Historically, the English-speaking Tutsi group in Rwanda has been the minority, with French-speaking Hutus making up 85% of the population. Prior to 1959, the monarchy was Tutsi, before it was overthrown by the Hutus. As a result, thousands of Tutsis then fled to neighbouring states. A group of Tutsis then formed the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a rebel group who invaded Rwanda in 1990. In 1993 a peace deal resulted in the end of three years of civil war.
The genocide of 1994 was catalysed by the April assassination of President Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu. Hutu extremists blamed the RPF, disseminating lists of their political opponents and ordering militias to kill Tutsis.
At the time the Rwandan government operated an ID card system that not only listed basic personal information, but also the individual’s ethnicity. This enabled easy identification of areas with high Tutsi populations. Armed with this information, road blocks were set up to murder Tutsis. In the three months of violence between April and July 1994, approximately three quarters of the Tutsi population of Rwanda were killed.
INTERNATIONAL INTERVENTION & THE END OF THE GENOCIDE
At the height of the violence, the United Nations (UN) withdrew its peacekeepers, giving free reign to the killers. At the time, Kofi Annan was the head of the Department of Peacekeeping operations.
This is not the only time peacekeeping has failed. The following year, they failed to stop the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men in Srebrenica. Since 1994, the United Nations has acknowledged its failure in protecting the Tutsi people of Rwanda. The Rwandan genocide led directly to a change in the way peacekeeping works, with the UN changing its mandate in 2005 to make states responsible for protecting citizens. Peacekeepers now treat protecting civilians as a priority over and above state sovereignty, a shift from the attitude of the 1990s
French troops intervened in June 1994 after receiving UN Security Council authorisation. Operation Turquoise supposedly saved thousands of civilians, however, France have since been accused of letting perpetrators escape through the Democratic Republic of the Congo, emboldening the militias and repatriating perpetrators when the genocide ended. Accusations of complicity in the genocide continue to cloud French-African relations. IN response to the allegations, President Macron in April 2019 ordered an investigation into the French role in the genocide.
The genocide came to an end in July 1994, some 3 months after it began. The RPF seized territory across Rwanda and marched into the capital, Kigali, on July 4 1994. They installed a new government in mid-July.
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE PERPETRATORS?
Despite the years that have passed since the events of Spring 1994, the perpetrators are still being brought to justice. In December 2019, a Belgian court found Fabien Neretse, a former official of the Rwandan government, guilty of war crime for his role in the genocide. In September 2020, Claude Muhayimana will go on trial in France. These prosecutions are in addition to more than 70 cases that have been prosecuted in the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and other cases in domestic courts such as Germany, the US and Finland.
COMPENSATING THE ATROCITY
The legal action has its critics. Neither the ICTR nor the domestic courts have delivered compensation for the victims of the atrocity. There is an argument that genocide is a crime irreparable in financial compensation, but following the genocide the country was in ruins - its infrastructure was destroyed and many were left widowed and orphaned. An instance where the UN had compensated victims was when it gave over $1 Billion in reparations to Kuwaitis for Iraq’s invasion. Its failure to act in Rwanda could give rise to a similar scheme of financial compensation for the genocides victims.
THE TRAUMA LIVES ON
The children of Tutsi survivors who were not born at the time of the genocide continue to be affected by the events of 1994. In April 2020, a mass grave of up to 30,000 bodies was discovered in a valley dam outside Kigali following information from a recently released perpetrator. The discovery raises more questions about whether the country can ever move on from the atrocity when perpetrators continue to conceal information about the location of the victims. The people of Rwanda have, despite the 26 years that have passed, been unable to move on.
The remains of 250,000 of the victims of the massacre are interred at the Kigali Genocide Memorial, a reminder of a painful but important chapter of Rwanda’s history.
Rani holds an LLB in Law and an LLM in Public International Law. She was called to the Bar of England and Wales in November 2018. She aspires for a career at the civil Bar.