The Order of Genocide: Race, Power, and War in Rwanda by Scott StrausReview by: Nicolas Van De WalleForeign Affairs, Vol. 85, No. 6 (Nov. - Dec., 2006), p. 179Published by: Council on Foreign RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20032198 .

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Recent Books

than anything else to bring real reform to Japan's economy and society.

Africa NICOLAS VAN DE WALLE

The Order of Genocide: Race, Power, and War in Rwanda. BY SCOTT STRAUS.

Cornell University Press, zoo6, 288 pp. $27.95.

Straus' ambition is to examine the 1994 Rwandan genocide through a social science lens. Based on a careful reading of both primary and secondary sources, as well as systematic interviews of peo ple directly involved in the killings, his approach yields interesting new insights into the events of that tragic April. Straus emphasizes that the violence against the Tutsi population was in large part encouraged by a general cli

mate of uncertainty and chaos that had descended on the country as a result of the war between the government and Tutsi rebels. "War underpinned the logic of genocide," Straus argues, "war legitimized killing, war empow ered hardliners." Straus' book is also the first account of the events in Rwanda that is explicitly comparative. Particularly compelling is his comparison of killers in Rwanda with those of the Holocaust.

His careful work shows that Hutu killers do not appear to have been particularly sadistic, hateful, or economically disad vantaged. Rather, they were fairly average people who were afraid of being punished for disobeying orders and worried about the consequences of a Tutsi victory for their own safety.

The Wonga Coup.: Guns, Thugs, anda Ruthless Determination to Create Mayhem in an Oil-Rich Corner ofAfrica. BY ADAM ROBERTS. PublicAffairs,

2006, 320 pp. $26.00.

The quixotic attempt by a motley group of mostly South African mercenaries to topple Equatorial Guinea's dictator for life, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, in March 2004 made the headlines largely because of the alleged involvement of

Margaret Thatcher's ne'er-do-well son, Mark. The coup failed, apparently because

the authorities were tipped off by the South African Secret Service, and most of the coup leaders are today in prison. The least one can say is that there are no heroes in this sordid story: the only redemption for the careless coup leaders, their dimwit followers, and various greedy hangers-on is that they sought to remove from power arguably the world's most awful dictator. Roberts' lively narrative is well served by characters from central casting, and his story reveals much about contemporary Africa and its international relations. Mercenaries are thriving in civil wars, from Congo to Iraq, and are hardly in danger of disappearing. The plotters' fatal mistake was not grasping that the discovery of substantial oil reserves off the coast of Equatorial Guinea con demned their venture even as it made the country an attractive target. The Western governments that had once been likely to react to mercenary-led coups in places like Equatorial Guinea with benign neglect now had real economic interests there-and had found they could do business with the regime.

F O R E I G N A F FA I R S November/December 2006 [179]

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