The Rwandan Genocide was one of the most infamous crimes perpetrated by and against humanity in the latter half of the twentieth century.
Known formally as the ‘Genocide against the Tutsi’; the outbreak of genocide between the beginning of April and mid-July 1994 led to the wholesale slaughter of as much as 70% of Rwanda’s minority ethnic Tutsi population, predominantly – though by no means exclusively – at the hands of the country’s own Hutu ethnic majority.
Adam Cohn
During this period, inter-ethnic bloodletting resulted in the violent liquidation of an estimated 1 million Rwandan Tutsi’s and moderate Hutu’s, the forcible displacement of more than 2 million indigenous peoples, the systematic rape of between 250,000 and 500,000 Rwandan women, and the creation of as many as 75,000 genocide orphans.
Whilst there has historically been much debate as to the root-causes of the simmering tensions between Rwanda’s three predominant ethnic groups – the Hutu’s (who today constitute approximately 84% of the population), the Tutsis (approximately 15%), and the Twa (approximately 1%) – which fatefully boiled over in the Spring of 1994, it is commonly conceded that Rwanda’s ongoing post-conflict transformation from blood-soaked ‘failed’ state to thriving free-market republic has been nothing short or remarkable.
Indeed, much has been made within both the Rwandan and international press of the role of Rwanda’s long-standing leader, President Paul Kagame, in facilitating the nation’s miraculous economic revival whilst perpetuating the period of relative peace enjoyed by the peoples of Rwanda since his accession to the presidency in April 2000 (following extended tenure as both the country’s Vice-President and Minister of Defence in the wake of the 1994 Genocide).
ITU Pictures
That being said and whilst the Kagame administration has – for better and for worse – clearly succeeded in building the economy of post-colonial Rwanda up to hitherto unprecedented heights, the extent to which his ‘Rwandan Patriotic Front’ can justifiably claim responsibility for building sustainable peace within post-conflict Rwanda is debatable.
Notwithstanding the litany odious of charges leveled against Kagame (and co.) by ‘revisionist’ detractors in recent years; this is because the fragile peace which now permeates Rwandan civic political culture has grown not out of the broad-based state-building agenda pushed by a handful of Rwandan civil servants under the auspice of international institutions and transnational actors, but from the tireless efforts of a growing number of civil society actors across the republic who are putting education and reconciliation (rather than profit and power) at the heart of their community-level peacebuilding agendas.
Troicare
Deriving legitimacy from their locality whilst drawing support from the grassroots; these native non-governmental organisations – for example: AJPRODHO, ALARM, AWF-RI and the IRDP – have helped mitigate the disastrous effects of the deep-seated and longstanding socioeconomic tensions which have historically embittered relations between the indigenous peoples of Rwanda by advocating for resolution, reconciliation and reintegration – as opposed to restitution, recrimination and retribution – in the wake of violence, genocide and war.
As such, the positive steps taken by Rwandan civil-society organisations and local-level peacebuilders towards building sustainable peace in (and around) the Republic of Rwanda over the course of the last near-quarter-century affirms our belief in the power and need for local agency in future reconciliation processes. Moreover (and in an age where now more than ever the hostile interplay between insular nationalism and homogenous globalism hamstrings the efficacy of liberal state-building agendas), the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide demonstrates that it is imperative for local actors and non-governmental organisations (both domestic and international alike) to proactively champion ‘bottom-up’ peacebuilding – and, by extension, localism – as a viable and desirable alternative to the inefficacious ‘top-down’ status quo.
