The commission cleared France of complicity in the genocide. French officials accused of 'complicity' in Rwanda genocide. The Rwandan report said while in the end the responsibility lay in those who actually carried out the genocide, the French government helped establish the institutions they eventually used to carry out the killings. To truly understand the Rwandan Genocide, one must move beyond the traditional binary of perpetrators and victims. Rwandans often transcended the categories of victim, perpetrator, bystander and rescuer— acting as a rescuer at one moment and a perpetrator another.
Tutsi victim testimony discusses the importance of rescuers— Hutu men and women who risked their own lives to hide and save Tutsi men, women, and children.
Tusti survivors discuss a multitude of survival strategies from playing dead to negotiating and buying their safety. Furthermore, both Hutus and Tutsis were subjected to mass violence, torture, and rape during the genocide. Yet because the victims of the Rwandan Genocide, per the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, were targeted for their ethnic identity solely, the victims of the genocide were Tutsis.
It is important to note, however, that Hutus and some Twa were also victims of non-genocidal violence. For example, both Tutsi and Hutu women were the victims of sexual violence. Hutu propaganda, such as the Hutu Ten Commandments, portrayed Tutsi women as being sexually available.
This appealed to the Hutu desire to create an ethnically Hutu-homogenous state. Rape of Tutsi women was systematic, and after the genocide subsided, an outbreak of HIV swept throughout Rwanda. Yet Hutu women also experienced violence from both their Hutu counterparts and members of the Tutsi-led RPF that was progressing through the country trying to end the genocide. While genocidal violence was widespread throughout the country, some regions experienced more:.
In November , a Hutu uprising killed many Tutsi and caused , to seek refuge outside Rwanda. These attacks displaced thousands of Rwandans causing great insecurity and fear. This fear was used to construct all Tutsis, regardless of their affiliation with the RPF, as enemies of the state. It was during this time that ethnic stratification was exacerbated and Hutu ideology strengthened and disseminated.
The Arusha Accords was supposed to end the three-year-long civil war, integrate Tutsi exiles into Rwandan society, and democratize the Rwandan government. Five years later, they would be crushed altogether in one of the worst genocides ever recorded.
O n the morning of 1 October , thousands of RPF fighters gathered in a football stadium in western Uganda about 20 miles from the Rwandan border. Two nearby hospitals were readied for casualties. They crossed into Rwanda that afternoon.
The Rwandan army, with help from French and Zairean commandos, stopped their advance and the rebels retreated back into Uganda.
But a few days after that, he quietly requested France and Belgium not to assist the Rwandan government in repelling the invasion. Cohen writes that he now believes that Museveni must have been feigning shock, when he knew what was going on all along. Museveni had already issued a statement promising to seal all Uganda—Rwanda border crossings, provide no assistance to the RPF and arrest any rebels who tried to return to Uganda. But he proceeded to do none of those things and the Americans appear to have made no objection.
But after four RPF commanders were killed, he told his American instructors that he was dropping out to join the Rwandan invasion. The Americans apparently supported this decision and Kagame flew into Entebbe airport, travelled to the Rwandan border by road, and crossed over to take command of the rebels.
When a Ugandan journalist published an article in the government-owned New Vision newspaper revealing the existence of these bases, Museveni threatened to charge the journalist and his editor with sedition. The entire border area was cordoned off. Even a French and Italian military inspection team was denied access.
In October , the UN security council authorised a peacekeeping force to ensure no weapons crossed the border. Dallaire protested: the element of surprise is crucial for such monitoring missions. But the Ugandans insisted and eventually, Dallaire, who was much more concerned about developments inside Rwanda, gave up. The border was a sieve anyway, as Dallaire later wrote.
There were five official crossing sites and countless unmapped mountain trails. It was impossible to monitor. Dallaire had also heard that an arsenal in Mbarara, a Ugandan town about 80 miles from the Rwanda border, was being used to supply the RPF. In , Dallaire told a US congressional hearing that Museveni had laughed in his face when they met at a gathering to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the genocide.
In , Uganda purchased 10 times more US weapons than in the preceding 40 years combined. But negotiations appear to have been abandoned abruptly in favour of war. At least one American was concerned about this. After the invasion, hundreds of thousands of mostly Hutu villagers fled RPF-held areas, saying they had seen abductions and killings.
We encouraged nascent democratic initiatives. We supported a full range of economic reforms. But the US was not fostering nascent democratic initiatives inside Uganda. Soldiers and police officers encouraged ordinary citizens to take part. In some cases, Hutu civilians were forced to murder their Tutsi neighbours by military personnel.
Participants were often given incentives, such as money or food, and some were even told they could appropriate the land of the Tutsis they killed. On the ground at least, the Rwandans were largely left alone by the international community. Most of the UN troops withdrew after the murder of 10 soldiers. The day after Habyarimana's death, the RPF renewed their assault on government forces, and numerous attempts by the UN to negotiate a ceasefire came to nothing.
The government collapsed and the RPF declared a ceasefire. These refugees include many who have since been implicated in the massacres. At first, a multi-ethnic government was set up, with a Hutu, Pasteur Bizimungu as president and Mr Kagame as his deputy. But the pair later fell out and Bizimungu was jailed on charges of inciting ethnic violence, while Mr Kagame became president. Although the killing in Rwanda was over, the presence of Hutu militias in DR Congo has led to years of conflict there, causing up to five million deaths.
Rwanda's now Tutsi-led government has twice invaded its much larger neighbour, saying it wants to wipe out the Hutu forces. And a Congolese Tutsi rebel group remains active, refusing to lay down arms, saying otherwise its community would be at risk of genocide.
The world's largest peacekeeping force has been unable to end the fighting. Human Rights Watch report.
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