Chapter 3: The Genocide against Tutsis in steps
In 1996, Dr. Gregory H. Stanton, the president of the Genocide Watch presented to the United States, State Department a briefing paper which explains in details the process of a genocide through eight principle steps; later he updated the document and added two more steps to the initial ones.
And since the document was released, deniers of the Genocide against Tutsis have used it to demonstrate that the massacres of Tutsis in 1994 do not qualify to be called a genocide. Most of researchers above cited recognize atrocities and mass killings committed against Tutsis; but still find reasons to disqualify it as a genocide. Generally, they claim that there is no enough evidences to prove that the genocide which took the lives of many Tutsis in 1994 was planned or organized. They always argue that the killings were a result of Hutu’s anger against Tutsis who were believed to have killed Presidents Habyalimana of Rwanda and Ntaryamira of Burundi, in a fatal plane shouting down. In some particular cases, they go even further and blame the calamity which fell on Rwanda in 1994 on Tutsis. Defenders of this theory take the victory of the RPA army over the FAR forces as an evidence that Tutsis exterminated Hutus and not the other way round.
Therefore, for all Rwandans or any other person who was in Rwanda from the sixties until the RPA’s attack on the country in 1990 and during the four years the war lasted, they would recognize that the genocide took a constant process even though some of its steps were not very clear or didn’t occur in the same order as Dr. Stanton reported.
3. a. Classification
Rwandans are divided into three ethnic groups: Hutus, Tutsis and Twas. Some new theories claim that the ethnic groups of Rwandans never existed; were instead socio-economical classes. For the defenders of that theory, colonialists used these social classes to divide Rwandans into ethnic groups in order to strengthen their grip on them. But once one puts aside that theory, there are enough physical aspects which show clearly from which ethnic background every Rwandan belongs to. At least for the two big categories; Tutsis and Hutus; as the last one - Twa is often assimilated to Hutus. The Twas have always been assimilated to Hutus in a big group some trends call the “Bantou” people of the Central part of Africa. Both the Kayibanda and Habyalimana’s regimes didn’t do match in the classification of Rwandans into their three ethnic groups; it was a fact of nature which was already well established when they both took the power in different times.
However, the two classifications were used to threaten and discriminate Tutsis every time the need aroused. First, by the Belgian colonial power, which in order to get rid of a non compromising monarchy used the Hutus-Tutsis card to create divisions among citizens. They set the Hutus against the monarchy, convincing them that the Tutsis rule has been rather harsh and oppressive on, them and they did not need to continue to support the Kingdom. This led to unrest of the Hutu community which led to a social revolution only few years later. 1959, a movement of few Hutu elites formed in catholic schools supported by the Belgian colonial power mobilised masses of Hutus, overthrew the monarchy and installed a Hutu regime which discriminated Tutsis since 1961.
And yet the Belgians’ allegations about the Kingdom’s oppression on Hutus were a mere lie. The Rwandan Monarchy –Like any other power in the world – was made by a small elite under the hands of the royal family and few Tutsis Lords but it has always been equal and fair to Rwandans of all walks of life, Hutu, Tutsis and Twas alike. The King and the majority of the Lords were Tutsis, but no Hutu or Twa was threatened or discriminated because of his ethnic origins. The army commanders were mainly Tutsis, as the rule was in hand of Tutsis but the army was made by both Tutsis and Hutus with one common enemy: the neighbouring monarchies they were attacking in their long journey to expand the country. Award of heroism on the battlefields were equally allocated to soldiers and they were sung in the same way.
Under the rule of the King, both Hutus and Tutsis were governed by a same feudal system. Through that system, everyone was expected to pay a same amount of tax to their direct Lords who were mandated to report it to the King. Here people must understand that no money was involved. Tax was paid in nature or service. In the pre-colonial Rwandan society, every fit man was expected to perform a patriotic service at the King’s court and the duration was the same for both Hutus and Tutsis. A system of serfdom was established between poor peasants and their Lords. Everyone who was in need was working for his direct Lord –who most of the time was a Chief reporting to the King – for a certain amount of time, after which the serf was returning home with the most valuable reward of these time: a cow. Once back home with his cow, the former serf would build his house, take a young woman for marriage, something which would have been impossible or very hard otherwise. The rest would depend then on how well or bad he would manage the hardly acquired cow.
The patriotic service, the taxes and the serfdom contracts became tools colonialists used to set Hutus against the kingdom. They convinced them that they were doing unpaid duties for an oppressive Kingdom and they were advised to stop it. And that was not true. The patriotic service and the tax exist every were, in different ways than these of the old Rwandan kingdom, but every society needs the support of its citizen to be able to function. The serfdom contracts would be considered as any other working contract of nowadays. For sure these services were not perfect but they were not what the colonial power tried to make them look like. And they were performed by both Hutus and Tutsis, with no discrimination or favouritism of one ethnic group.
I remember how my grandfather, a Tutsis of a lower class used to praise the name of Muvara, the former chief of Bufundu, my family’s original region. This means that my grandfather has once served for the chief who rewarded him his first cow. That was enough for the old man to sing his Lord’s name until the end of his life. Working for Muvara helped him to achieve a better life, even though he lost it again in 1964 and had to start again from zero.
In order to overthrow the King, colonialists managed to convince the Hutu elite and the masses that the Tutsis ruled monarchy have always oppressed them. Slowly the statement raised anger and frustration in Hutus. As they made the majority of Rwandans they stood in masses and seized the power, cutting short the King’s rule and Tutsis supremacy. The social revolution was followed by the first killing of Tutsis in some regions of the country, burning down of their houses and slaughtering their cattle. From the royal family, the ruling elite, down to the simple Tutsis peasants. Many Tutsis got killed in the events, but a part of them managed to escape to neighbouring countries where they sought a political asylum. Another part of survivors decided to stay inside the country and face whatever had to come.
What the colonials didn’t foresee at the time, was that the venin they were instilling in Hutus would smoulder, and lead to one of the fastest and most deadly genocide of the modern times.
Later after the departure of the colonial power, the newly established regime led by Hutus continued to use the ethnical divisions to counterattack any threat. That’s how from 1962 to 1964 the Kayibanda’s government backed and facilitated the killings of Tutsis in Gikongoro Prefecture every time Inyenzi (a rebellion movement formed by Tutsis refugees) attacked the country.
In 1973, Habyalimana used the same tactic in order to remove Kayibanda from power. Him and some of his fellow military officers instigated killing of Tutsis in many high schools of the country to prove that Kayibanda was tired and failed to guarantee the security to all Rwandans. Here again the card of divisions worked well as habyalimana seized the power only months later and he was praised to have restored calm and peace in the country.
3.b. Symbolization
Together with the mention of the ethnic origin in every individual’s identity card, some of human natural features were used to symbolize Tutsis. The form of their nose and a tall stature were the most recognized sign of Tutsis
In 1933 the colonial government issued an identity card, named “ibuku” categorizing officially all
Rwandans in the three ethnical groups. To make sure everyone was registered in the category he belonged to, sessions of height and noise measuring were organized and measurements were registered prior to issuing the identity cards. The registrations of Rwandans under their ethnical origins played a big role in the discrimination of Tutsis since the country’s independence. It was the only way to implement the discriminating policy of quotas installed to set a legitimized limit to Tutsis in all country’s institutions.
In 1994 militias and killers used the same divisional identity cards to select Tutsis to kill. Especially in big cities like Kigali, where it was not easy to monitor everyone by his family background. In villages the identity card was rarely needed. Only in cases when arrested people were not from the region, Interahamwe militias could refer to his identity card to check whether the fugitive was Tutsi or belonged to another ethnic group. Everyone who did not bear his own identity card was considered as a Tutsis by default and was killed in most of the cases. In rare cases, checking on the above cited physical features –height and nose size and form – would lead to deliberations to decide whether to kill or save the person’s life.
3. c. Discrimination
In the process of the genocide against Tutsis, the discrimination has been rather an oppressive tool. It’s very difficult to consider it as a simple step. In the first, Kayibanda used the country’s institutions to uproot few Tutsi families who have chosen or had no other means other than to stay in the country despite the ongoing threat and killings; to deport them in Bugesera region, one of the country’s most dangerous zones by that time. By the time Tutsis were deported there, Bugesera was a dense forest area, infested of tsetse flies and many fierce animals. The region had no access to drinking water; new settlers were obliged to drink water fetched from lakes. They had to tame the forest and make a viable space and many of them lost lives due to the hard work in poor conditions. Another part of them got killed by animals and deceases transmitted by the tsetse fly and the lack of treatment. As the region had no schools, many families got separated with their little children as they had to send them away where they had relatives to in order to study.
Under both the Kayibanda and Habyalimana’s regimes, Tutsis were limited in education, public jobs and in the army. Back in the eighties, Habyalimana categorically denied to the Tutsis refugees the right to come back home; arguing that the country was very small, and that it could not receive more people. He urged them instead to seek citizenship in the countries which have sheltered them already for more than two decades. His poor judgement led to the country’s attack by the Tutsis rebels in 1990.
3. d. Dehumanization
Since 1959 and the first killings of Tutsis in Rwanda, they have been tagged of names of animals such as cockroaches and snakes.
Cockroaches are pest bug which move into people houses as they like to live in warm conditions. They are comfortable moving and working in darkness and are known to be very organized. Only one female cockroach is enough inside a house to have a dozens and hundreds of other cockroaches just weeks later. And once they get inside, it becomes very hard to clean them out. They are very harmful: they destroy cloths, they get inside food and beverage and they are believed to leave trails of chemicals and bacteria. They smell bad and their dejections leave dirty spots in the corners of a house or furniture. Even once they are killed, people are advised to clean the place with boiling water in order to kill their eggs too, before they burst and give birth to hundreds of new small ones. In tropical societies, and especially in Africa where the use of cleaners and sanitizers is limited, a cockroach is a nightmare for everyone, especially the house keepers which means almost every girl and every woman. The sight of a cockroach fills one with too feeling; revulsion or fear. And in both cases the first reaction is to kill the bug as quick as possible, before it disappears or harm anyone.
Snakes are very dangerous animals, most of the spaces are venomous and their poisons kill anyone they bite within minutes if no quick rescue provided. For religious communities such as these found in Africa, the snake is related to the devil. It’s said to be very cunning, highly tempting and extremely fast. A passage of the holy Bible urges everyone to smash a snake’s head before it bites one’s heel. Everyone is afraid to meet a snake, and whenever it happens, the first reaction is to find a weapon to kill the animal or call for help when one is too much afraid to do it or can’t find a weapon around.
The idea behind calling Tutsis “cockroaches and snakes” was to dehumanize them before the rest of Rwandans. To make them appear in front of their compatriots as repulsive, scaring, cunning and extremely dangerous to get rid of before they get out of control. Slowly but surely, Hutus and Twas started taking Tutsis as such. And when by mistake or simply because they are of human nature, they happened to be in the centre of any incident, as small as it could be, it always triggered hatred and excessive responses from the two other ethnic groups. A typical example of the dehumanization of Tutsis, is the way they were targeted and killed every time Tutsis refugees in neighbouring countries launched an attack on the country. Hutus backed by the government always stoop up as one person to kill their neighbours who were as frightened as anyone else by the attacks to their country. Tutsis who have remained in the country were thought to be harmful to the country even though the attacks were coming from outside. And yet the government has made sure to cut all contacts between the two communities.
Incidents of small scale but equally revealing of the impact of the dehumanization of Tutsis among Rwandans happened often in villages. Many cases occurred where following a simple fight between two teenagers would result in an attack on a whole family when it happened to the strongest to be a Tutsis, beating a Hutu. For the villagers, it was simply unbearable for a Tutsis to beat a Hutu. And whenever it happened, a whole family needed to pay for the affront caused by an irresponsible young one. I talked of teenagers on purpose, as no adult Tutsis would have fought with a Hutu in public, he would have known in advance that it would put his community in danger, and hence they all avoided confrontation whenever it was possible. Tutsis have understood very well that the balance of the harmony in the state of Unity and Peace declared by President Habyalimana hung on their ability to stay in their place, keep a low profile and making concessions whenever it was needed.
1992, my younger brother was finishing his primary school. Among his class was a bright young girl, daughter to a man called Muhakwa. At the announcement of the results of the final exams, four Tutsis and four Hutus were selected as the winners to pass into high school and Mukakwa’s daughter was not among these. It was during the first year of Mrs Uwilingiyimana Agatha as the Minister of Education and she has vowed to stop the discriminatory system of quotas and only select the winners by their highest marks. It was the first time such thing happened in Rwanda since the independence day, and everyone was surprised, Tutsis in the first place. Muhakwa and the rest of Rwandans, were used to see five to six Hutus winning, then plus one Tutsi or none at all. And one Twa whenever there was one in the school, as it was very rare. Muhakwa’s daughter was very bright at school and so were so many other kids but unfortunately places were limited and could only be allocated to few winners. A day after the results were out, Muhakwa stormed into the Communal office with a machete, threatening to kill everyone if none explained to him how Tutsis children could have won the national exam schools and not her daughter. For that man, Tutsis were simply no human beings, and hence could only be chosen after all Hutus were first served. On that day he didn’t kill anyone with his machete as he was neutralized by the Communal office security agents, but one would imagine what he did with his machete once the killing of Tutsis was allowed 1994. He was the first one to respond to the urge of extremists Hutus to start killing Tutsis.
3. e. Organization
The organization of the genocide against Tutsis in Rwanda was informal until 1990 and the attack of the RPA forces on the country. Starting from that time, extremist
group of Hutus unveiled and begun threatening Tutsis on a broad light day. Killings were experimented in regions where Tutsis were known to be more concentrated like Kibilira, Bagogwe region, Murambi, Kibuye and Bugesera. Other plans of killings were aborted in extremis in the southern region of the country, like in Nyanza where opposition parties were powerful and denounced the extremists’ diabolic plan in the former monarchy capital of the country. In the first weeks of 1992, a death squad was spotted lodging and following intensive training in Gendarmerie camp in Nyanza. When the youth of PL and MDR political parties got word of it, together they attacked the Gendarmerie Camp of Nyanza and chased away the death squad. Sources of that time reported that these killers were transferred to Bugesera where they fulfilled their mission of killing Tutsis few months later.
Two years before the shouting of the presidential plane, it was obvious that something scary was being prepared in Kigali. People who stayed in the capital city by that time, remember how a paramilitary commando was moving in the city, armed with traditional weapons such as clubs and hand guns. That was before the official creation of the Interahamwe militia. Most of the members of that commando were known to be former soldiers who were demobilized in the sole purpose to form that group. During the day they were roaming the city holding clubs, threatening civilians, especially Tutsis and members of the opposition parties. It was reported that the members of that paramilitary commando were lodged and fed in different military camps of Kigali. And none ever understood how a country could demobilize such a big number of soldiers while the enemy was advancing at the frontline. There might have been another equally sensitive raison.
3. f. Polarization
Open threats and discriminations on Tutsis living in Rwanda started in 1990 after the RPA has attacked the country, but the real polarization of the ethnical problem emerged later as we approached 1994. Their intensity increased as the RPA army was making pressure on the battlefields, and worsened when the Arusha Peace Agreements were about to be signed. At that time it was obvious that the negotiations would results in equal sharing of power between the existing government and the rebellion movement. In other words, Tutsis were finally going to be allowed in different areas of the political and social life of the country –including the national army – something which was denied to them until then. That reality clearly put a lot of pressure on the most extremists Hutus who could not bear the idea of sharing power with Tutsis. They begun making it clear to the rest of Rwandans whose their enemy was, and tried to rally masses of Hutus behind their ideology.
In the first place Interahamwe militia was created, a movement which was in the beginning the youth section of the MRNDD, the ruling party. Then CDR, an extremists Hutu party was created with a youth section called Impuzamugambi. CDR was the first political movement to claim openly their hate for Tutsis. MDL and PL political parties split into branches and extremist wings were created within them. The youth belonging to the newly formed extremist wings joined Interahamwe militia and Impuzamugambi movement to form a coalition of all the extremist Hutus called “Hutu PAWA”. Leaders of the non extremist wings of the political parties had no control on that new coalition.
It was under that coalition that the mass killings of Tutsis were conducted right after the shooting down of Habyalimana’s jet. At that moment, the most extremists elements within the PAWA coalition, in the name of Hutus begun to hunt down and kill Tutsis. First in Kigali, then killings spread all over the country. As days passed, the PAWA coalition convinced –by scare or persuasion – a part of masses of Hutus to join them in killings.
In the summer of 1993, RTLM radio station was created by high ranked officials, including the President of the republic and his close collaborators. The station joined Kangura, a pro- government news paper to broadcast anti- Tutsi speeches. For the first time a hateful speech targeting Tutsis begun to be listened on a radio station. Propaganda and rumours of plans to kill Hutus messages started to be aired on RTLM in the sole purpose to incite Hutus to kill Tutsis.
3. g. Preparation
The preparation of the genocide against Tutsis was long and tedious, as it begun right after the country’s social revolution in 1959 and the first killing of Tutsis which followed. It can be divided into too processes: the long term preparation and the immediate preparation.