We Cry On The Inside : Image Theater And Rwanda 's Culture Of Silence

The blood of thousands of murdered Tutsi people ran through the streets of Rwanda on April 7, 1994. Until mid-July of 1994, Hutu supremacists eradicated thousands of Tutsi. Nearly fifty years prior, Nazis claimed the lives of millions of Jews. Within the years that followed, the Nazi forces slaughtered millions of Jewish citizens across Europe. Both massacred by people they once considered friends and coworkers, Tutsi and Jews faced great injustice, but those are not the only similarities between the two genocides. It is evident that during both the Holocaust and the Rwandan Genocide, the rest of society turned a blind eye to the horrors that both Tutsi and Jews were facing, only kept their best interest in mind, and that both groups faced

The Rwandan Genocide also is still an existing issue which killed one million people, mostly Tutis and some Hutu’s, continues to be one of the most tragic and memorable events in the contemporary society of Africa. Specifically for those who were involved. Lucie Niyigena, a 70 year old woman who managed to survive the genocide, is still forced to face her fear everyday living beside someone who could have potentially killed a member of her family. This is just one of the still existing hardships for those forced to live it. This problem has not been changed since historical times partly because modern society has chosen not to make the change.

In 1994, genocide unfolded in Rwanda claiming the lives of more than 700,000 Tutsi massacred at the hands of Hutu extremist, while the entire world stood by and watched. Some would argue this event was a result of civil unrest between the Tutsi and Hutu stemming from ancient

Rwanda is a country located in the middle of the African continent. The two ethnic groups present in the country lived in peace under their monarch until the arrival of Europeans. The Belgians arrival into Rwandan is what split the two ethnic groups of the Tutsi and Hutus, making them identify themselves with ID cards. This caused tension between the two groups as the Belgians favored the ethnic Tutsi, and made them the head of the government. Decade’s later Hutu extremists would take over the government and have revenge on the Tutsi. The new government would send out broadcasts calling on Hutus to kill their friends and neighbors. The Rwandan genocide would become the worst genocide to ever happen in Africa and one of the worst in the world. Today Rwanda’s recovery is surprisingly fast with the help of multiple nations and organizations. Rwanda’s recovery is nothing short of a miracle and is an amazing story of a war between two peoples.

The Rwandan Genocide also is still an existing issue which killed one million people, mostly Tutis and some Hutu’s, continues to be one of the most tragic and memorable events in the contemporary society of Africa. Specifically for those who were involved. Lucie Niyigena, a 70 year old woman who managed to survive the genocide, is still forced to face her fear everyday living beside someone who could have potentially killed a member of her family. This is just one of the still existing hardships for those forced to live it. This problem has not been changed since historical times partly because modern society has chosen not to make the change.

George Santayana once said “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” The Rwanda Genocide is a contemporary representation of the events that occurred during the Armenian Genocide. It is an unforgiving circumstance that even after massacres from the latter and the Holocaust that Genocides still emerge in a world who far too often shuts their door to the idea of intervention. Countries can have an abundance of supplies, unmatchable man-power, and exceptional military equipment, however, with interests in absentia, countries will be reluctant to deploy forces despite exclamations of help. The culmination of the Rwanda Genocide is absolutely an unforgiving portion of history that will be remembered by the victims, the witnesses, and the decision-makers.

“The sweetly sickening odor of decomposing bodies hung over many parts of Rwanda in July 1994: . . . at Nyarubuye in eastern Rwanda, where the cadaver of a little girl, otherwise intact, had been flattened by passing vehicles to the thinness of cardboard in front of the church steps,” (Deforges 6). The normalcy of horrible images like this one had cast a depressing gloom over Rwanda during the genocide, a time when an extreme divide caused mass killings of Tutsi by the Hutu. Many tactics such as physical assault or hate propaganda are well known and often used during times of war. Sexual assault and rape, however, during times of war is an unspoken secret – it is well known that rape occurs within combat zones and occupied territories, but

The problems of today can often be traced in the beginnings of yesterday. The Rwandan Genocide was a divisive division of two groups that culminated in the mass murder of nearly 500,000 Rwandans, three-fourths of the population. The tactful subterfuge by the ruling party fueled the separation of two ethnic groups that reminisce the events in Europe 55 years earlier. Naturally, the question becomes, how? Simply speaking it was the indifference of global elites and political demagoguery that incited fears into violent acts; however delving further into the matter it is important to see that “those who control the past control the future and those who control the present, control the past.” In other words, to understand the events of April 1994, we must understand events prior.

This use of propaganda is not exclusive to Rwanda, but has been used in various parts of the world to create narratives that reenforce the “separateness” of ethnic groups to such an extent that the “genocidaires” fully buy into these narratives, at the expense of their humanity. Both genocide and ethnic cleansing heavily rely on these narratives to frame a targeted group as “the enemy”. These divisive narratives are often fabricated to accomplish political goals and are quickly received in post-colonial states like Rwanda, where ethnic lines have already been drawn by colonial

Genocide is “the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, ethnic, political, or cultural group”. In Rwanda for example, the Hutu-led government embraced a new program that called for the country’s Hutu people to murder anyone that was a Tutsi (Gourevitch, 6). This new policy of one ethnic group (Hutu) that was called upon to murder another ethnic group (Tutsi) occurred during April through June of 1994 and resulted in the genocide of approximately 800,000 innocent people that even included women and children of all ages. In this paper I will first analyze the origins/historical context regarding the discontent amongst the Hutu and Tutsi people as well as the historical context as to why major players in the international

Rwanda’s horrific history is continually being researched in order to better understand how the nation descended into the horrors of the 1994 genocide. The effects of the genocide are felt throughout Rwandan public policy as the current government is composed of many individuals responsible for ending the massacres. The genocide’s ripple effects are felt in all aspects of the nations including its foreign policy. This thesis attempts to explain how historical experiences coupled through the themes of abandonment, self-reliance and the promotion of security along with interpretations by government officials of how international order operates shapes how the Rwandan government interacts with the global community. This is not a new endeavour as

Centuries ago the Tutsis had taken over the land sacred to the Hutus living there, and they had exploited their new resources, limiting them enough for the opposing clan to spark controversy between the two tribes. A political rivalry still existed centuries later, when a plane carrying the president of ….. Was shot down. That had been the last straw for the Hutus, who had been waiting for the perfect chance to lash out with nothing to hold them back. The government had turned on its citizens, and the Rwandan Genocide had

Moreover, Effort efforts to facilitate forgiveness and reconciliation one are being made by the Government government, but reconciliation in Rwanda is a complex series of layers and hence requires a multifaceted approach requiring enormous resources at times. As Zorbas rightly observes. In wake of violence on a societal Scale scale, finding the right balance between justice and reconciliation or between retribulation and forgiveness is extremely delicate process and this is 911 the more so in the case of genocide.

Hintjens, Helen M. “Explaining the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda.” The Journal of Modern African Studies, vol. 37, no. 2, 1999, pp. 241–286. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/161847. 21 May 2018.

This thesis illustrated a new way to better examine Rwandan foreign policy by exploring and discussing how Rwandan leaders view the international community. The traditional standard narrative on Rwandan foreign relations focused heavily on how Rwanda acted with other states, institutions and actors. What was continually missing within the existing literature was a deep understanding of why Rwandan leaders interacted in a certain way with the international community. The genocide guilt card is most notable in this fault as it heavily focused on the explaining the mechanism of guilting to which the Rwandan government used to gain state interests. While the guilt card is perhaps the most known narrative of Rwandan foreign policy, it is not the only one. And such as with the guilting, these other literature sources on foreign aid, shifting diplomatic alliances and development, do not discuss the mentality of the Rwandan government with the world. Literature on Rwanda’s military, the Rwanda Defence Force, is the closest to uncovering how the country views the world. However, the analysis is rather limited as the focus is not on international relations, but on military-related subjects. The research presented here states that Rwandan foreign policy contains complexities of three major themes and groups. These were identified through interviews and data collected during three main periods of fieldwork within Rwanda, Washington D.C. and New York by the Rwandan officials responsible