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Methodological problems to theunderstanding of the Rwandan genocideAbebe Zegeye aa Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research, University ofWitwatersrand , Johannesburg, South AfricaPublished online: 20 Nov 2010.

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RESEARCH ARTICLE

Methodological problems to the understanding of theRwandan genocide

Abebe Zegeye*

Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg,South Africa

(Received 7 July 2010; final version received 16 July 2010)

This article is a prelude to other articles in this issue that provide multipleinterpretations of the Rwandan genocide of 1994. The article explores how history,travel writing, autobiographical accounts, media and philosophical perspectives candraw attention to the many ways in which the Rwandan genocide can be understood.While this interdisciplinary methodological approach may not claim to be exhaustive,it teases out some important works written so far on the subject matter of Rwandangenocide. Historical accounts provide insights into factors responsible for the genocide,while the genre of travel writing uses journalistic perspectives based on eye-witnessaccounts. Media perspectives use concepts of framing and salience in reporting thegenocide while the autobiographical approach focuses on experiences of individualswho bore the brunt of genocide. Each of these approaches attempts to provide solutionsto the methodological problems in analysing the Rwandan genocide.

Keywords: Rwandan genocide; methodological approaches; historical accounts; travelwriting; autobiography; media perspectives

Understanding the Rwandan genocide from a historical perspective

The book When victims become killers (2001) by Mamdani is one of the most celebrated

works of literature on genocide to give a lucid historical background of the factors that

motivated the Rwandan genocide. In this book, Mamdani draws attention to what he calls

‘three silences’ (2001, p. 7) to the study of genocide in Rwanda. The first silence Mamdani

considers is that works on Rwanda are written in a way that gives the wrong impression

that the Rwandan genocide started and ended in 1994. In other words, the Rwandan

genocide is presented as an anthropological oddity with no history or plausible reasons

for its occurrence. Commenting on the importance of historical narratives, Rosenstone

(2008, p. 39) asserts that ‘the discourse of history relates, reflects, comments on or critique

the already existing data, arguments and debates about a topic/subject matter at hand’. By

implication, Rosenstone (2008) suggests that a recourse to history helps in reconstructing

memories of the Rwandan genocide so that one may have a clearer understanding of

factors that motivated the genocide. Jameson in Degli-Esposti (1998) views a movement

away from history as trying to make readers believe that everything happens without

effect, that we (audiences) are forced to consume genocide images in a time marked by a

‘perpetual present’ (1998, p. 77) of events. Jameson suggests that ‘the only way out of this

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DOI: 10.1080/14725843.2010.513236

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*Email: abebe.zegeye@wits.ac.za

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vicious circle [of neglecting history] besides praxis itself, is a historical and dialectical

view which seeks to grasp the present as history’ (Degli-Esposti 1998, p. 77). Jameson’s

historical dialects are supported in When victims become killers, which asserts that a

notorious linearity of colonialism and nativism should be held responsible for the 1994

genocide in Rwanda. For Mamdani, colonialism and nativism – instituted in the 1880s by

the Germans, in the 1930s by the Belgians and the 1990s by the French – escalated

violence between the Hutu and Tutsi. A genocide in 1994 was therefore symptomatic of

the historical grievances and contradictions between Hutus and Tutsis that have not been

addressed by Rwandan politicians and citizens over a long period time. Mamdani (2001)

goes on to say that the challenge is how to avoid merging and dissolving the Rwandan

genocide in the civil war. Scholars who do so are likely to sever the genocide so

completely from the civil war that the act of killing would be emptied of any motivation.

The killing of Tutsis in 1994 cannot be condoned by anyone in his/her right senses.

However, Zegeye and Vambe (2009) argue that historians and political scientists

consciously or unconsciously suppress and refuse to tell the world that historically the

Tutsis are an imperial (feudal) power that was used effectively by the colonising force to

suppress insurgency in Rwanda.

Mamdani’s (2001, p. 8) ‘second silence’ calls attention for the failure of research to

convincingly account for the ‘popular/mass’ dimension of the Rwandan genocide.

Mamdani argues that among the masses who carried out the genocide there were ‘those

enthusiastic, those reluctant, and those coerced’ (2001, p. 18). According to Zegeye and

Vambe (2009), Mamdani’s (2001) work distinguishes killings of combatants and civilians

on both sides during the civil war (1990–94) from killings of Hutu moderates by Hutu

extremists and those of Tutsi civilians by civilian Hutu mobs. Mamdani (2001) should

also be applauded for showing how institutes such as schools, churches, universities and

hospitals were involved during the genocide. Those researches that try to understand the

extent to which the ordinary people were implicated in genocide give limited views that

implicate all Hutu civilians as genocidal. That is why current research should aim to

establish the extent to which ordinary Hutu people were involved in killing Tutsis and

moderate Hutus.

Mamdani’s (2001, p. 8) ‘third silence’ in the writings on the Rwandan genocide arises

from the failure to consider the history and geography of genocide within the Great Lakes

Region. Mamdani implies that to understand the Rwandan genocide in its regional context

calls for one to possess knowledge of the ‘cycle of conflict’ which defines the Great Lakes

Region. Alluding to this cycle of violence, Umutesi (2004, p. 9) writes that: ‘the Tutsi who

had been spared in the killings of 1959 were persecuted and killed. Others who had joined

the ranks of exiles in Uganda, Congo and Burundi had their lands taken and redistributed’.

The mass murder of Tutsi had ripple effects for the entire region. For instance, when a

Tutsi government assumed power in Burundi in 1972, there were reprisals and killings of

Hutu civilians by a predominantly Tutsi army. This genocide of Hutu by Tutsi in Burundi

hardened Hutu feelings against Tutsi populations in Rwanda. Umutesi (2004, p. 12) writes

again that: ‘The Rwanda Hutu felt threatened by the killings of Burundian Hutu. What is

more, the Rwandan and Burundian governments traded insults broadcast over their

national radio stations’. For Mamdani (2001) to know the history and geography of

violence in the Great Lakes Region is a sure way of avoiding the pitfall of giving the

impression that the Rwandan genocide started and ended in 1994. In fact, Lemarchand

(2005) and French (2005) have depicted in their works how the Rwandan genocide spilled

over into Congo between 1996 and 1997 when Laurent Kabila’s Alliance of Democratic

Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire (AFDL) made an alliance with local Zairians and

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Tutsi pastoralist ‘Banyamulenge’ who destroyed Hutu communities on their way to

Kinshasa to fight the government forces of Mobutu Sese Seko.

Although Mamdani (2001) provides a lucid historical background to the Rwandan

genocide, critics have questioned his method of overemphasising the historical factor at

the expense of other factors. For instance, Mamdani (2001) does cover sufficiently the role

of Radio-Television Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM) and the newspaper Kangura in

fuelling the violence that triggered genocide. Furthermore, a factor such as the economic

meltdown of the 1990s and how the condition was manipulated by Hutu politicians to

mobilise the masses against Tutsis is not dealt with sufficiently in When victims become

killers (2001). French (2005) and Melvern (2000) complement Mamdani’s (2001)

historical thesis by bringing in ‘travel writing’ to the subject of Rwandan genocide.

Explaining the Rwandan genocide through travel writing

Books such as A continent for the taking (2005) by French and A people betrayed (2000)

by Melvern are the best examples of what is called ‘travel writing’. The two books present

journalistic accounts of the origin and execution of the Rwandan genocide. Howard

French – a renowned journalist working for several American and African newspapers –

travelled in ‘disaster zones’ of West and Central Africa, the Caribbean and Central

American. In his book A continent for the taking (2005), French traces the origins of the

insurgent group, the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF), under Paul Kagame and how it

emerged to become a formidable force with a mission to liberate Rwanda. But despite its

prowess in fighting and military discipline, French (2005) argues that much blame can be

apportioned to the RPF for escalating violence in Rwanda during the genocide for the

country that had already been collapsing under the Hutu leadership of Juvenal

Habyarimana. French (2005, p. 143) writes that:

nothing could ever pardon the organisers of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, yet it is no less afact that the wild adventurous [sic] of Tutsi leader Paul Kagame, who mounted a Rwandaninsurgency from the bases in Uganda in 1990, primed a country that has already long been apowder keg for a sharp escalation of violence and hatred.

What French implies is that although the RPF had a noble vision of liberating Rwanda,

its action was actually used as a pretext by Hutu extremists to launch more attacks on Tutsi

populations. In this case, Tutsis and Hutu moderates were accused of working together with

Tutsi rebels. In his book Shake hands with the devil (2004), Dallaire – who was a leader of

the United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR) – also argues that although

the Rwandan genocide is the ultimate responsibility of those Hutu extremists who planned,

ordered, supervised and eventually conducted it, the ‘deaths of Rwandans can also be laid at

the door step of Paul Kagame, who did not speed up the campaign when the scale of

genocide became clear and talked with me [Dallaire] at several points about his fellow

Tutsis who might have to pay the price’ (Dallaire 2004, p. 515). The perspectives from

French (2005) and Dallaire (2004) stress the political situation in Rwanda of the 1990s, and

how the situation culminated in genocide that decimated nearly one million Tutsi lives and

those of moderate Hutus. When the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide spilled over into

Congo-Zaire between 1996 and 1997, French travelled to Congo-Zaire to witness and report

on the genocide. In his book A continent for the taking (2005), French writes about how the

decrepit social, political and economic conditions encouraged Kabila to rise against the

regime of Mobutu Sese Seko. Interestingly, French (2005) also alludes to the genocide of

Hutu populations by ‘Banyamulenge’ Tutsis in Congo-Zaire which scholars blame on an

unholy alliance spearheaded by Kabila, Paul Kagame and Yoweri Museveni of Uganda.

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Although much information written by French is a result of eye-witness accounts, his

journalistic experiences of genocides in Rwanda (1994) and Congo-Zaire (1996–97)

lacked a thorough understanding of the historical factors that informed those genocides.

Melvern (2000) adds an interesting dimension to travel writing by providing a prologue

of the history of colonial Rwanda between 1890 and 1970. The rest of the chapters of

A people betrayed (2000) are devoted to how Rwanda was betrayed by the international

community, the United Nations, local Hutu and Tutsi politicians and the media. The central

argument of the book is that the indecisive actions of the United Nations and the

international community about what should be done to stop the genocide in Rwanda

exacerbated the mass killing of Tutsis and moderate Hutus. As a journalist working in

Rwanda during the genocide, Melvern (2000) laments the damaging ‘hate speech’ issued by

RTLM and the newspaper Kangura. The two media instruments of propaganda dashed

possibilities of a reconciliation between the Hutus and Tutsis. In her article ‘Missing the

story: media and the Rwanda genocide’ (2007), Melvern reveals the racism that informed

international media reportage of the Rwandan genocide. For example, one of the damaging

articles that appeared in the New York Times in 1994 described Rwanda as small, poor

and insignificant. Rwanda, the newspaper explains, was in an ‘uncontrollable spasm of

lawlessness and terror’ (Melvern 2007, p. 202). However, one of the weaknesses of

Melvern’s works on the Rwandan genocide is that she does not elucidate clearly why those

western journalists like her who did not have a negative attitude towards Rwanda failed to

report aggressively on the genocide events for possible intervention by the international

community and the UN. Another weakness is that A people betrayed (2000) joins other

researches in ignoring the role of African media reportage in regard to the Rwandan

genocide. Ultimately, one is given the impression that western media reportage was all that

mattered during the Rwandan genocide. This ‘gap’ is addressed by an assemblage of articles

in the book The media and the Rwanda genocide (2007) edited by Thompson.

Media perspectives on the Rwanda genocide

The book The media and the Rwanda genocide (2007) is divided into four parts. The first

part deals with how the RTLM ‘hate speech’ during the Rwanda genocide mobilised

ordinary Hutu citizens to direct their violence against the Tutsis and Hutu moderates. In

addition, articles such as ‘Kangura: the triumph of propaganda refined’ by Kabanda (2007)

and ‘Rwandan private print media on the eve of genocide’ by Higiro (2007) chronicle the

origins of the Kangura newspaper, its mode of ownership and how the newspaper was

transformed into an instrument of propaganda by Hutu extremists. The second part is

primarily concerned with how the international media coverage betrayed the Rwandans by

not giving full attention to the mass killing of Tutsis and moderate Hutus during the

genocide. The central argument which runs through most of the articles in this part is that if

it was not for the racism and selective reporting of western media, the Rwandan genocide

could have received full media coverage, and thereby forced the international community to

act. An article by Alozie (2007) adds an interesting dimension by analysing the role played

by the African media during the 100 days in which the genocide was carried out. Alozie

argues that although there is a considerable body of literature on western media coverage of

Africa in general, few researches have examined the coverage that African media outlets in

one country accord to events happening in another African country. Alozie uses the method

of purposive sampling and framing to study the pattern of reportage issued by Kenya’s

Daily Nation and Nigeria’sGuardian during the Rwanda genocide and asserts that: ‘During

the 1994 crisis and genocide, both the Daily Nation and Guardian tended to blame various

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Hutu-dominated governments for the atrocities and for failure to compromise and

implement peace agreements’ (Alozie 2007, p. 219). The Daily Nation went further to

attribute the crisis of the Rwanda genocide to the RPF invasion of Rwanda in 1990.

The third part of Thompson’s (2007) book gives a summary judgement of the

International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). The article chronicles events at the

international tribunal by citing examples of outstanding personalities who were convicted

for using media and public gatherings to incite Hutus to carry out the genocide. For example,

Ferdinand Nahimana was convicted for writing an essay entitled ‘Rwanda: current

problems and solutions’ which urged the Hutu populations to fight ‘the enemy’ who was

defined explicitly as the RPF and Tutsi populations. Hassa Ngeze was convicted for calling

for the extermination of Tutsi and Hutu political opponents through Radio Rwanda and

RTLM broadcasts. Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza was found guilty of arranging meetings,

demonstrations and roadblock activities ordering the separation of Tutsi from Hutu so that

they could be exterminated. Over and above, part three suggests that journalism can be

viewed as a genocidal weapon when it fails to harmonise conflicting parties.

The last part of The media and the Rwanda genocide (2007) focuses on the post-

genocide with the aim of promoting peace and reconciliation in Rwanda. An article by

Chalk (2007) advocates three methods in which the media can be involved to prevent

genocide. The first method involves what is called ‘Early-stage interventions’. This stage is

carried out in the early stages of conflict situations when local and foreign media is used to

train and establish codes of conduct to raise the skills and standards of local journalists.

Journalists are encouraged to foster inter-ethnic cooperation, emphasise the benefit of peace

and resolution, and use methods that lessen conflicts between different ethnic groups.

The ‘Middle-stage intervention’ calls for local journalists, domestic non-governmental

organisations (NGOs) and government ministers to intervene effectively against media

propaganda of ethnic tension. Through this stage, Chalk (2007) advocates the use of

electronic jamming of hate transmitters just as the United Nation did to intercept the

damaging Khmer Rouge propaganda during the Cambodia genocide of 1975–79. The

‘Late-stage intervention’ to be launched when the genocide is underway is a radical and

pragmatic move focused on destroying the transmitters and printing presses of the hate-

mongers, and discouraging the targeted group from congregating in vulnerable areas such

as churches and school buildings. The media should promise future rewards to ‘citizens who

can secretly document the names of those who were involved in the genocide prosecutions’

(Chalk 2007, p. 379).

One of the major strengths of Thompson’s (2007) book is that almost all articles were

written by individuals who were involved in the Rwandan genocide in their different

capacities as non-governmental workers, Red Cross employees, soldiers under the UN as

in the case of Dallaire’s ‘Media dichotomy’ (2007), film-makers, journalists and UN

special envoys.

Autobiography and the Rwanda genocide

The factor of eye-witnessing that informs Thompson (2007) is also pertinent to the

autobiographical accounts of Romeo Dallaire (2004), Beatrice Umutesi (2004) and

Rusesabagina and Zoellner (2006). Dallaire’s autobiography Shake hands with the devil

(2004) records the unspeakable horrors and contradictions of the Rwandan genocide. In this

account, Dallaire argues that the UN and western powers failed to intervene effectively

in the Rwandan genocide because they considered that black people in Rwanda were

worthless. Through his book, Dallaire consistently argued that if he had been given the

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necessary support by the UN and western powers he would have been able to stop the

genocide. Dallaire reveals the dimension of international power politics in which he was

deliberately undermined by the Americans as a Canadian UNAMIR leader because

America did not want credit to go to Canada if Dallaire succeeded in stopping the genocide

in Rwanda. Dallaire also brings a fascinating angle to the genocide narrative when he

alludes to the tactical conflicts between UN peacekeepers under his leadership and the RPF

liberating force under Paul Kagame. Dallaire accused Paul Kagame of failing to speed

up the military campaign and this, together with Kagame’s obsession with a sweeping

military victory, he regarded as important factors which explain the increase in numbers of

Tutsis who were killed by Hutu extremists. Unlike in his documentary A good man in hell

(2002) about the Rwanda genocide, Dallaire’s autobiographical account gives an extensive

and passionate treatment of the work that Third World soldiers from Nigeria, Ghana,

Algeria, Bangladeshi and Zimbabwe played during the genocide. This dimension is

important because most of the films produced on the Rwanda genocide like Hotel Rwanda

(2004) give the wrong impression that Third World soldiers did not participate by

‘symbolically annihilating’ (Malleus 2003, p. 3) their images whenever UN convoys are

depicted patrolling the streets of Kigali. While Dallaire’s autobiography blames the UN and

international community for failing to stop the genocide, Umutesi (2004) writes about how

thousands of refugees were pursued by RPF soldiers and killed in the forests of eastern

Congo between 1996 and 1997. Umutesi (2004) laments the ‘silence’ of international media

and literature for not making reference to the genocide perpetrated on the Hutu populations

as revenge killings by the RPF.

To complement the eye-witness accounts by Dallaire and Umutesi, Rusesabagina and

Zoellner (2006) bring another perspective on the Rwanda genocide. The centrality of their

argument challenges the ethnic dichotomy of Hutu versus Tutsi often emphasised by most

researches on the Rwanda genocide. The two authors argue that although the factor of

ethnicity was one of the major contributors to the Rwanda genocide, it should not be over-

emphasised at the expense of other equally important factors such as economic

and political factors. The contention is that ethnicity on its own cannot cause genocide but

that, in a poisoned environment marked by struggles to control resources and exercise

political control, ethnicity can then be used as an excuse to eliminate a targeted

group. Rusesabagina and Zoellner (2006, pp. 255–256) go a step further by pointing out

that:

there would have been almost no survivors of the genocide without the thousand of secretkindnesses dispensed under cover of night. We will never know the names of all those whoopened their homes to hide would-be victims. Rwanda was full of ordinary killers, it is true,but it was also full of ordinary heroes.

This frank admission of the existence of cooperation among some ordinary Hutus and Tutsis

is important in that it challenges ‘straight-jacket’ research approaches fond of casting the

Rwanda genocide in a Hutu versus Tutsi dichotomy. Furthermore, Rusesabagina and

Zoellner elucidate on the contradictions of the Rwanda genocide when the authors depict

‘a Hutu neighbor who is a soldier in the Rwandan Army, but not a hardliner’ (2006, p. 109);

another one, named ‘General Augustin Ndindiliyimana, disbands a roadblock at which

Tutsis were being killed and helped to save lives’ (2006, pp. 127–128).

Although Dallaire (2004), Umutesi (2004), and Rusesabagina and Zoellner (2006) use

the ‘authority of presence’ (Chennells 2009, p. 98) to account for the Rwandan genocide it

does not mean that the language of ‘truths’ in their narratives is free from contestation. This

is because auto/biographical narratives have got a tendency of selecting information that the

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author deems important, and leaving out ‘other’ memories that may otherwise be competent

enough to contest the credibility of those memories included in the narratives.

Approaching the Rwandan genocide from philosophical perspectives

In the book Genocide and human rights: a philosophical guide (2005), Roth collected

articles that question the morality of genocide by trying to locate its epistemic conditions in

questions to do with the philosophy of genocide. Articles by Phillips (2005) and Tatz (2005)

define genocide in terms of the conditions that lead into committing mass murder. For

example, Phillips depicts how stereotypic language can be used ‘to kill’ the targeted groups

with words before they are physically eliminated. Phillips (2005) posits philosophical

questions about why counter-discourses were not effective enough to annul the effect of the

language of propaganda for the genocides that were carried out in the twentieth century.

Tatz, on the other hand, points out that genocide is a consequence of what he terms

‘doctorhood’ (2005, p. 82) of a variety of factors that lead to genocide. Tatz writes that: ‘ In

the twentieth century, members of the “doctorhood” that formulated, legitimized and

justified biological solutions to social and political problems not only thought, expounded

and wrote about their findings but also acted out their beliefs’ (p. 82). By implication, Tatz

(2005) is saying that those groups held by convictions that they are racially or ethnically

superior justified their beliefs by carrying out a genocide on those considered as the ‘Others’.

Among other important philosophical questions posited by Roth (2005), one which can

capture the readers’ attention is: will genocide ever end? This question is very important and

needs serious rethinking in present day contexts where racism, ethnic particularities,

tribalism and regionalism continue to dominate, and are part of the conditions that can lead

to a genocide. What Roth (2005) seems to be suggesting is that there is a need for people to

re-evaluate their morality by working together to discourage conditions that will lead to

mass killings.

Conclusion

This article acted as an introduction into the multidimensional ways in which the Rwandan

genocide can be explained. Perspectives from history, travel writing, media, autobiography

and philosophy were considered. Throughout the article, it was argued that although the

Rwanda genocide of 1994 is a single event, its occurrence was influenced by a number

factors, some of which are going to be explored by the following articles. This issue adopts

interdisciplinary approaches that reject monolithic perspectives which try to ‘essentialise’

and ‘exceptionalise’ factors that caused the Rwandan genocide. In short, the advice

advocated by this article is that research on the Rwandan genocide is fragmented, therefore

researchers should continuously hunt for the pieces of information that can be joined

together in order to create a holistic view of what actually took place in 1994.

Notes on contributor

Abebe Zegeye is the Director of the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WISER) atWits University. He was previously a professor of sociology and Primedia Chair of Holocaust andGenocide Studies at UNISA. During his tenure at UNISA, Zegeye was involved in a number ofinternational, continental and local projects in addition to his research and masters and doctoral post-graduate teaching duties. For the academic year 2008–09 he was the Rice Family FoundationVisiting Professor at Yale University in the United States. As Primedia Chair Zegeye initiated aground-breaking new project by launching an initiative to develop an encyclopaedia of genocide andviolence in Africa. Zegeye is widely published, being author, co-author and/or editor of many

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publications including several book series. He has also written extensively in international academicjournals on African identity formation, nationalist struggles, ethnicity, African genocide andEthiopian socio-political trends in the Horn of Africa.

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