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Background To Genocide: Rwanda

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2021

Catharine Newbury
Catharine Newbury*
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
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Extract

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.

Type
Research Article
Information
African Issues , Volume 23 , Issue 2 , 1995 , pp. 12 - 17
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1995 

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References

Notes

Among our many Rwandan friends and acquaintances killed during the genocide was Joseph, a colleague and close friend of many years. He perished in the massacre at the Bishopric of Kibungo that began on April 17, 1994. I dedicate this paper to the memory of Joseph, a lover of history; his intelligence, his calm demeanor, his absolute integrity, and his kind and gentle manner touched many lives. There are many others. With this work, I offer my profound sympathy and condolences to all the people of Rwanda for the terrible tragedy they have experienced.

1. Newbury, Catharine, The Cohesion of Oppression: Clientship and Ethnicity in Rwanda, 1860-1960 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988)Google Scholar.

2. Reyntjens, Filip, L’Afrique des Grands Lacs en crise: Rwanda, Burundi, 1988-1994 (Paris: Karthala, 1994)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3. Bézy, Fernand, Rwanda: Bilan socio-économique d’un régime (1962-1989) (Louvain: Institut d’études des pays en développement; 1990)Google Scholar.

4. See Newbury, Catharine, “Rwanda: Recent Debates over Governance and Rural Development,” in Hyden, Goran and Bratton, Michael, eds., Governance and Politics in Africa (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner, 1992), 193–219 Google Scholar.

5. Danielle de Lame, personal communication.

6. See Longman, Timothy, “Democratization and Civil Society: The Case of Rwanda,” in The Democratic Challenge in Africa: Discussion Papers from a Seminar on Democratization (Atlanta: The Carter Center of Emory University, 1994), 61–69 Google Scholar.

7. For analyses of postcolonial political conflicts in Burundi, see Lemarchand, René, Burundi: Ethnocide as Discourse and Practice (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994)Google Scholar; and Reyntjens, L’Afrique des Grands Lacs en crise.

8. On the particular burdens that war, genocide, and life in refugee camps have placed on Rwandan women, and on the importance of women for promoting reconciliation, see Twagiramariya, Clotilde, “Women as Victims of Power Conflict: The Case of Rwanda,” ACAS Bulletin, Nos. 44/45 (Winter/Spring 1995), 13–18 Google Scholar.