All the bourgmestre's men: Making sense of genocide in Rwanda

Africa Today

Volumn 45, Issue 1, 1998, Pages 25-36

  Wagner, Michele ^a  

^a INDIANA UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA   (United States)

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EID: 0032394820     PISSN: 00019887     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (15)

1. A kadogo in this context is usually a boy aged 8-15 who serves as an aidede-camp, personal bodyguard, or "escort" of a Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) officer. The RPA is the army of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) government.
2. See, for example, Human Rights Watch/FIDH, "Rwanda: The Crisis Continues" (April 1995).
3. Since it follows that if survival points to guilt, then all survivors are potentially guilty, this logic is an effective way of distinguishing between Rwandan returnees - that is, those Rwandans who had lived outside the country before the war, particularly in Burundi and Uganda - and those who had lived within Rwanda prior to the war. Particularly among Rwandan Tutsi, this line of thought separates those who were "innocent" of cooperating with Rwandan Hutu (and who do not have strong affective bonds with them that might mitigate against committing inhumane or vengeful acts) and those who are potentially "guilty" of complicity and cooperation with Hutus (and who might be inclined to criticize current ill-treatment of their friends). Beyond its usefulness as a tool for shielding the current government from internal criticism for human rights abuses against Hutu (which, if the charges come from Tutsi survivors who were direct witnesses, would otherwise bear credibility), this line of thinking promotes the relative "correctness" of Burundian and Ugandan Tutsi, giving them political leverage in current internal struggles for power among Tutsi.
4. This was a joint project of Human Rights Watch/Africa (New York) and the Fédération Internationale des Droits de l'Homme (Paris). I would like to thank Alison Des Forges of HRW and Catherine Choquet of FIDH for their direction.
5. A fonctionnaire is a government functionary or civil servant.
6. In early 1994, Nyakizu commune had 61,366 inhabitants, or approximately 451 persons per square kilometer. Commune Nyakizu, "Raporo y'ibarura ry'abaturage ukwezi kwa gashyantare," 1994.
7. Ethnic Tutsi make up a considerably smaller share of the national population (8 percent) than they do of Nyakizu commune.
8. Established about March 1991, the MDR (Mouvement Démocratique Républicain) was the reestablishment of the old MDR (Mouvement Démocratique Rwandais), which was the name that the former Parmehutu had taken before it was banned in 1973.
9. Gérard Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), p. 76.
10. Ntaganzwa's MDR patronage reportedly extended to Athanase Sebucocyero, deputy to the minister of transportation.
11. This information comes from the minutes of the Nyakizu commune security meetings, May 1992. Rwanda shifted to a system of multipartyism under considerable pressure from the international community, on which Rwanda relied for economic assistance. Although the president had shown little tolerance of criticism in the early years of his regime - as the history of the special incarceration facility for political prisoners located in Ruhengeri testifies - he and his party seem to have been thrown off balance during the period of adjusting to multipartyism. This was especially true in the southern part of the country, where the president and his inner circle (who overwhelmingly came from the north) held less sway. Furthermore, among the prefectures of the south, Butare prefecture, in which Nyakizu was located, was the center of "alternative" or opposition currents of thought and of multi-party activity. Therefore, Ntaganzwa's politics, while heavy-handed, were initially tolerated in the permissive atmosphere of Butare as a perhaps overzealous response to the MRND, known to be capable of its own heavy-handed politics. By the time local authorities recognized Ntaganzwa as a danger, he himself was closely tied to political patrons in the capital city, where his party, the MDR, was gaining ground over both the other opposition parties and over the vacillating MRND.
12. The government may have allowed Ntaganzwa to operate because it was overwhelmingly preoccupied with politics in the capital city. Furthermore, Ntaganzwa's party or patrons were just powerful enough within Kigali politics that a move against him might have proven too costly at the center. I think this was particularly true because Habyarimana and his MRND had not completely worked out how to deal with political opposition in a way that would be internally effective and yet not alienate the international community. Also, the relative importance of international support grew with the continuation of the RPA's challenge. As the RPA gained footholds in Rwanda, it ensured that the government would try to increase military aid through a perhaps overly permissive display of internal "democracy," which may have appeared tactically more sound than risking that aid by cracking down on internal opposition politics. Being new to multiparty politics, Habyarimana had not yet had the opportunity to develop a broad range of strategies for exerting tight control while maintaining the appearance of "democracy."
13. As bourgmestre, Ntaganzwa dismissed fonctionnaires who were not members of his inner circle with the justification that the lean communal budget could not support their positions. This occurred in the context of nonpayment of taxes as a form of civil disobedience promoted by "political parties."
14. Another name for the JDR was Inkuba, which translates as "lightning."
15. Such as massacres of the Bagogwe pastoralists in the far north and of the Tutsi residents of Bugesera.