countries in the world, still reeling from a genocide, decides two years later to invade a country 90 times its geographical size and 14 times its size in population, and the mainstream media isn’t in the slightest bit curious about how Rwanda has the military capacity to wreak such havoc for years, and to do so without sanction from its sponsors in the West. We will answer all these questions and more.

Using these books and other references, I want to first understand the historical context and buildup to the genocide in Part I. Part II is where we really roll up our sleeves to examine, by way of four key questions, what really happened during the infamous 100 days of genocide in 1994. In part III, I’ll dissect the points of departure between my interpretation of key facts and Corbett’s, and conclude on the Corbett video title. That will be the springboard for further speculation in Part IV about Rwanda’s place in the geopolitical chessboard, understanding the true meaning of the RPF’s takeover of Rwanda in 1994, and the role it has played in the new Scramble for Africa since then. Finally, I’ll speculate on the potential link between the instability in the DRC, in which Rwanda has been the primary antagonist, and the Mpox outbreak in the DRC, based on a video I chanced on while researching this piece.

Here is the framework for my exploration of the Rwandan genocide and the Kigali regime’s subsequent role in US-NATO geopolitics:

1.       We must try to agree on the elements of the crime of genocide. I think this is important. Many people who rightly challenge the Standard Official Narrative, also make the claim that there was no genocide without basing that claim on a definition of genocide. We must either fit the crimes properly inside the definition, or remove them on the grounds that they don’t fit. But the definition has to be the starting point.

2.       We’ll do a sweep of Rwanda’s history to understand how the stage was set for conflict in 1994.

3.       We’ll look at key events leading up to the genocide to understand the buildup. Was there a distinct trigger point and, if so, what are the implications for the widely accepted narrative? The objective is to seek a fuller context with which to characterise the whole event more truthfully. Which is exactly what the Corbett Report sought to do. I’m coming at it from sources I’ve chosen to see if I get the same answer.

4.       I will pose some questions, the answers to which may shed light on whether the provocatively titled Corbett report – “the Rwandan genocide is a lie” – is misleading. These questions are regarded as hostile to those vested in the Standard Official Narrative, and I intend to address them with the respect and decorum that the subject demands, while not shying away from the contentious issues raised by Do Not Disturb, In Praise of Blood, and many other reliable sources.

5.       Finally, we’ll zoom out into the wider picture of the new Scramble for Africa – the old one never ended – and examine Rwanda’s place in it. I’ll consider the plausibility of some speculation regarding a potential link to the recent Mpox hysteria being stoked by the global pandemic industry.

Definition of the crime of genocide

Under international law, the crime of genocide includes acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. The acts listed are: (i) killing members of the group; (ii) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (iii) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (iv) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (v) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, there is no exemption from the crime by virtue of political or societal status. Persons committing any of the listed genocidal acts shall be punished, whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals.

Although the word ‘intent’ has already appeared in the definition above, Article 30 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court reiterates the requirement for the mental elements of intent and knowledge to be present in order for criminal responsibility to apply.

In addition to the act of genocide itself, other acts in relation to genocide are also defined as crimes. These are conspiracy to commit genocide; direct and public incitement to commit genocide; attempt to commit genocide; and complicity in genocide.

Let’s distil this into its applicability to Rwanda. We have two distinct ethnic groups – Tutsi and Hutu. Some, including Corbett, argue that Hutu and Tutsi should not be thought of as ethnic groups. I will argue against that in Part III. Putting that difference in opinion aside for the time being, we are exploring whether members of one or both of these groups were targeted for killing with intent to destroy the group in whole or in part. In this piece I explore only the act of genocide by killing. This is not a denial of the commission of other potential genocidal acts in Rwanda’s case. Rather, it’s a way of simplifying the debate since  killing, in the case of Rwanda, was indisputable, and therefore genocide by killing, on its own, would be sufficient to determine criminal responsibility under the Genocide Convention.

It’s also important to recognise that it is not necessary to prove culpability on the part of high-ranking government members since criminal responsibility extends to private individuals. What is more important is the pattern of similar conduct directed against the group.

Expanding on the specific act of genocide by killing, the ICC defines the elements of genocide by killing as follows:

1.       The perpetrator killed or caused the death of one or more persons.

2.       Such person or persons belonged to a particular national, ethnical, racial or religious group.

3.       The perpetrator intended to destroy, in whole or in part, that national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.

4.       The conduct took place in the context of a manifest pattern of similar conduct directed against that group or was conduct that could itself effect such destruction.

All elements, including the mental elements of intent and knowledge, must be present for criminal responsibility to apply.

Point 1 above does not imply that only one death is required for a genocide, but rather that killing one person in a genocide creates criminal responsibility. A manifest pattern of similar killings is what gives the totality of the crime its character as genocide and, even then, there is no mathematical formula for determining whether a genocide has taken place. Language like ‘in whole or in part’ and ‘manifest pattern’ makes the crime of genocide less cut and dry than we might like it to be.

Return to this section when we reach conclusions in Parts II and III to satisfy yourself that the crimes meet this definition. Whether you argue for or against, evidence is key.

Pre-colonial history and the roots of ethnic conflict

Accounts of pre-colonial Rwandan history typically place the arrival of Hutu people in the area now recognised as Rwanda sometime between the 5th and 11th centuries. A gradual process of Tutsi migration from the North began in the 14^th century, culminating in the emergence of a kingdom ruled by a Tutsi minority in the 16^th century. Historically, the differences between the two groups were profound. As this Britannica account explains, “the Tutsi, with a strong pastoralist tradition, gained social, economic, and political ascendancy over the Hutu, who were primarily agriculturalists.”

Over time, a feudal class system evolved in which land and cattle ownership, combined with military power, was concentrated in the hands of a Tutsi minority. The outcome of this Tutsi power concentration was that “the Hutu indentured themselves to a Tutsi lord giving him agricultural products and personal service in exchange for the use of land and cattle. At the apex of the class system was the Tutsi king, the Mwami.”

Most analysts also agree that there was some degree of correspondence between physical appearance and ethnic identity. However, the distinction between social class and ethnicity has acquired some degree of fluidity over time as result of movement between the groups through either wealth acquisition or loss, and also intermarriage between the groups. There is general agreement that generations of gene flow have blurred whatever clear-cut physical distinctions that may have existed, and that there is little if any detectable genetic variation between the groups.

Wrong’s research into the history of Hutu-Tutsi relations leads her to conclude that “relations between Tutsis and Hutus were already tense and unhappy when European explorers first encountered them.” She provides the following concise summary of social relations:

“The most striking thing, to outsiders’ eyes, was the rigid stratification of Rwanda’s feudal society. The Tutsi aristocracy accounted for only 14% of Rwanda’s population but owned most of the country’s cattle and dominated the standing army. The Hutus, accounting for 85%, did the farming and were locked into a client-patron relationship with their Tutsi rulers, trading labor and a share of each year’s harvest for protection and an occasional gift of cattle. Twa pygmies made up the remainder of the population.”[ii]

I acknowledge, but do not subscribe to, a version of historical Tutsi-Hutu relations that locates the blame for subsequent tensions solely on colonialism. Such versions can be found in publications like History Today, in which a marked socio-economic division within the pre-colonial society is acknowledged but characterised as a peaceful, albeit complex, co-existence between “cousins”. It claims that the concept of ethnic difference was introduced by the colonisers, and this is the beginning of the problem and the root of the genocide.

I tend to agree with Wrong in her assessment of pre-existing deep divisions, and I find it difficult to accept that the German, and then Belgian, colonisers could so easily have introduced a system of indirect rule without marked pre-existing divisions in the social structure with which to work. As we shall see, colonial administrations certainly must bear blame for exacerbating existing tensions, but it is much harder, though not impossible, to create divisions where no fault lines already exist. Whether you label them feudal, socio-economic, ethnic, or a combination of all three, is neither here nor there. Two distinct identities that were interchangeably class and ethnic, existed pre-colonisation and were entrenched post-colonisation. The pre-colonial fault lines in Rwanda were marked and readily exploitable.

History Today’s account of the Rwandan genocide does not sit well with me, not merely because it is the ‘official’ version of events – occasionally the official version can be right – but because it ignores conflicting evidence. We will return to this in Part II when we discuss the crucial event that set the 1994 genocide in motion.

Colonial rule

Rwanda’s boundaries were not drawn by European powers, but were in fact established before the first colonial power, Germany, laid claim to it. The 1884 Berlin Conference infamously assigned Rwanda and Burundi to German rule, under which it remained until the end of the first World War in 1918. The Germans entrenched the Tutsi hegemony by ruling indirectly through the political structure created by the Mwami, the Tutsi king.

Germany lost control of Rwanda and Burundi after WWI, and Belgium assumed control under a League of Nations mandate in 1923. Under Belgian administration, the power of the Tutsi Mwami was severely curtailed, but the Tutsi continued to enjoy privileged treatment, which was justified by crude racial stereotyping that favoured the Tutsi and discriminated against the Hutu and Twa. Access to education was preferentially granted to a Tutsi ‘aristocracy’ who dominated the Belgian colonial administration, and identity cards displaying ethnicity were introduced. This had the effect of reducing the degree of class fluidity that may have existed between groups and, when combined with the preferential colonial treatment, it would probably have reinforced a pre-existing sense of superiority harboured by the Tutsi minority.

The Belgian administration was transformed by the UN into a Trusteeship in December 1946, the aim of which was to integrate all Rwandans into the political process and implement a representative democracy. It proved impossible to manage the inevitable ensuing tensions to the satisfaction of all parties involved. For the first time in centuries, political power for the Hutu majority loomed invitingly on the horizon as a real possibility, while the Tutsi minority jockeyed for position by advocating for a constitutional Tutsi monarchy. By 1959, a revolutionary Hutu emancipation movement, the Parmehutu, had coalesced under the leadership of Gregoire Kayibanda, and faced off against the Tutsi dominated Rwanda National Union.

In an ironic twist of fate for the Tutsi, the all-Hutu Parmehutu political party received support from the Belgian colonial authorities and the Catholic Church in Rwanda. The Rwanda National Union’s perceived affinity to communism was probably a key factor in the Belgian Trusteeship government’s decision to transfer its support to the Parmehutu party.

In November 1959, ethnic violence sparked what came to be known as the ‘Hutu Peasant Revolution’, culminating in the abolition of the Tutsi monarchy, Rwanda’s independence in 1962, and the Parmehutu movement taking power, with Kayibanda serving as Rwanda’s first president. Between November 1959 and 1962, the UN estimates that 120,000 Tutsis were forced to flee to neighbouring countries, with many settling in Uganda. Kayibanda was overthrown in 1973 in a coup led by another Hutu leader, Major General Juvenal Habyarimana.

Tutsi revenge and the costs

In the immediate aftermath of the Tutsi exodus, Tutsi guerillas launched attacks on Rwanda from Burundi in the South. These attacks triggered revenge massacres of Tutsis in Rwanda. Neighbouring Burundi to the south, once governed with Rwanda in colonial times under a unified colonial entity called Ruanda-Urundi, played a part in heightening ethnic tensions in Rwanda in the 10-year period after independence. Burundi, with very similar ethnic demographics and tensions, took a different post-independence trajectory, retaining Tutsi minority rule under a Mwami monarchy. Wrong recounts the psychological effect of Burundi’s ethnic violence on Rwanda’s Hutus:

“In 1972, in one of the least-reported genocides of modern history, the Tutsi army [in Burundi] slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Burundian Hutus, targeting any man or boy with education in a cynical drive to eliminate future political challenges. The massacres confirmed Rwandan Hutus in their suspicion that if given a chance, their own aggrieved, ousted former Tutsi rulers would do exactly the same.”[iii] [emphasis added]

From 1959 to 1964, the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that 40 to 70 percent of Rwanda’s Tutsis fled to neighbouring countries. Between 50,000 to 70,000 crossed into Uganda.[iv] The displaced Tutsi who settled in Uganda came to be known as the ‘fifty-niners’. Paul Kagame, who has led Kigali’s dictatorship since 1994, was a two-year old toddler at the time, and a fifty-niner.[v]

Uganda, a former British colony administered under a system of indirect rule, gained independence in October 1962. It has since seen ten presidencies, but the most significant one to influence Rwanda’s fortunes is Yoweri Museveni’s (1986-present). In the 1970’s, Museveni aligned himself with Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere to overthrow the psychopathic Idi Amin, who had seized power in Uganda in 1971 from Milton Obote. Obote was re-installed in 1980, but his regime was not much better than Amin’s, and Museveni went to work again in 1981, under the banner of his National Resistance Army (NRA), to oust Obote.

Museveni’s NRA guerilla movement grew from just 34 men in 1981 to some 16,000 by the time Museveni toppled Obote and was sworn in as Uganda’s president in 1986. Both Amin and Obote had displayed an eagerness for scapegoating immigrant communities in Uganda, and the Rwandan Tutsi exiles, tired of finding themselves increasingly in the crosshairs of racist rhetoric, were keen to sign up in Museveni’s NRA. They proved to be highly effective and dedicated on the battlefield, and incurred the wrath of Obote for supplying Museveni with so many of his fighters. All people in Uganda of Rwandan origin – Banyarwanda – were collectively punished in an ethnic cleansing program set in motion by the infamous words of Obote’s security minister at the time: “If a dog gives birth in a cowshed, it does not turn into a cow.”[vi] In other words, Banyarwanda were no longer regarded as citizens by virtue of birth in Uganda.

Kagame joined Museveni’s NRA and rose up its ranks, but not in a front-line fighting role. His job, one that the puritanical teetotaller performed with relish, was to monitor the ranks for ill-discipline and enemy infiltration. The punishment for certain transgressions was often death, and Kagame would read out the names of those who were to die and dispatch units to carry out the sentence. When asked if Kagame enjoyed his job, a colleague who served with him replied: “He enjoyed it too much.”[vii]

Of the 16,000-strong NRA force that put Museveni in power, roughly 4,000 were of Rwandan origin[viii], and were relied upon for being “more ruthless than other recruits in battle, thanks to their history of grievance”.[ix] In spite of Museveni’s fondness for the Banyarwanda cadres who had played a pivotal role in his ascent to power – he liked to refer to them as his “boys” – they soon found themselves once again at the sharp end of Ugandan identity politics, from which Museveni himself seemed unable to defend them. Between 1986 and September 1990, senior ranking members of the Banyarwanda who were now serving in the Ugandan army formulated a plan to use their experience and military resources at their disposal to overthrow the Hutu regime in Rwanda and return home triumphant. Museveni’s support in this venture was crucial.

And so it was that the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) was born in Uganda, with Kagame at the forefront of its leadership from its inception, and subsequently assuming the leadership prior to its accession to power in Rwanda in 1994.

With a growing number of Tutsis in Ugandan army ranks, tensions ratcheted up between Uganda and the Rwandan Hutu-led government of Juvenal Habyarimana, who accused Museveni of training Tutsis to invade Rwanda. Museveni denied this but nagged Habyarimana to defuse the issue by accepting a right of return for the Tutsi diaspora in Uganda, which was a non-starter for Habyarimana.

In October 1990, the covert RPF forces nested within the bosom of the Ugandan army invaded Rwanda with the mission to overthrow the Hutu government in Kigali. At the time the invasion was launched, Museveni claimed ignorance of the RPF’s plans. If one accepts this preposterous denial, the RPF somehow managed to arm and equip a fighting force of 3,500 Banyarwanda, nearly all Ugandan army regulars, using Ugandan military resources without the knowledge of senior ranking Ugandan army officers and intelligence. Wrong completely fails to interpret the absurdity of this situation by piercing the veil of Uganda’s deception and exposing its insidious role. Uganda knowingly backed the RPF in its bid to re-establish the ethno-supremacist Tutsi rule in Rwanda that had ended with the Hutu Power Revolution of 1959.

The ambitious RPF plan was to capture Kigali by Christmas, but the operation was a failure, and the RPF spent the next four years using south-west Uganda as a base for harrying Rwandan troops. It also succeeded in occupying territory in the north of Rwanda. Museveni subsequently came clean about his support for the RPF, claiming that it was in the interests of Uganda’s stability.[x] The bigger question behind Uganda’s role in its support for the RPF is who sanctioned it – a question that Wrong hints at when she states:

“France…saw the invasion by the English-speaking RPF as part of a sinister project by the United States and Britain to shamelessly expand Anglophone influence across Central Africa.”[xi] [emphasis added]

In the lead-up to the 1994 genocide, the RPF had established a base inside Rwanda’s Northern Province which was 12,000 strong and included, lawyers, engineers, and forty-two doctors.[xii]  Who was funding an army of 12,000? I think the clue to that question lies in France’s well-founded suspicion. By 1992, the RPF felt strong enough to move its high command inside Rwanda, only 50 miles north of Kigali.[xiii]

The RPF were despised and feared in the territory they had captured, and hundreds of thousands of Hutus were internally displaced in these operations. Local radio broadcasts warned that the invaders were bent on reinstating the Mwami, recapturing land and turning Rwanda into another Burundi where the Tutsi army killed Hutus at will.[xiv] The RPF began resettling the land with Tutsi refugees from neighbouring Uganda, Burundi, and Tanzania.

Wrong’s account provides good evidence that Kagame was feared, not respected. He had neither the charisma nor the military savvy that his men could get behind. As a ruthless disciplinarian fearful of any challenge to his leadership, it seems likely that Kagame spent as much time organising ruthless exterminations of RPF officers who posed a challenge to his leadership as he did to plotting the overthrow of the Hutu-led government.[xv]

The image that the RPF tried to foster was one of a liberation movement, though it was anything but. The reality was that by February 1993, the RPF had forced an estimated 950,000 Hutu peasants (15% of the population) off their land. These internally displaced Hutus gathered in squalid camps around Kigali included Burundian Hutus who had fled vicious pogroms in their country. These conditions served as a recruiting sergeant for the Hutu Interahamwe militias, who ended up venting their hatred in the horrific massacres that ensued.[xvi] The seeds of Hutu extremism that led to the genocide of Tutsis in April 1994 were sown in these camps. But the RPF invasion in the North also marked the beginnings of the genocide against Hutus perpetrated by the RPF.

A Catholic priest who worked for many years as a missionary in a commune in Northern Rwanda witnessed firsthand the consequences of the invasion in the North from Uganda. He explained to Rever what he believed were the emotional underpinnings of the RPF as a movement: Tutsis stripped of their land in the 1950s and 1960s were bitterly aggrieved and they were seizing the opportunity to extract an eye for an eye. In Father Giancarlo’s words:

“The RPF wanted villages empty. They wanted the territory, food, livestock, everything. They also believed that the Hutu peasants would provide intelligence to the army. They wanted them out.”[xvii]

A prominent Tutsi activist told Rever:

“What the RPF did to Hutus is revenge for 1959…The Hutus had it coming.”[xviii]

Had I been present at that interview, I might have asked whether Hutus in 1959 thought that the Tutsis had it coming. Alan Watts came to the conclusion, after long consideration, that the first of the four most important philosophical questions was: Who started it? I am neither brave nor smart enough to explore that question, but that’s the one invoked by a they-had-it-coming stance. I also rather suspect that “they had it coming” and “who started it” would not be at the top of a successful peace and reconciliation agenda.

Having fled Rwanda to seek asylum in the US, RPF founder Alphonse Furuma confirmed in 2009 that once the Arusha peace talks began in 1992, Kagame launched a deliberate policy to create a Tutsiland through:

“Hutu massacres, massive population displacement, property appropriation and land grabbing in the northeast, east, southeast and central Rwanda.”[xix]

By August 1993, the RPF campaign had succeeded in bringing Habyarimana’s government to the negotiating table. The Arusha peace agreement allocated 40% of a new national army and half of the officers posts to the RPF. The Rwandan media reacted to the deal by campaigning against the return of the “feudalists”. As Wrong explained: “The deal seemed so outrageous to Habyarimana’s side that compliance was never really envisaged.” Crucially, Wrong highlights:

“As a first step toward implementing the Arusha Accords, 600 of the RPF’s best troops moved under UN escort from Mulindi to Kigali. They had been allocated the former parliament building as a base…Nominally, their job was to protect the RPF’s designated ministers in the unity government. But in the eyes of Habyarimana’s [inner circle], a sinister fifth column had just won access to the capital…Rwanda was primed for civil war.”[xx] [emphasis added]

NOTES:

[ii] Michela Wrong, Do Not Disturb, 4^th Estate, London, 2021, Ch 5, pg. 116

[iii] Michela Wrong, Do Not Disturb, 4^th Estate, London, 2021, Ch 5, pg. 119

[iv] Michela Wrong, Do Not Disturb, 4^th Estate, London, 2021, Ch 5, pg. 120

[v] Michela Wrong, Do Not Disturb, 4^th Estate, London, 2021, Ch 5, pg. 121

[vi] Michela Wrong, Do Not Disturb, 4^th Estate, London, 2021, Ch 7, pg. 155

[vii] Michela Wrong, Do Not Disturb, 4^th Estate, London, 2021, Ch 7, pg. 153

[viii] Michela Wrong, Do Not Disturb, 4^th Estate, London, 2021, Ch 8, pg. 173

[ix] Michela Wrong, Do Not Disturb, 4^th Estate, London, 2021, Ch 12, pg. 268

[x] Michela Wrong, Do Not Disturb, 4^th Estate, London, 2021, Ch 10, pg. 224

[xi] Michela Wrong, Do Not Disturb, 4^th Estate, London, 2021, Ch 10, pg. 224

[xii] Michela Wrong, Do Not Disturb, 4^th Estate, London, 2021, Ch 10, pg. 222

[xiii] Michela Wrong, Do Not Disturb, 4^th Estate, London, 2021, Ch 10, pg. 227

[xiv] Michela Wrong, Do Not Disturb, 4^th Estate, London, 2021, Ch 10, pg. 228

[xv] Michela Wrong, Do Not Disturb, 4^th Estate, London, 2021, Ch 10, pg. 229

[xvi] Michela Wrong, Do Not Disturb, 4^th Estate, London, 2021, Ch 10, pg. 230

[xvii] Judi Rever, In Praise of Blood, Vintage Canada, 2020, Ch 15, pg. 218

[xviii] Judi Rever, In Praise of Blood, Vintage Canada, 2020, Conclusion, pg. 232-33

[xix] Judi Rever, In Praise of Blood, Vintage Canada, 2020, Ch 15, pg. 220

[xx] Michela Wrong, Do Not Disturb, 4^th Estate, London, 2021, Ch 10, pg. 232

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In Part II, we’ll look more closely at the infamous 100 days of genocide in 1994 by answering four contentious questions. I’ll then summarise what I think really happened in 1994.

Rusere Shoniwa is founder of A Plague on Both Houses, a non-ideological analysis of the dystopian reality we’re living in. Ideas for understanding and resistance. Promoting the Great FREEset.

Go to Original – plagueonbothhouses.substack.com

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