www.newsandletters.org
|
|
NEWS & LETTERS, May 2004EditorialThe Rwanda genocide, ten years laterGenocide. The deliberate murder of an entire people. That is what took place in Rwanda in 1994, ten years ago this spring. During 100 days of carefully orchestrated attacks by the interahamwe, over 800,000 people, mainly members of the Tutsi minority, met their deaths. All too often, death came slowly, after rape, dismemberment, and torture. The main perpetrators were the interahamwe, a government militia set up years before from among the Hutu majority. The Tutsi, a formerly privileged group that comprised at most 15% of the population, had long suffered oppression by the regime. Under the military ruler Juvenal Habyarimana, the Hutu majority was encouraged to blame all of the country’s problems on the Tutsi. The regime pointed to the fact that the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF), which had launched an anti-government insurgency from bases in neighboring Uganda, was led by Tutsis. After Habyarimana was assassinated, Colonel Theoneste Bagosora took command, activating the interahamwe. From the beginning, the interahamwe targeted moderate Hutu as well, such as Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyama, killed on the first day. As the interahamwe spread out, some pockets of resistance emerged. There was quiet resistance in working class districts of the cities, where some Tutsi were able to find shelter. In Butare, a large university town that was 50% Tutsi, with many mixed marriages, local officials at first refused to cooperate. Many refugees fled to Butare from other areas of the country. Health Minister Pauline Nyiramasuhuko was sent in. She told the interahamwe that they could rape freely before killing Tutsi women. Through these and other tactics, the hunt for local Tutsis got going, with even professors eventually joining in. BEHIND THE GENOCIDE How could 800,000 people have been murdered in 100 days? First, it was because the regime had produced a compelling genocidal ideology, "Hutu power," and an organization, the interahamwe. In demonizing the Tutsis, the regime deflected the masses’ anger over severe rural poverty and other oppressive conditions of life and labor. Second, it was due to imperialist politics. To maintain its influence in the region, the French government had for years aided and trained the Rwandan military. In spring 1994, French troops eventually intervened, but not to protect the victims. Instead, they covered the retreat of the interahamwe, who were fleeing into Congo (then Zaire) as the RPF closed in. It was the RPF victory that actually stopped the genocide. Third, there was imperial indifference. When peacekeepers gave the UN detailed reports on plans for genocide in January 1994, Kofi Annan, then head of peacekeeping operations, decided to use quiet diplomacy rather than publicity. As the genocide began, the U.S. and other powers denied or minimized it, since admitting that genocide was taking place might have caused public opinion to force them to intervene. Even since 1994, the Rwanda genocide has not received much attention. Nor has the International Criminal Court in Arusha, Tanzania, which has obtained convictions for genocide, for mass rape, and for genocidal propaganda. While we would be the last to begrudge the media coverage the Hague Tribunal has received as it has prosecuted Slobodan Milosevic and other Balkan war criminals, we nonetheless ask why Arusha is covered so little and why to this day the names and faces of leading criminals like Col. Bagosora and Health Minister Nyiramasuhuko are so little known. LESSONS FOR TODAY Nothing said here is meant to excuse all of the actions of the RPF government in Rwanda since 1994. It has set up an authoritarian state in which President Paul Kagame won the last election with a supposed 95% majority. Additionally, in carrying out utterly justifiable interventions into neighboring Congo to root out remnants of the interahamwe, the Rwandan government took advantage of the situation to loot the mineral resources of its neighbor. It also massacred civilians. This year, tens of thousands of Rwandans attended the April 7 ceremony marking the tenth anniversary of the genocide. A memorial torch was lit that will burn for 100 days. But as the BBC reported that day: "Leaders from South Africa, Kenya, Burundi, Belgium, Tanzania and Congo have flown into Rwanda for the commemoration, but western heads of state were conspicuous by their absence. That is likely to reinforce the bitterness felt by many Rwandans over the failure of the international community to intervene in the genocide." Unfortunately, such indifference is not confined to Western leaders. Since 1994, Western leftist and peace movements have also avoided the issue of the Rwandan genocide. This may be because it does not fit into the anti-interventionist politics that so dominate today’s leftist and peace movements. Such a politics cannot explain the rise of Milosevic, let alone the Rwanda genocide. This has left human rights groups as virtually the only ones consistently discussing the lessons of Rwanda. Those lessons have yet to be learned. Otherwise, the "ethnic cleansing" taking place right now in Sudan’s Darfur region would be making headlines, with leftist and peace movements holding mass demonstrations denouncing the Islamist Sudanese government and the failure of the Western powers and the UN to act. Arab militias armed by the state have massacred 3,000 of Darfur’s people, uprooted 800,000 from their homes, and burned hundreds of villages. 110,000 have been forced to flee across the border into Chad, where they face starvation and disease. The reason? As Black Muslim Africans in a country ruled by other Africans who consider themselves to be Arabs, they have been targeted for their ethnicity, for their land, and for having dared to rise up and defend themselves against decades of oppression. As we mark the anniversary of the Rwanda genocide, we call on the Left and the peace movement to use the occasion of the anniversary to rethink a narrow form of anti-imperialism that has led to a failure to develop an adequate critique of narrow nationalism and religious fundamentalism. We also call for the deepest solidarity with the people of Darfur. |
|
Home l News & Letters Newspaper l Back issues l News and Letters Committees l Dialogues l Raya Dunayevskaya l Contact us l Search Published by News and Letters Committees |
