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Prejudice, Crisis, and Genocide in Rwanda

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

Peter Uvin
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From 7 April, 1994, onwards, a well planned and massively executed genocide began in Rwanda, which led to the brutal slaughter of up to one million defenseless children, women and men. This genocide was the culmination of a four year period during which civil war and extremist violence cost the lives of tens of thousands of persons. Both these processes took place against the background of the never-resolved consequences of previous instances of violence, in Rwanda and in Burundi, including a massive festering refugee problem. They heralded the beginning of further violence in Rwanda, Burundi and Zaire, which has lasted until now.

This article attempts to understand the socio-psychological causes of the dramatic and profoundly disturbing events that took place in Rwanda in 1994. Its starting questions are: how do situations come about in which people massively participate in brutal violence against their neighbors who have not harmed them? What kind of social and political processes have taken place that can bring people to lose the values, restraints and ethics that under normal circumstances make these actions impossible, and abhorrent to contemplate?

Type
Articles
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 40 , Issue 2 , September 1997 , pp. 91 - 115
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1997

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