INTRODUCTION: RWANDATWENTYYEARS AFTER THEGENOCIDE

SCOTT STRAUS*

IN THE 20 YEARS SINCE the genocide in Rwanda, the small, land-locked,coffee-and-tea exporting, ex-Belgian country has attracted considerablemore scholarly, policy, and human interest than one might have expectedgiven the size and geostrategic importance of the country.

One reason for this interest is the genocide itself. In the space of 100days, an interim government orchestrated the massacre of at least half amillion civilians, mostly Tutsi. The violence was swift, public, participatory,and exterminatory – and international actors showed no resolve to stop it.The case amounts to one of the most horrific world historical events of the20th Century, and its recognition by scholars and the international media isappropriate.

Another reason is that many questions raised by the country’s experienceare inherently fascinating. Why did genocide happen? Why did internationalactors stand down in the face of genocide? Who perpetrated the violence andhow were they mobilized? How do you rebuild a country after the devastationof war and genocide? Is reconciliation possible? What role should transitionaljustice play? What form of accountability works for a country of this type andgiven the scale of atrocities? What is the right balance of liberal democracyand human rights, on the one hand, and development and security, on theother? What is the history of ethnicity in the country? Is there a way of break-ing dangerous conceptualizations of identity? What role should donors play?And the questions keep coming!

Yet another reason that Rwanda garners so much attention – and contro-versy, as I shall discuss – is the nature of its post-genocide politics. The newgovernment is ambitious, innovative, and activist. The head of state, PaulKagame, is visionary, articulate, and capable. The forces that he com-manded overthrew the genocidal state in Rwanda, were primarily respon-sible for overthrowing Mobutu Sese Seko in the first Congo war, and wereon their way to a second military victory in the second Congo war had it notbeen for Angola’s intervention. Rwandan troops now perform exceptionally

*Scott Straus (sstraus@wisc.edu) is Professor at University of Wisconsin, Madison.

African Affairs, 1–3 doi: 10.1093/afraf/adu024

© The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal African Society. All rights reserved

1

African Affairs Advance Access published April 18, 2014 at M

cMaster U

niversity Library on D

ecember 18, 2014

http://afraf.oxfordjournals.org/D

ownloaded from

well in some of the hardest United Nations peacekeeping missions, asDanielle Beswick shows in this Virtual Issue.Post-genocide Rwanda has achieved remarkable economic growth, aver-

aging some 8 percent per annum during the past decade, as Julie vanDamme, An Ansoms, and Philippe V. Baret discuss. The government hasadministered a number of major reforms, including ones endorsed bymajor international organizations, such as the World Bank. Public corrup-tion is minimal. The place is orderly. The transitional justice approach thatthe government has pioneered, notably the gacaca community courts, isone of the boldest experiments in human rights accountability in the worldtoday. And there are other innovations.Many aid practitioners, policymakers, and business elites praise Rwanda

for these qualities. Some academics do too. Rwanda’s post-genocide achieve-ments are impressive, given the devastation of the past. The achievements arealso impressive in comparative perspective, as David Booth and FredGolooba-Mutebi suggest. Where else in the region, or on the continent forthat matter, does one find equivalent levels of political order, technical cap-ability, vision, up-by-your-bootstraps rhetoric, limited public corruption,sustained growth, and internal security?But there is a dark side. The regime is authoritarian (Lars Waldorf and

I refer to the style of governance as ‘transformative authoritarianism’, giventhe scope of change envisioned).1 The government works very hard to controlpublic discourse and civil society, even if there are idiosyncratic moments ofcontestation, as Paul Gready and Jennie Burnet’s contributions to this issuedemonstrate. The government has instrumentalized the history of the geno-cide. Gacaca is highly innovative, but it reeks of victor’s justice given that thecrimes associated with the current government may not be discussed. As AnuChakravarty argues, the process has also served to disenfranchise manyHutus.Despite a formal commitment to making ethnic identification a thing of

the past, ethnic attachments and resentment remain beneath the surface, asBert Ingalaere and Chakravarty show. Even though formal economic growth isstrong, the experience of peasant farmers in rural areas remains difficult, andmany reforms proposed from the central state do not sit well with rural actors,as discussed by Ansoms, and also by van Damme, Ansoms and Baret.Moreover, the space to challenge these issues, to raise questions, and to criti-cize official policy remains highly circumscribed, and the state treats directdissent or defection harshly, as illustrated by Filip Reyntjens. Moreover,Rwanda has had a hand in the devastation of neighbouring Congo.

1. Lars Waldorf and Scott Straus (eds), Remaking Rwanda: State building and human rightsafter mass violence (University of Wisconsin Press, Wisconsin, WI, 2011).

2 AFRICANAFFAIRS

at McM

aster University L

ibrary on Decem

ber 18, 2014http://afraf.oxfordjournals.org/

Dow

nloaded from

On the whole, academics have been more sensitive than most observersto some of these negative dynamics. Academic researchers typically spendlong periods of time in the field, and they are often are more attentive thanothers to the long durée in Rwanda, as opposed to seeing Rwanda strictlythrough a post-genocide lens. Several academics focus their research inrural areas, and many have developed a network of contacts or earned thetrust of Rwandans that allows them to hear alternative perspectives to thosethat dominate public and popular discourse. As a result, the majority of aca-demic studies on post-genocide Rwanda raise troubling questions about thecountry’s trajectory, as the articles drawn together in this issue attest. Despiteall the progress, forward-thinking, and innovations in post-genocideRwanda, is the country on a path toward social cohesion, peace, and prosper-ity? That is a hard, probably impossible, question to answer, though it is afundamental one. All of the articles collected in this Virtual Issue help toanswer the question to some extent, but the evidence points in multipledirections and no one has a crystal ball to tell them what the future will hold.

Looking ahead, a priority is how to engage in a constructive debate aboutpost-genocide Rwanda. As those who follow the country know, attitudesamong Rwandans are highly polarized. Basic facts about who is responsiblefor what, who started what, and, even sometimes, what actually happened,are often contested. Those divided histories should give us all pause, asthey suggest that a great deal of healing remains.

Unfortunately, academic discussions are also now increasingly polarized.Yet as academics we have a responsibility to model constructive debate, topursue open inquiry, to avoid dogma, and to reject personalized attacks.That responsibility is especially great with respect to a place where passionsrun high and where violence has been extreme. One way to mark the 20th

anniversary of the genocide is to commit ourselves to an open and rigorous,yet respectful, discussion of Rwanda – its past, present, and future.

INTRODUCTION RWANDA 3

at McM

aster University L

ibrary on Decem

ber 18, 2014http://afraf.oxfordjournals.org/

Dow

nloaded from