I was a child of 11 when the Rwandan Genocide occurred in April 1994. I do not remember much of that time. It is one hazy memory.
But this weekend, as Rwanda and the world get ready to mark twenty years since the genocide, the global media is discussing, dissecting and analyzing the last genocide of the twentieth century. And the conclusions being reached are important and noteworthy for all of humankind.
Most of us have a sketchy idea of what the whole affair was about. As is well-documented now in countless news reports, books and movies, including the most famous cinematic representation - the Don Cheadle-starrer ‘Hotel Rwanda’ (called by some as an ‘African Schindler’s List’) - the genocide started on April 7, 1994. The day before, an airplane carrying Rwandan president, Juvenal Habyarimana and Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira (both ethnic Hutus) was shot down on its descent into Kigali, the Rwandan capital, killing all on board.
The Hutus, Rwanda (and neighbouring Burundi)’s majority ethnic group, have a historical blood feud with the minority Tutsis, dating back to colonial German and Belgian times. The colonial authorities had fostered unfounded theories that the Tutsi (An Omotic or Hamitic race) were related to the Arab-Berber peoples of North Africa or Somali clans from the Horn of Africa. The Europeans also believed that the Hutu, unlike the Tutsi, were a pure-blood Bantu group, indigenous to Africa. The dominant colonial narrative thus was that the Tutsi, tracing their descent to ‘Caucasoid’ ancestors, were a ‘superior’ race, compared to the Hutu, a true Negroid race.
Based on this absurd theory (which today has been discounted after DNA testing has revealed that both, Tutsi and Hutu have a very similar genetic makeup), the whites adopted a pro-Tutsi policy in all matters during the period of colonial rule. This laid the foundation of deep Hutu hatred towards the Tutsi.
Between the night of April 6 and the morning of April 7, the main radio station in Kigali broadcast poisonous propaganda, blaming the downing of the plane carrying the two presidents on the Rwandan Patriotic Front, the main Tutsi rebel group that had been carrying out a guerilla war against the Hutu-led government in Rwanda for quite some time. Hutus were urged to take up arms against the ‘enemy’, unless they wanted a return to the days of the Tutsi monarchy of the colonial days.
On April 7, the Rwandan Army, police, militias like the Interahamwe and ordinary Hutu civilians began organized attacks on Rwanda’s Tutsis, mostly with primitive weapons like machetes, spears and gardening tools - anything that could cut a man's body. The Rwandan Genocide had begun.
Over the next 100 days, the marauding, roving bands of Hutu men would kill and maim an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutu men, women and children. That is, a human being killed every 10 seconds! Over a million women, mostly Tutsi, would be raped, with many survivors being infected with HIV by the rapists.
The outside world would just fiddle its thumbs as the massacre unfolded. Paradoxically, in April 1994, as Rwandans were killing each other in Africa’s worst tribal war-cum-ethnic cleansing, in the south of the Continent, South Africa was unveiling its first democratically-elected black president, Nelson Mandela.
And only a few days before the genocide began, the United States had suffered one of its worst humiliations, when its Black Hawk helicopters had been shot down in the streets of the Somali capital, Mogadishu. The sight of American soldiers being dragged naked in Mogadishu’s streets put paid to any effort that Washington might have made to intervene in Rwanda.
The genocide ended in July, when the advancing RPF defeated the Hutus and took control of the country, triggering an exodus of Hutu refugees fearing retribution to neighbouring Zaire (today’s DRC), Burundi, Uganda and Tanzania. There, many more would die in the camps of cholera and dysentery.
In the two decades since the genocide shattered Rwanda, the country has been peaceful. Even more surprising, it has had an economic turnaround of sorts and is now one of Africa’s more prosperous nations. Poverty has decreased, education is free, healthcare has vastly improved, the economy has registered 8 per cent growth year-on-year. All this has been credited to Paul Kagame, a former RPF man and ethnic Tutsi, who took power in 1994 as Vice President and in 2000 as President.
Most importantly, the process of justice and reconciliation has been speeded up, in a uniquely Rwandan way. Though the United Nations set up the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) after the genocide, modern criminal jurisprudence has so far been successful in convicting only a few of the perpetrators of the genocide.
Instead, Kagame’s government initiated ‘Gacaca’ courts, which are rooted in the tribal culture of this part of Africa. Gacaca means a grassy clearing in the centre of a traditional African village (something similar to the South Asian ‘Chaupal’). Under Gacaca, the perpetrator was encouraged to admit his crime (which very few would have otherwise done) and ask for forgiveness from his victim’s kin. In return, the kin was encouraged to forgive the perpetrator and thus get his sentence reduced.
Gacaca may not have been the most sound of justice systems, but it has worked in that, families have since reconciled with those who slaughtered their relatives, with both sides able to move on with their respective lives. Kagame’s ultimate aim has been to bring up the next generation in such a way that it would not be embittered by the ravages of the conflict.
Kagame himself though, is under increasing scrutiny these days, especially from western governments. Critics have said that the president has become increasingly authoritarian and does not tolerate any dissent. Thus, they say, democracy in Rwanda currently is flawed despite its economic success.
The Rwandan Genocide has some very interesting parallels with conflicts around the world, including in India and South Asia. Would reconciliation between the populations of India and Pakistan akin to the one in Rwanda, immediately after the subcontinent’s partition, have helped? What about the pogroms of 1984 and 2002? Gujarat 2002 especially has some eerie similarities with Rwanda. In both cases, the majority group targeted the minority one, to get ‘revenge’. Poisonous propaganda was unleashed by the media in both places, against the minority group. Both, Gujarat and Rwanda did not see any incident of violence after their respective genocides. Both have ‘developed’. Both have strong, authoritarian leaders at the helm. And democracy in both is flawed. Gujarat though, is different in at least one respect: There has been no reconciliation.
The same similarities can be seen between Rwanda and 1984, the insurgencies in Punjab, Kashmir, the northeast and of the Maoists in the Red Corridor.
The greatest lessons that Rwanda gives us is that even in this modern day and age, primitive human passions do not take long to be ignited. And when they do, the consequences are terrible and become a blot on all of humanity.
But happily, there are many positive takeaways as well. Even in its darkest hours, the human mind can cope with tragedy, no matter how severe. And while evil will always remain, so will kindness, empathy and the brotherhood of man. And in times of great adversity, the true character of man is tested. Rwanda, in finality, is about the triumph of the human spirit. Against all odds.
