The papers that follow were based on presentations to two roundtables on Rwanda organized at the African Studies Association Annual Meeting held in Toronto, on November 6,1994.

At the outset, it is important to note three aspects of those roundtables. First, they were not organized as a comprehensive set of papers; instead, with one or two exceptions, the roundtables were formed of those papers which were submitted independently of each other by individual members of the ASA. I was asked simply to coordinate their presentation and prepare the papers for publication afterward. The result of this was regrettable in one major aspect: there was very little representation of Rwandans on the panels, and therefore also in this collection, although a large number of Rwandans attended the roundtables and participated energetically in the discussions, which together with the paper presentations lasted formally for nearly 6 hours, and informally far into the night.

The image of Rwanda conveyed by the media is that of a society gone amok. How else to explain the collective insanity that led to the butchering of half a million civilians, men, women and children? As much as the scale of the killings, the visual impact of the atrocities numbs the mind and makes the quest for rational motives singularly irrelevant. Tribal savagery suggests itself as the most plausible subtext for the scenes of apocalypse captured by television crews and photojournalists.

Ironically, just as “tribalism” is being reaffirmed by the media as the bane of the continent, Rwanda’s descent into hell makes it a society not unlike others in Europe and Asia where genocide has been intrinsic to their recent historical experience.

Readers of Issue know better than to accept the images of tribalism and ancient hatreds propagated in much of the American press during the early days and weeks of the genocide in Rwanda. And the media (or at least some journalists) came around eventually to a recognition that far from mindless tribal violence, this was planned and calculated genocide. Still, in North America it is the deaths and brutality that have most mesmerized public attention; there has been too little discussion of the political, social, and economic context in which the genocide occurred.

From the comfort of American living rooms, the violence that ravaged Rwanda for four months in mid-1994 seemed almost incomprehensible. The daily newspaper reports and nightly television coverage that presented disturbing images of slaughter and destruction failed to provide the necessary background to make sense of the disaster. For most Americans, little option was left than to view the devastation as an expression of some inherent savagery in the Rwandan population.

In this article, I draw upon the example of two Rwandan communities to help explain the nature of the violence that swept Rwanda after the death of President Juvénal Habyarimana. These two communities bear certain similarities: they lie in neighboring communes in Kibuye Prefecture; both are relatively remote; and each community centers around a parish of the Presbyterian Church.

As the tragic events of Rwanda started unfolding on April 6, 1994, I was in Kigali setting up a Postwar Rehabilitation and Development Program we had developed in collaboration with the Rwandan Ministries of Health and Defense, and ORTPN (the Rwandan Office of Tourism and National Parks). This program, implemented by a local NGO, included four components. The first consisted in the physical rehabilitation of institutions damaged in the war between October 1990 and March 1993, primarily hospitals, health centers and dispensaries in the Prefectures of Byumba and Ruhengeri. The first phase of this component had been completed by March 25, 1994, with funding from the Canadian Government and the EEC. Subsequent phases were intended to be program-oriented and to provide institutional support to these health facilities.

Most press reports would have us believe that the genocide in Rwanda was the result of a “centuries-old” ethnic/tribal hatred. There is no denying that mass murder and genocide took place in Rwanda. It is estimated that between 500,000 and 1,000,000 people died in the most appalling way. Those killed were from all ethnic groups, Tutsi, Hutu, and Twa; but the vast majority of those killed were Tutsi. However, it is important to understand the process by which this took place: we must stop and ask if this genocide was inevitable, if it was universal, and if it was the result of ancient irreconcilable hatreds.

The reference to tribal warfare, or even ethnic conflict, implies that there are (at least) two sides fighting, and that all members of society are caught up in the killings. But in this case, the great preponderance of deaths resulted not from “conflict” but from murder.

It is 35-40 kilometers from the Burundi border to the town of Butare. Over the entire route, I saw only four people, two on the road and two at a riverbank, about to do their washing. [This, in what was formerly one of the most densely populated areas of the country.] In the fields were unharvested beans and sorghum; banana groves had not been maintained; the coffee trees in flower had not received mulch; the harvest will be mediocre. The paths to each homestead were overrun by weeds. The destroyed homes of Tutsi or other “nuisances” [Hutu opponents to the former regime or those who protected Tutsi] appeared as gaping sores in the countryside.

Having recently returned from a short research trip to Rwanda (from October 15 to October 22), I want to comment on certain serious problems which threaten to weigh heavily on the immediate future of the country. I do not intend to judge the performance of the regime in power after only three months in power; it would be premature to do so, and in any case the administration lacks virtually all financial resources. Instead, I seek here only to share a few observations on the current situation.

Before this trip I believed that the essential problem faced by the country was the threat of renewed warfare by the armed forces of the former government, and their associated militias, now in exile in the neighboring countries. That is still a threat.

Mobilizing thousands of Rwandans to slaughter tens of thousands of others required effective organization. Far from the “Failed State” syndrome that appears to plague some parts of Africa, Rwanda was too successful as a state. Extremists used its administrative apparatus, its military, and its party organizations to carry out a “cottage-industry” genocide that reached out to all levels of the population and produced between five hundred thousand and one million victims. Those with state power used their authority to force action from those reluctant to kill. They also offered attractive incentives to people who are very poor, giving license to loot and promising them the land and businesses of the victims. In some cases, local officials even decided ahead of time the disposition of the most attractive items of movable property. Everyone knew who had a refrigerator, a plush sofa, a radio, and assailants were guaranteed their rewards before attacking. But even with the powerful levers of threat and bribe, officials could not have succeeded so well had people not been prepared to hate and fear the Tutsi.

The past twelve months have witnessed the devastation of Rwanda. More than one half million people were murdered by the Rwandan army and the associated civilian militias, while over two million people fled the country after the death of former President Juvenal Habyarimana. The Rwandan Patriotic Front, which emerged in exile over the past thirty years and now dominates the government in Kigali, faces a dilemma: how does it consolidate its position amongst its core supporters, many of whom grew up in exile and recently returned to Rwanda, while at the same time gain the confidence of the domestic population, many of whom have recently fled? Resolving this dilemma is the central task for the regime, and is critical to the future political and economic development of the country.

In spite of its stated desire to create a broad-based government, the core of RPF support lies on a perilously narrow base, located as much outside of the country as inside. Domestically, the country is in ruins. The exodus of refugees resulted in the collapse of production and of the state.

By October 1994 the population of refugees from Rwanda and Burundi registered with the UN High Commission of Refugees in Tanzania was about 570,000. (Personal communication: Yukiko Hameda, UNHCR-Nairobi.) And from the point of view of the international and Tanzanian authorities responsible for refugees, the crisis continues to grow. On December 23, 1994, Patrick Chokala, Press Secretary to the Tanzanian President, claimed that 300-400 refugees enter Tanzania every day; the total number then was 591,000. (Daily News, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 24 December 1994.)

The human tragedy, the genocide which began after President Habyarimana’s plane was shot down on April 6, 1994 and which in the space of a few short months left one-half million people dead and precipitated the flight of two and one-half million people to refugee camps in Zaire and Tanzania, cannot be undone, although expeditious and fair judicial procedures are a necessary step to a secure future.

French policy in Africa is at a crossroads. Forced to consider among choices that appeared entrenched in the past, France now hesitates to implement essential reforms. The reluctance to carve out a new conception of French-African relations is in part tied to the magnitude of the changes which have affected African states south of the Sahara since 1989, but it is also tied to the generalized failure of French aid policies since the Second World War. The result has been a conceptual vacuum in French policy towards Africa, reflected in the oscillation between the old practices, including very controversial ones, and the structural adjustments in which France is little more than an interested observer.

When I received the July/September issue of ASA News, I had just returned from a visit to Zaire (June/July 1994), and was struggling against the current that kept me from finding the best ways to bear witness to what had happened in Burundi and Rwanda. Everything around me conspired to draw me back into the business as usual mode. With such preoccupations in my mind, my first walk through a local mall almost made me sick. I am slowly learning to understand that in the Age of the Ephemeral, attempting to interface with Memory can be as lethal as fantasizing that one could get, unscathed, through a society which puts a premium on conformity.