Rwanda's Genocide

Ashlan Neuenschwander

PLSC 150

Professor Hawkins

11/08/12

Blog 8

            Political violence has been present in all faucets of history, from the Battle of Kings to the Arab Spring. To understand how this violence operates, social scientists have categorized political violence into distinct terms and definitions. These are, but not limited to, revolution, interstate conflict, terrorism, civil war, and genocide. But, how well do their definitions relate to historical examples? One particular form of political violence is strikingly interesting: genocide. Perhaps one of the most infamous historical examples of political violence is the Rwandan genocide. An estimated 800,000 Rwandans were killed within 100 days; most of them were Tutsis (BBC). This begs the question: what exactly is genocide? David J. Samuels defines genocide as, “a coordinated plan seeking to eliminate all members of particular ethnic, religious, or national groups, through mass murder” (279). Because the mass murder of Rwandans was operationally aimed at a particular ethnic group, the Tutsis, and presented a brutal display by the government to achieve their political goals, it is clearly genocide.  The definition offered by Samuels is sound in this instance with one apparent weakness: genocide requires authority.

            Hutu extremist with government authority, in the early 1990s, began to blame the Tutsi, the ethnic minority in Rwanda, about the increasing political, economic, and social troubles. Ethnic tension between the two ethnicities has been present since they were colonized in 1916; they contently fought for political power. President Habyarimana, a Hutu, who was currently in power, implemented propaganda movements and political maneuvering to increase the division between the Tutsi and the Hutu. He made them out to be criminals who were inferior to the Hutu (United Human Rights Council). In 1992, the Hutu hit a breaking point when a plane with President Habyarimana on it was shot down and the Tutsi were blamed for the attack (BBC). Violence began almost immediately and only 100 days later and estimated 800,000 Rwandan’s were killed, three quarters were Tutsi (BBC). This was a deliberate attack on the Tutsi that “resulted from the conscious choice of the elite to promote hatred and fear to keep itself in power” (United Human Rights Council). The state ordered, encouraged, and propagated the extermination of the Tutsi, leading to one of the most horrific mass murders of all time (PPU). The genocide ended when the RPF, a Tutsi rebel group, defeated the Hutu regime.

            Samuels’s definition holds up quite well. With Rwanda, unfortunately, there was a “coordinated plan” to exterminate a certain ethnic group to achieve some political mean. Furthermore this was done through mass murder. There is one flaw, or lacking, with this definition. Genocide requires authority. The genocide in Rwanda did not end until the Hutu lost their authority. Whether it is Hutu against Tutsi, Nazi against Jew, Turks against Armenians, Soviets against Ukrianians, Khmer Rouge’s Cambodia against the opposition, these genocides began with a dominant authority and ended in a lose of governing power. These unfortunate examples share something in common that are not present in Samuels definition: those exterminating certain groups all required authority, some form of legitimacy even, for these inhumane exterminations to be undertaken. Action requires authority and a way to enforce it. A better definition for genocide then is the coordinated plan to exterminate a particular ethnic, religious, or national group, by mass murder, through governing authority.

            Samuels’s definition of genocide is very accurate as it addresses the many aspects of this form of political violence. To test this definition, Rwanda was pitted as a model of genocide to see the effectiveness or constraints of Samuels’s “genocide”. Although this description was very accurate, it failed to explain that common to genocide is the use of authority, or coercive measures, to bring out this political violence.

Work Cited

BBC, . "Rwanda: How the genocide happened." BBC News. N.p., 18 2008. Web. 9 Nov 2012. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/1288230.stm>.

PPU, . "Rwanda." Peace Pledge Union Information. N.p.. Web. 9 Nov 2012. <http://www.ppu.org.uk/genocide/g_rwanda.html>.

Samuels, David J. Comparative Politics. 2. 1. New Jersey: Pearson Education, 2013. Print.

United Human Rights Council, . "Genocide in Rwanda."United Human Rights Council. N.p.. Web. 9 Nov 2012. <http://www.unitedhumanrights.org/genocide/genocide_in_rwanda.htm>.