From War to Genocide

Criminal Politics in Rwanda, 1990–1994

André Guichaoua, Don E. Webster, Don Webster, Don E. Webster, Don Webster

• Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9780299298241, 9780299298203
• eBook ISBN: 9780299298234
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: African Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

In April 1994 Rwanda exploded in violence, with political, social, and economic divisions most visible along ethnic lines of the Hutu and Tutsi factions. The ensuing killings resulted in the deaths of as much as 20 percent of Rwanda's population. André Guichaoua, who was present as the genocide began, unfolds a complex story with multiple actors, including three major political parties that each encompassed a spectrum of positions, all reacting to and influencing a rapidly evolving situation. Economic polarities, famine-fueled privation, clientelism, corruption, north-south rivalries, and events in the neighboring nations of Burundi and Uganda all deepened ethnic tensions, allowing extremists to prevail over moderates.

Guichaoua draws on years of meticulous research to describe and analyze this history. He emphasizes that the same virulent controversies that fueled the conflict have often influenced judicial, political, and diplomatic responses to it, reproducing the partisan cleavages between the former belligerents and implicating state actors, international institutions, academics, and the media. Guichaoua insists upon the imperative of absolute intellectual independence in pursuing the truth about some of the gravest human rights violations of the twentieth century.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Foreword / Scott Straus
• Preface to the English Edition
• Preface to the Original Edition
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Chronology
• 1. The Social and Political Context
• 2. The Refugee Question and the RPF’s Choice of Armed Struggle
• 3. A Necessary Political Transition
• 4. The Arusha Negotiations and the Reconfiguration of Political Forces
• 5. Unspoken Terms in the Arusha Peace Accords and Obstructions in the Political Transition
• 6. Competition for Control of the Militias
• 7. The Downing of the Presidential Plane on 6 April 1994 and the Military Crisis Committee
• 8. The Civilian Alternative
• 9. Installing the Interim Authorities
• 10. From Massacres to Genocide
• 11. The Interim Government at the Center of Power
• 12. War and the Fight for Supremacy
• 13. Truth, Justice, and the Politics of Memory
• Conclusion
• Updates for the Period 2010–2015
• Appendix: Box 5
• List of Boxes
• List of Annexes
• Notes
• Glossary
• Index of Names