Abstract
Two types of arguments have until today dominated the debate on the nature of the massacres perpetrated in Rwanda before the 1994 genocide. The first is that these massacres were a response to preceding attacks by the RPF, implying that they should be qualified as war operations and not as ethnic cleansing. The second is that they were try-outs for the genocide, implying that they were part of a plan that was to see its full implementation in 1994. This chapter presents a third interpretation of these massacres. The chapter shows that the massacres took place in specific areas with a history of spatial and social engineering. They inscribe themselves in a logic of land colonisation, re-settlement, depredation and deprivation of cattle and land in areas where the land constraint was biting the most and where peasant society was being re-modelled in a rational, geometric way. The chapter concludes that pastoralism was sentenced to disappear from Rwanda and that these massacres should be regarded as ethnic cleansing.
Verwimp, Philip (2011), The 1990–92 Massacres in Rwanda: a case of spatial and social Engineering? Journal of Agrarian Change, Vol. 11, n. 3, July, pp. 396–419.
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Notes
- 1.
The four most cited reports on human-rights violations that focus on, and were published during, this period are: (1) International Commission on Human Rights Violations in Rwanda since October 1990 (FIDH, March 1993), which implicates the country’s highest-level authorities in the organisation of the killing of 2,000 Tutsi in several locations throughout Rwanda; (2) the report published by the US Department of State in February 1993 which describes the massacres of the Bagogwe (January 1991) and of the Tutsi in Bugesera (March 1992) (in March 1991, the US Department of State had already published a report on the January 1991 massacre); (3) two reports published by the Rwandan human-rights group ADL in December 1992 and December 1993, respectively, which describe in detail several massacres and instances of human rights violations against the Tutsi; and (4) the report by the UN special rapporteur on Rwanda that was released in August 1993, which maintains that these massacres comply with the international definition of genocide.
- 2.
For an institutionalist and political economy perspective to conflict between agriculture and pastoralism I refer to Platteau (2001) and to Salih et al. (2001).
- 3.
For a discussion of the link between romanticism and violence I refer to Kiernan (2007).
- 4.
See, for example, Raleigh et al. (2010); also see Nathan (2005).
- 5.
We refer to Michael Mann (2005) for a treatment of the common ethnic cleansing roots of many advanced democracies and to Mark Mazower (1998) on mass population movements and forms of ethnic cleansing in Europe in the 20th century.
- 6.
The Belgian administration for development cooperation, assessed that the costs of the paysannats are out of proportion with the benefits (Bart 1993, 405).
- 7.
A cell was the smallest administrative unit in Rwanda consisting of between 50 and 100 families. For an analysis of the results of the field work we refer to Pinchotti and Verwimp (2007).
- 8.
Kangura June 1990, No. 3, p. 3.
- 9.
Nahimana, F., 1988, Conscience chez-nous, Confiance en nous: notre culture est la base de notre development harmonieux, Ruhengeri, Presse National du Rwanda. The author states that the book has been published with the support of the presidency of the MRND and the Ministry of Education and Scientific Research. In 1990, an official MRND publication even goes a step further when it deplores that the value of umuganda was lost through contact with the coloniser and in particular because of the introduction of money, the generalisation of education and salaried employment. Translated from the French version in Umuganda dans le developpement National, MRND, Kigali, 1990, p. 10. (see Chap. 1).
- 10.
Human Rights Watch 1999, Leave None to tell the Story, p. 110.
- 11.
Speech by Léon Mugesera before the militants of the MRND, sous-préfecture de Kabaya, Gisenyi, 22 November 1992, mimeo, translation from the French version to English by the author.
- 12.
Nsengiyaremye, D., La Transition Démocratique au Rwanda (1989–1993), in Guichaoua, A., ibidem, p. 247.
- 13.
Interview, Kigali, November 2000.
- 14.
Strauss (2006, 192) doubts that the faked attack was intentional and argues that it may have been caused by panicky soldier firing.
- 15.
De Standard, 1990, 15 october 1990; Reyntjens (1994, 95); Desforges (1999, 49).
- 16.
Association Rwandaise pour la Défense des Droits de la Personne et des Libertés Publiques, Rapport sur les droits de l’homme au Rwanda, Kigali; décembre 1992, pp. 83–85. The report mentions many other names, but without exact date of death, reason why I write at least 65. In Hope for Rwanda (1997, 41–42), André Sibomana put the figure at several hundred, a number also used by FIDH (1993, 62) and Des Forges (1999, 50).
- 17.
De Standard, October 13–14, 1990, p. 2.
- 18.
The names of these persons, of which several belong to the inner circle of the Akazu, will come back later and are found among the chief organisers of the genocide. The fact that the FIDH team managed to unveil the murderous intentions and the names of these people already in early 1993 signals the high quality of their report.
- 19.
Newbury, D., Understanding Genocide, African Studies Review, Vol. 41, No. 1, 1998, p. 79.
- 20.
Out of 17 incidents of serious violence in the 1990–1993 period, 14 took place in Gisenyi or Ruhengeri (Des Forges 1999, 87)
- 21.
Only urban centres had an even higher density, but urban people do not live of the land. Gisenyi is also the location of the fieldwork undertaken by André in 1988 and 1993. She found an extreme pressure on land which even deteriorated in just 5 years. The resulted in many conflicts over land and a large number of landless or quasi-landless peasants whose farm size was too small to make a living, to feed the family and to offer land to sons who wanted to marry.
- 22.
The source of these percent is the 1983 count of the population by ethnicity in the administrative records kept at the commune level.
- 23.
Association Rwandaise pour la Défense des Droits de la Personne et des Libertés Publiques, Rapport sur les droits de l’homme au Rwanda, Kigali; décember 1992, p. 353. This report uses the word ‘genocide’ at several occasions to describe the massacres. Also FIDH (1993, 52–55).
- 24.
The comparison becomes 45 % (10/22) compared to 7.3 % (9/123) when including the very small paysannats located in the province capitals. The Chi-square statistic is 35.35 with 1 ° of freedom and a p-value of 0, meaning that the result cannot be ascribed to chance.
- 25.
Just how tough the effects of the land constraint were can best be understood in a paper by André and Platteau (1998). The field work for their paper was undertaken in 1988 and 1993 on a hill in Gisenyi province. Verwimp (2005) presents an economic profile of perpetrators.
- 26.
A strong example of the ideology in the mind of the organisers of genocide is found in an essay written by Colonel T. Bagosora after the genocide (Yaoundé 1995). He writes that the civil war was an ethnic war of Hutu against Tutsi and that the Tutsi are a nilothic people of immigrants without a country of their own. They have tried to impose their supremacy on the rightful original inhabitants.
- 27.
De Standaard, 1990, October 13–14, p. 2 for the denial of the massacre of the Hima and Des Forges 1999, pp. 90–91 for the denial of the massacre of the Bagogwe.
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Verwimp, P. (2011). The 1990–1992 Massacres: A Case of Spatial and Social Engineering?. In: Peasants in Power. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6434-7_6
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