The report was drafted by Robert F. Read More. Rwanda's report comes on the heels of a similar report by French commission released in March which said France had been blinded by its colonial attitude to Africa to events leading up to the genocide and consequently bore "serious and overwhelming" responsibility.
The commission cleared France of complicity in the genocide. Over subsequent decades, the Tutsis were portrayed as the scapegoats for every crisis. This was still the case in the years before the genocide. The economic situation worsened and the incumbent president, Juvenal Habyarimana, began losing popularity. Their aim was to overthrow Habyarimana and secure their right to return to their homeland. Habyarimana chose to exploit this threat as a way to bring dissident Hutus back to his side, and Tutsis inside Rwanda were accused of being RPF collaborators.
In August , after several attacks and months of negotiation, a peace accord was signed between Habyarimana and the RPF, but it did little to stop the continued unrest. When Habyarimana's plane was shot down at the beginning of April , it was the final nail in the coffin. Exactly who killed the president - and with him the president of Burundi and many chief members of staff - has not been established. Whoever was behind the killing its effect was both instantaneous and catastrophic.
In Kigali, the presidential guard immediately initiated a campaign of retribution. Leaders of the political opposition were murdered, and almost immediately, the slaughter of Tutsis and moderate Hutus began. Within hours, recruits were dispatched all over the country to carry out a wave of slaughter. The early organisers included military officials, politicians and businessmen, but soon many others joined in the mayhem.
Organised gangs of government soldiers and militias hacked their way through the Tutsi population with machetes, or blew them up in churches where they had taken refuge. The extremist ethnic Hutu regime in office in appeared genuinely to believe that the only way it could hang on to power was by wiping out the ethnic Tutsis completely. Encouraged by the presidential guard and radio propaganda, an unofficial militia group called the Interahamwe meaning those who attack together was mobilised.
At its peak, this group was 30,strong. 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.
In addition, the Hutu dominated government began stockpiling weapons, including machetes. These machetes and other rudimentary weapons would be the tools that carried out the genocide. The channel would be used to incite hatred towards Tutsi by using propaganda and racist ideology, such as the Hutu Ten Commandments.
The genocide had begun. 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. The warning went unheeded. In addition, the use of Belgian troops for the UN mission violated UN regulations banning colonial powers from providing troops to missions in former colonies.
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