(The following information is excerpted and lightly edited from my dissertation, Mbwirabumva [“I Speak to Those Who Understand”], copyright © 2013.)
Bikindi’s comments on Rwandan political history
FRANK (my interpreter): What do you think about the government? Maybe some of the elements in your songs do not match the policy of the government. For example, if there is somewhere that mentions Tutsi, and the government says, “There is no Tutsi, there is no Hutu”—if you were President or a top government official, would you allow this?
BIKINDI: [In a hushed voice]: You have reminded me even of an important thing: It’s a big mistake, it’s a big mistake. It’s a big mistake to say that you have eliminated ethnicity. It’s a big mistake to say we are only Rwandese. It was a very big mistake, and the bene Sebahinzi would not accept it. I have accepted that Mr. McCoy is an American. What I’m talking about is respect. It doesn’t stop me from knowing that Mr. McCoy is American.
MCCOY: It seems that one of the issues in Rwanda today is that the government says, “There is no ubwoko,” you know? But yet, everybody knows the government is mostly Tutsi. And so some people I talk to say that the government wants to put “a cloth” over ethnicity so that the government can continue favoring Tutsi.
BIKINDI: Yes! I am talking about the truth. To highlight the truth. When I say, “to share,” I mean it. If the information I’m following is good—the reports I have read—the leadership now is mostly, from the top, Tutsi. If talking about Habyarimana’s or Kayibanda’s government, the top leaders were the Hutus. The word, “share,”—it’s very important to me. If you are my neighbor and you want to eat, but then I’m not able to eat too? When the RPF was coming in, one of the propaganda messages it had was to say, “We shall share.” Today, I don’t think that’s real.
FRANK: What do you mean by sharing? Do you mean like 50/50, or what percentage do you want? Compared to the previous government, I think they’re sharing. Maybe not as much as people want, but…
BIKINDI: During the monarchy, how many Tutsis were in the government?
FRANK: [Seems indignant at the question. Begins to argue. I interrupt.]
MCCOY: I think when you say “50/50,” that is not what you mean by “sharing.” It means that when you see someone in need, you give to that person.
BIKINDI: No! No, I do mean the government. During the monarchy, there were only, like, two Hutus. [Switches to English]: It was terrible, because many Tutsis who were not part of the clan were also not in the government.
MCCOY: It was just that one clan [referring to the Abanyiginya].
BIKINDI: Yeah.
MCCOY: So, when you say, “to share,” you mean that power needs to be shared?
BIKINDI: Yeah!
MCCOY: Among all clans?
BIKINDI: Yeah!
MCCOY: Among all ubwoko?
BIKINDI: Yeah! [Back to Kinyarwanda] I mean “to share” among the ethnic groups, among Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa. If a Twa took over and then pushed out all Hutu and Tutsi, then I would tell them that “the sharing” is not there. And if a Hutu had done it, or a Tutsi has done it, I would say the same. During Kayibanda’s government, do you know why he failed? He chose the twelve ministers from his own district [he reads off their names]. And that is how it happened, why he was taken over. Habyarimana was the leader, and I liked him, but people failed to tell him, “These are some of your mistakes, these are some of your mistakes, these are some of your mistakes.” And I must tell you that the leadership [now] is with the Tutsis. You asked me, when I return to Rwanda, what I would say. When I arrive in Rwanda, I will not be afraid to tell Rwandans that they have to share. Because maybe in the future, it could be bad, if the leadership refuses to share.
Introduction to Rwandan Historiography
Bikindi was an earnest student of Rwandan history and his compositions reflect this. Therefore, a general knowledge of this history is necessary in order to understand the historical references made throughout his songs as well as to know something of the context in which he composed, the factors that possibly motivated him, and the reasons why many perceive the songs as pro-genocide propaganda. However, like any nation, the history of Rwanda is vast and complex. Moreover, any given phase of this history is the target of intense scrutiny and disagreement among both Rwandans and foreign scholars. Depending on who has ruled, this history has been subject to revisionism that has served to either legitimize or challenge political authority. As C. Lévi-Strauss wisely observed, “History is never history, but history-for. It is partial in the sense of being biased even when it claims not to be.”[1] The scholarship of colonial historians, for example, was once used to legitimize Tutsi political dominion only to be later co-opted by Hutu revolutionaries to inspire the rise of Hutu Power and justify anti-Tutsi discrimination and persecution. Today, the RPF disavows any scholarship that brings to light its own commission of human rights abuses, affirming instead only scholarship in which the regime is presented as one of liberation and progressivism.[2]
Scholars have thus become well aware of the dangers of being used as unwitting political brokers and propagandists, but rather than reaching consensus, the wariness of these dangers has only led to more argumentation, some of it quite heated. In certain corners of the scholarly community, simply using the term “genocide” to characterize the mass killings committed in Rwanda will elicit seething criticism.[3] This is not necessarily a bad thing. Particularly for new students of Rwandan history who are not yet so invested in any one viewpoint, confronting this conflict encourages a much needed skepticism, a lack of certainty, and an epistemological humility that resists the endorsement of any one historical narrative, the ideology it tends to give rise to, and the social antagonisms that potentially result.
My purpose in the following is not to try to reconcile different historical narratives in order to present some incontrovertible grand narrative of Rwandan history. It would be silly to try, especially in the brief span allotted here. Rather, I have three main purposes. The first is to provide a basic framework of Rwandan history, imperfect as this framework may be, in which to situate various references made throughout Bikindi’s lyrics. The second is to highlight the very conflict over interpreting Rwandan history, a conflict that tends to align with ethnopolitical affinities and experiences of the genocide and its aftermath. Those supportive of the RPF often espouse a narrative quite at odds with those critical of the RPF. To understand Rwandan history, one needs to understand what Rwandans think of their history, because how people regard their history is profoundly consequential in terms of how they perceive their relationship to state power and to each other as fellow citizens, all the more so when issues of political and ethnic inequality and conflict enter the picture. Furthermore, how Rwandans regard their history also tends to correlate with how they interpret Bikindi’s songs. The following discussion of Rwandan history is thus extracted from scholarly sources combined with information gathered from personal conversations with Rwandans. Finally, the third purpose is to emphasize that the criteria by which Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa have been constituted has changed throughout time and varied by region. These identities were not a primordial given.[4] Depending on how ethnicity is defined, using the term to categorically refer to Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa can radically distort the historical quality of these identities and their relationship to one another. “Ethnicity” is commonly used in Western scholarship on Rwanda as a matter of verbal economy, because it is the Western term[5] that comes closest to describing these identities. But in doing so, it is at the same time imperative that the concept of ethnicity be interrogated rather than assumed. An awareness of this is critical when contemplating Bikindi’s intentions, for when he seemingly references ethnicity, the question should arise as to what conceptualization of ethnicity he has in mind—or if he is actually referencing ethnicity at all.
General Framework of Rwandan History
Rwanda’s history is conventionally divided into five major eras: 1) the ancient era (likely as early as the 5th century to ca. 17th century), 2) he Abanyiginya monarchial era (ca. 17th century to late-19th century), 3) the colonial-monarchial era (late-19th c. to 1962), 4) the independent republic era (1962 to 1994), 5) and the post-genocide RPF era (1994 to the present).[6] Each era may then be subdivided. The ancient era comprises over a thousand-year period during which various kinship groups (imiryango) entered and settled the region, eventually consolidating into larger clan-like alliances (ubwoko). The Abanyiginya monarchial era comprises a succession of Tutsi kings (abami),each of which altered geographic boundaries and used various means of subjugation to transform the dominant power structure.[7] The colonial-monarchial era began in 1884 when the Berlin Conference awarded Ruanda-Urundi to the German East Africa Company, though the Germans did not encounter the Abanyiginya court until nearly ten years later when Count Gustav Adolf von Götzen arrived with a small retinue of soldiers. Permanent occupation did not commence until 1898.[8] In 1919, following Germany’s defeat in World War I, the League of Nations stripped Germany of its colonies and awarded Ruanda-Urundi to Belgium. During both the German and Belgian occupations, but especially during the latter, a distinction between Hutu and Tutsi as separate racial groups was formulated and hierarchically reinforced. In 1961, Belgium divided Ruanda-Urundi into the nations of Rwanda and Burundi, and granted each its independence. Burundi became ruled by the multi-ethnic but Tutsi-dominated UPRONA party (Union pour le Progrès national), led by the Tutsi prince, Louis Rwagasore. In total contrast, Rwanda became ruled by the exclusively Hutu PARMEHutu (Parti du mouvement de l’emancipation Hutu), founded by Grégoire Kayibanda. Kayibanda and other Hutu revolutionaries led a popular uprising that resulted in the deposition and exile of the king. The revolt included the massacres of thousands of Tutsi, which then led to hundreds of thousands more fleeing. Those who settled in southern Uganda eventually formed the RPF. The era of independence is subdivided into the periods of the First and Second Republics. The First Republic was led by Kayibanda and PARMEHutu,[9] but in 1973, General Habyarimana and his loyal soldiers ousted Kayibanda in a bloodless coup. Habyarimana founded the MRND party, still dominated by Hutu, and declared all competing parties illegal. Habyarimana remained in power until he was killed in 1994, his death instigating the genocide. When the RPF took over, it then banned the MRND party and has since retained control of the government. Though the RPF was dominated by Tutsi, the first post-genocide President was the Hutu, Pasteur Bizimungu, with Paul Kagame serving as his Vice-President. Bizimungu was a holdover from the Habyarimana administration but had been an outspoken critic of its extremist elements. The RPF, therefore, strategically installed him as a way of smoothing over the transition to the new government and deflecting accusations that the RPF favored Tutsi. By the late 1990s, however, the relationship between Bizimingu and Kagame had soured. Kagame ascended to the Presidency in 2000 when Bizimungu resigned amid allegations of corruption, treason, divisionism, and threatening national security. In 2004, he was sentenced to fifteen years imprisonment, but in 2007, Kagame issued him a full pardon. Kagame was formally elected in 2003 in the first national elections held since the genocide. He received over 95% of the official vote. He was then re-elected in 2010, this time with 93% of the vote.
While few Rwandans would dispute this basic framework of history, the main disagreement is over the criteria by which ethnicity was constituted, the character of ethnic and political relations throughout each era, and who or what was ultimately responsible for the genocide. I generally encountered two clashing historical narratives, each standing in near negative relief of the other. One could be called the pro-RPF narrative, as it is the one espoused by most RPF officials and their supporters and is considered to be what is politically correct. Arguing against this narrative in today’s Rwanda can result in criminal charges. Of the participants who adhered to this narrative, almost all were Tutsi who either survived the genocide or were raised in the exile settlements in Uganda or Burundi and later moved to Rwanda after the RPF takeover. A summary of the pro-RPF narrative is found on the government’s official website. It begins as follows:
For centuries, Rwanda existed as a centralized monarchy under a succession of Tutsi kings from one clan, who ruled through cattle chiefs, land chiefs and military chiefs. The king was supreme but the rest of the population, Bahutu, Batutsi, and Batwa, lived in symbiotic harmony. In 1899, Rwanda became a German colony and, in 1919, the system of indirect rule continued with Rwanda as a mandate territory of the League of Nations, under Belgium. From 1959, Batutsi were targeted, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths and sending almost two million of them into exile. The First Republic, under President Grégoire Kayibanda, and the second, under President Juvenal Habyarimana, institutionalized discrimination against Batutsi and subjected them to periodic massacres.
The Rwandese Alliance for National Unity (RANU) was formed in 1979 by Rwandan refugees in exile, to mobilize against divisive politics and genocide ideology, repeated massacres, statelessness and the lack of peaceful political exchange. In 1987, RANU became the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF). On 1 October 1990, the RPF launched an armed liberation struggle that ultimately ousted the dictatorship in 1994 and ended the genocide of more than one million Batutsi and massacres of moderate Bahutu who opposed the genocide.[10]
Notice that the subjugation of Hutu under the monarchy is never mentioned, only the oppression of Tutsi under the republic. The RPF also presents itself as a heroic force, utterly without blame. In opposition to this narrative, several of this study’s participants and numerous scholars adhere to what I refer to as the anti-RPF narrative. Of the participants, all were Hutu who perceived themselves as having been victimized to some degree by the RPF.[11] The following historical review will specify areas of disagreement between the two sides, then pore through the historiographic literature in order to provide further details, especially those related to ethnic and political conflict.
The Ancient Era
Most agree that Rwanda was first inhabited by people who hunted and foraged in the dense forests and rugged piedmonts of the western region. Their descendents were eventually known as Twa, and today, they constitute a very small minority (less than 1%) of Rwanda’s population.[12] The disagreement arises over the origins and relationship between those who later became known as Hutu and Tutsi. The pro-RPF side claims that Hutu and Tutsi originated from the same people who migrated together to Rwanda. The terms evolved as a way of designating occupation: Hutu were mainly involved in farming and Tutsi were mainly involved in cattle breeding. The anti-RPF side claims that Hutu, who at the time did mainly subsist on farming, arrived first as a distinct group, and that Tutsi, who mainly subsisted on cattle breeding, arrived much later, often invading Hutu farmlands so that they could use them to graze their herds. Because cattle was the primary indicator of wealth and status, Tutsi eventually established social, economic, and political dominance over Hutu. This theme of Tutsi as foreign subjugators became one of the ideological embers that later fueled the genocide, and it reflects the perceptions many Rwandans, especially peasant Hutu farmers, have of the RPF today, since the RPF also invaded from outside the nation and is mostly comprised of Tutsi. One can see why the RPF would desire to revise this.
Both sides are surely correct to some extent. According to Jan Vansina, Rwanda was settled by numerous large kinship groups called imiryango. Each was comprised of several smaller lineage groups called umuryango. Umuryango were then further subdivided into multiple inzu, the smallest kinship unit, which was comprised of grandparents, parents, and children (inzu means “house” or “household”). As the number of imiryango increased, they forged alliances in order to protect themselves from enemies and secure their lands and means of producing food and gathering resources. Through these alliances, the population eventually consolidated into about fifteen ubwoko, a number that eventually grew to around twenty. Ubwoko, in this context, is usually translated as “clan” (this will change under colonial rule), but unlike the conventional understanding of clanship, members of the same ubwoko were not necessarily blood-related but rather were united by common geopolitical and economic interests. Individual imiryango and inzu could, depending on their own interests, break off from one ubwoko and join another or, if powerful enough, form a whole new ubwoko.[13] In the song, “Intabaza,” Bikindi references several prominent ubwoko, for example, the Abasindi, Ababanda, Abega, Abazigaba, Abaguyana, Abagesera, and others. The most important geopolitical unit was the hill or mountain (umusozi). The most powerful leaders of an imiryango or ubwoko made their household at the peak, with the less and less powerful living at lower and lower elevations. “Intabaza” references several prominent hills as well, especially Mwima and Mushirarunugu, at the crests of which resided the leaders of the most powerful ubwoko in Rwandan history, the Abanyiginya.
The Origins of Hutu and Tutsi
The precise origins of Hutu and Tutsi are a mystery. Vansina maintains that the names denoted a blend of occupational affiliation and social, economic, and political status. The term “Hutu” was not widely used until the monarchial era. Those who subsisted off of farming practices—that is, the great majority of the population—would have been referred to by their ubwoko, imiryango, inzu, or by locality. Only a minority primarily bred cattle, and they were called either “Hima” or “Tutsi.” The usage of these terms varied by region. In southern Uganda and northern Rwanda, “Hima” was used. In central and southern Rwanda and northern Burundi, particularly in the central Nduga region (roughly corresponding today with the regions surrounding Kigali, Nyanza, and Gitarama), both terms may have been used, but “Tutsi” referred not to all cattle breeders, but only to the elites—those who owned abundant herds, bountiful reserves of food, much land, and therefore wielded significant influence among their peers.[14]
Vansina’s theory would thus seem to affirm the pro-RPF narrative that Hutu and Tutsi evolved out of the same group of people who migrated to Rwanda together. There is some evidence, though, that challenges this. For one, while appearances alone do not necessarily distinguish Hutu from Tutsi, clear differences exist at the far ends of the spectrum. A Rwandan who is quite tall and thin, with sharp, angular facial features and a longer, pointier nose is almost certainly a Tutsi. These are traits typical of Nilotic peoples. One of several ancestral population clusters in Africa, Nilotes historically inhabited the regions of Ethiopia, Somalia, southern Sudan, and parts of Uganda and Kenya.[15] In contrast, most Hutu display the blunter facial features and carry the stockier builds that are characteristic of Bantu peoples (as do many Tutsi).[16] The Nilotic features of some Tutsi therefore suggest that they descended from people who migrated from the north. Vansina does not neglect this apparent genetic diversity but argues that it extends back millennia rather than centuries.[17] According to this, Nilotic peoples likely migrated to Rwanda a very long time ago, bringing with them their cattle-herding way of life. Some Tutsi descended from these early migrants, but by the time the term “Tutsi” was in use, there had been so much intermarriage throughout the generations that genetic difference was less relevant than other factors in defining ethnicity. “Tutsi” still primarily referred to a combination of occupational, political, economic, and social status—not a genetically defined group. Walter Rodney (1971), whose work was widely read by RPF members and incorporated into their ideology,[18] argued that Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa did not descend from separate origins. To account for their morphological differences, he theorized that this was due to longstanding differences in diet. Because Twa foraged in the forests and hunted small game, they ate more sparingly and a very lean diet at that, thus accounting for their small stature. Hutu, as farmers, consumed a diet rich in starch and carbohydrates, thus their larger, stockier build. Tutsi consumed milk, honey, and beef, a diet rich in protein and calcium, thus their taller, leaner frame. In an earlier work, Luc de Heutsch (1966) saw dietary differentiation as evidence of separate origins, arguing that it reflected cultural practices that would likely have evolved only in isolation. If Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa had originated together, there would not be so much difference in their dietary ways of life. J. C. Desmarais (1978)[19] theorized that Tutsi elites applied their knowledge of cattle breeding to themselves. They purposefully coupled with those who were tall and who possessed refined facial features because these were considered the marks of noble bearing. Whatever the merits or shortcomings of Desmarais’ theory, one will observe that even today, many Rwandans consider these features to be highly attractive, and men will often seek out Tutsi women who have inherited them.
Abanyiginya Monarchial Era
The precise origins of Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa will likely long be debated without resolution. What is clear is that throughout the rule of the Abanyiginya dynasty, these identities took on a political and economic dimension with the highest levels of power, prestige, and privilege reserved for Tutsi. The pro-RPF side claims that under monarchial rule, while it was often violent, there was no conflict along the Hutu-Tutsi axis. Though there were wars and rivalries, these were due to the ambitions of various ubwoko and kinship groups vying for land, resources, and power. The anti-RPF side claims that the monarchial era was a time when Hutu were eventually all but enslaved by Tutsi kings and chiefs and forced to toil in misery.
Ruganzu Ndori and the Birth of the Abanyiginya Dynasty
Inequalities in power and wealth coalesced over the centuries into the establishment of a few major kingdoms and multiple smaller chiefdoms. Some of these chiefdoms were autonomous, while others submitted to the greater authority of a kingdom. Some kings and chiefs were Hima or Tutsi cattle breeders, but others (likely not yet referred to as Hutu) derived their power and wealth from ownership of large tracts of farmland. Sometime during the late 17th century, a new dynasty arose out of a relatively new ubwoko, the Abanyiginya. Its founding leader was Ruganzu Ndori.[20] Vansina believes that he was likely a Hima whose family migrated from the north and settled in the southern-central region of Nduga. Ndori possessed a large herd,[21] and through scrupulous business practices, he cultivated a loyal following from among his neighbors. This new clan flourished, and as head of it, Ndori was regarded as a Tutsi. With his vast wealth and increasing influence, he developed a well-organized and powerful standing army, an important innovation for the time, which he used to raid and plunder other territories and to protect his burgeoning kingdom. Indeed, Ndori regarded himself as a king (umwami). As no kingdom was considered legitimate without its own heraldic drum (ngoma), Ndori took as his standard the mighty Kalinga, which he and his successors decorated with the desiccated genitalia of their fallen opponents. References to Kalinga are found in two of Bikindi’s songs, “Twasazareye” and “Intabaza.”
A true king was also deified by his subjects. They believed that the king embodied the land and through the very workings of his body was responsible for promoting ecological balance, especially rainfall. To ensure the king’s health, safety, and success in this role, it was necessary to regularly observe divine rituals performed by a loyal group of court ritualists called abiru. These rituals also encouraged solidarity throughout the kingdom by requiring the participation of subject chiefs and other important court members. Therefore, to cement his legitimacy as a king, Ndori sought the acknowledgment and fealty of three nearby kinship groups, the Kono, Tsobe, and Tege, whose members were known for their divine abilities to oversee these rituals.[22]
Through cunning diplomacy, keen military organization, cattle raids, the Kalinga drum, and the loyalty of the abiru, Ndori established the Abanyiginya kingdom and birthed a powerful dynasty that would reign for over two centuries. His court was located at Nyanza, in the heart of Nduga. At first, the Abanyiginya kingdom was relatively small, but by its apex in the late 19th century, its boundaries would encompass most of present-day Rwanda.[23] As the focal character in the creation of much dynastic poetry and other oral literature, Ndori evolved into a figure of legend. Vansina describes him as, “Above all…the protagonist in an epic story, the hero of a great cycle of marvelous tales, some of which are endowed with great formal beauty. Above all he, like Sunjata [Keita] or Alexander [the Great], is the heroic founder of a state.”[24] Bikindi’s songs make several references to Ndori as well, but in his songs, Ndori is not a hero but a villain—a devious, greedy scoundrel who laid the foundation for centuries of injustice and oppression.
The Beginning of the Patron-Client System
Vansina acknowledges that already by the time Ndori came to power, an unevenly reciprocal labor system had developed between Tutsi elites and others (usually less wealthy cattle breeders) known as ubugabire.[25] The cow was the primary unit of currency, used for all manner of economic transactions. Under ubugabire, a patron (shebuja) would lend to a client (umugaragu) one or more heads of cattle.[26] The client would then offer the firstborn of each calving in exchange. More importantly, the client was then bound to work for the patron until the deal was dissolved, usually at the time when the initial cow or cattle finally died. While ubugabire involved an unequal power relation, it could be mutually beneficial and was usually entered into voluntarily. If the client was shrewd with his loan, he could ascend to higher levels of status.
Ubugabire evolved into other patron-client arrangements. There continues to be much confusion, misunderstanding, and contradiction among scholars regarding these arrangements. What matters for the present purposes is that these arrangements resulted in both social integration and social cleavage. They could bind individuals, families, and larger social groups together into economically and politically reciprocal relationships, but they could also be quite exploitative, engendering resentment and rebellion. Among the harshest of these arrangements was ubuhake. According to Vansina, it was Ndori who first introduced ubuhake.[27] Unlike ubugabire, ubuhake involved a lifelong contract. Furthermore, it was hereditary, meaning that a client’s descendants were also subservient to the descendants of the patron. In return, the patron offered protection of the client families and their herds. Military protection was important because raiding and pillaging was common; indeed, Ndori was perhaps the most successful raider of all during his time. The only way out of the deal was for client families to give up their entire herds to the patron, condemning themselves to a life of poverty and insecurity.
Ubuhake first mainly involved an arrangement between the king or his officials and lesser rulers or cattle breeders, but other forms of remission on the part of the client that did not involve cattle later developed, often hoes or armlets and other decorative items. Non-cattle breeders could thus also become ubuhake clients. Catherine Newbury, in contrast, while making no claims as to the precise origins of ubuhake, states that it was an arrangement between individuals, not lineages. According to her research, it was another kind of patron-client system, umuheto, that involved whole lineages. Unlike ubuhake, the two umuheto parties usually respected one another and used the system to their mutual benefit. The client bred the patron’s cows for him, then gifted calves to the patron once every year or two. The patron then provided protection of the client’s own herd. This resembles Vansina’s description of ubuhake. The difference, according to Newbury, is that ubuhake was more demanding; the patron could require several heads of cattle from the client and at more frequent intervals than just once a year. Also, because it involved a contract between individuals, ubuhake was more prone to creating social cleavages because individual members of a kin group might serve as clients to different, competing patrons. Newbury states that umuheto preceded ubuhake.[28] (Vansina, meanwhile, makes no mention of umuheto, while Newbury makes no mention of ubugabire. Most scholars mention neither and focus only on ubuhake, describing it in still more contradictory ways. For example, Johan Pottier claims that ubuhake did not emerge until the mid to late 19th century, two hundred years after Ndori.[29]
The Expansion and Complexity of the Monarchy
It is not necessary here to recount the succession of all the Abanyiginya kings and their schemes, exploits, and other events related to them, but rather to point out a few important developments that will impact one’s reading of Bikindi’s lyrics. The first is that, following a civil war that lasted from 1796-1801, the Abanyiginya kings gradually developed a political and economic system that was highly structured and quite sophisticated.[30] By the early to mid 19th century, various administrative divisions had been established to oversee the military, the divine rituals, and most importantly, the distribution and management of land. The latter tended to result in resentment and jealousy. Kings and their top officials granted large tracts of land to favored cattle breeders, military officials, and other political supporters in order to reward them and ensure their loyalty, an arrangement that was called igikindi.[31] Anyone who had been previously using these lands either had to submit themselves as clients to the new tenants or find somewhere else to go. More and more land was doled out in this manner, especially throughout the late 19th century, and so less and less was available to the rest of the population. As a result, ordinary cattle breeders, who were by then also called Tutsi (discussed below) found their herds diminishing and with that their socioeconomic status. Many Tutsi thus turned to farming to survive. The song, “Intabaza,” focuses on the oppression of and infighting between farmers, a group that included both Hutu and many Tutsi. Nevertheless, Bikindi’s critics argue that he is only speaking of Hutu when he references farmers.
New administrative chiefdoms were created to exact taxes, settle local disputes, oversee the military, and manage land and determine whether it be used for grazing or farming. The chiefdom structure resembled a quasi-pyramid scheme with the lesser “hill chiefs” subservient to provincial chiefs who were then subservient to one of the king’s appointees, though the authority of chiefs crosscut one another in complex ways. Almost all chiefs acted as patrons to at least a few clients, but many were also clients of more powerful chiefs or of the king. Two types of provincial chiefs were “chiefs of the long grass” (abanyankenke), who taxed and managed cattle breeders, and “chiefs of the land” (abanyabutaka), who oversaw agricultural work. There was often much grist between these two chiefs and their representatives. Since cattle were so valued and grazing land becoming scarcer due to a multiplying population and the practice of igikindi, the chiefs of the long grass usually got their way.
Paralleling the increasing complexity of the monarchial administration, the patron-client system became even more diversified. There were patron-client arrangements that had to do with land usage as opposed to borrowing cattle. The main type of these was ubukonde, where owners of large tracts of land would rent out some of their land to farmers in return for a percentage of the harvest, similar in ways to the sharecropping system that developed in the American South.[32] Disputing the scholarly consensus that was prevalent up to around the 1970s, both Vansina and C. Newbury argue that when the patron-client system first developed, only a small fraction of the population submitted to it, and of those who did, most were lesser Tutsi who submitted to more powerful Tutsi. By the end of the 19th century, though, most Rwandans found themselves entangled in some sort of patron-client contract. In Bikindi’s songs, the patron-client system is mentioned or alluded to several times and always in a negative light.
Hutu and Tutsi as Occupational and Socioeconomic Identities
The most critical development concerns the evolution and application of the terms “Tutsi” and “Hutu.” Vansina claims that “Hutu” was a term of derision used by Tutsi elites to refer to those they viewed as inferior, alluding to “rural boorishness and loutish behavior.”[33] It was applied not just to poor farmers but to anyone who made a living doing menial labor, servants, and even to people who lived outside the kingdom (in this latter sense, it carried similar connotations as the term “barbarian”). It was also used to refer to those who served in the military but were not allowed to engage in combat.[34] With its potential for spoils and glory, combat was an honor reserved only for those of higher status, and since ownership of cattle was the prime marker of status, those who were allowed to engage in warfare were usually Tutsi while those who were barred from warfare were often non-elite farmers. As the Abanyiginya kingdom expanded, its military system and associated terminology spread so that the term “Hutu” eventually came to refer to all farmers and “Tutsi” to all cattle breeders, whether they served in the military or not and whether they were of high status or not. Chiefs of the land, for instance, were usually regarded as Hutu, because they were affiliated with farming. Many Tutsi, on the other hand, possessed only a small herd of cattle and had to farm in order to survive (under colonial rule, these lesser Tutsi were called “petit Tutsi”). Indeed, not all patrons were Tutsi and not all clients were Hutu. For example, a chief of the land, who very well may have been Hutu, could have had several Tutsi clients. To summarize Vansina’s theory, before the institutionalization of this terminology in the military, “Hutu” was employed by Tutsi elites in a rather snobbish fashion. Following their institutionalization in the military, the terms became widely used and associated with occupational affiliation while denoting only to a limited extent and only in certain cases economic and political status.
The conceptual application of the term “Hutu” and “Tutsi” was not uniform but was adopted slowly and variably by region. For example, in Burundi as late as 1960, “Tutsi” still applied only to elites who descended from the more powerful kinship lineages of cattle breeders.[35] C. Newbury identified during field research in the early 1970s that inhabitants of Ijwi Island (located in Lake Kivu along the Rwandan-Congolese border) still did not use the terms “Hutu” and “Tutsi”; Rwandans were instead distinguished by their ubwoko, umuryango, or inzu.[36]
Where the terms were in use in Rwanda, a person’s identity as a Hutu or Tutsi was patrilineally inherited. Still, identities were not fixed at first. Over time a person or family might switch identities due to intermarriage, the acquisition or loss of cattle, and/or by ascending or descending the sociopolitical ladder. These factors explain why, in most cases, Hutu and Tutsi cannot be distinguished by appearances alone.[37]
The Social and Political Inferiorizing of Hutu
The political relationship between Hutu and Tutsi was dramatically altered and polarized under the penultimate Abanyiginya king, Rwabugiri (Kigeri IV) ,[38] who ruled from 1853-1895. Rwabugiri’s reputation is that of a tyrant, and his reign was marked by near constant warfare, terror, and internal conflict within his court. Through the use of brute force, he centralized authority under his rule, stripping the autonomy of more distant chiefdoms and bringing them under his control. He amassed an enormous and technologically advanced army (many of his soldiers were armed with rifles). He then dispatched his armies to reinforce and expand the borders of the Abanyiginya kingdom so that by the end of his reign, it encompassed most of present-day Rwanda.
Rwabugiri devised a new patron-client system called uburetwa.[39] Unlike pre-existing patron-client arrangements, uburetwa required most Hutu and only Hutu to submit to it; Tutsi, no matter how meager their status, were exempt. Thus contravening the pro-RPF narrative, there was indeed hierarchical division between Hutu and Tutsi before the arrival of colonialism. The terms of the new system were severe, and the only reciprocity on the part of the patrons, who in this case were the king and various local chiefs, was that Hutu were allowed access to their farmlands. Hutu families were required to build and maintain roads and embark on long marches to Rwabugiri’s palace or to the courts of his chiefs, bearing foodstuffs and luxury goods such as tobacco, honey, and beer. It also required Hutu to serve as night watchmen and to perform other tasks such as collecting and drying firewood, again labor that often had to be performed during the night so that Hutu could tend to their farms during the day.[40] Any failure to meet a certain labor quota was met with whippings, the forfeiture of land, or worse. Beginning in 1885, the injustice of the system provoked a series of uprisings, but they were quickly squelched.[41] Under uburetwa, the identities of Hutu and Tutsi were further hierarchically institutionalized and rigidified; it was all but impossible now for Hutu to become Tutsi. Uburetwa was the most hated policy among Hutu, and Bikindi specifically denounces it in his songs.
The End of the Dynasty
For all his cruel swagger, Rwabugiri’s power was hardly secure. The queen-mother, Kanjogera, whose power was nearly equal to that of the king, was a member of the Abega clan, long a rival of the Abanyiginya. She and Rwabugiri were married in part to maintain peaceful cooperation (the queen-mothers had for some time arose from the Abega for this purpose), but Rwabugiri infuriated her and the Abega when he went against the established royal code and selected Rutarindwa, the son of one of his lesser, non-Abega wives, to succeed him. When Rwabugiri died suddenly in 1895, the kingdom entered a period of near anarchy. Adding to the political instability, Rwanda was in the midst of a severe famine, a locust invasion, a smallpox outbreak, an epidemic of rinderpest that had wiped out much of the cattle, and an infestation of jiggers—small flea-like insects that bore into the toes and fingers, causing great discomfort. Rutarindwa inherited his father’s throne as Mibambwe IV, but a year later was deposed in a coup orchestrated by Kanjogera. He subsequently committed suicide. Kanjogera’s own son, Musinga (Yuhi V), was then installed as king. He was affiliated with the Abega, and so with his ascension, the great Abanyiginya dynasty came to an end.
Colonial-Monarchial Era
Few Rwandans have kind things to say about the colonial occupation of their land by Germany and Belgium, but there are still sharp differences between the pro-RPF and anti-RPF perspectives of this era. The disagreement has mainly to do with the level of responsibility colonialism bears for creating conflict between Hutu and Tutsi. The pro-RPF side argues that colonialism was solely responsible for inflaming anti-Tutsi resentment by instilling the idea that Tutsi were a superior race and then favoring them politically over Hutu and Twa. This view persists in the belief that there was little tension, discrimination, or conflict between the groups before colonialism, removing any culpability on the part of the Tutsi-dominated monarchy. The anti-RPF side argues that there were already problems between Hutu and Tutsi elites and that colonialism only exacerbated them; indeed, Tutsi elites took advantage of colonial support to tighten their grip on power and further plunge Hutu into submission and poverty.
The Hamitic Myth and the Racialization of Hutu and Tutsi
The Germans first encountered the Abanyiginya court in the early 1890s, just shortly before Rwabugiri’s death. They were struck by its elaborate political and economic systemization and the dominance of a Tutsi minority. Sure, they noted that here and there Hutu had also attained a few chiefdoms and that many Tutsi were not so wealthy or influential. But by and large, those who were in positions of power were Tutsi, and though they were vastly outnumbered by Hutu, they had still somehow managed to subjugate them. The Germans also noticed the three physiognomies that broadly distinguished Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa. They combined these observations with the racial theories that were prevalent in Europe at the time to conclude that Tutsi had originated from somewhere closer to Europe. According to their thinking, “true Africans” were not intelligent nor civilized enough to have devised such an intricate political and economic scheme. Ubwoko came to refer not to clan affiliation but to a person’s identity as either a Hutu, Tutsi, or Twa, understood now as a hierarchically distinguished race, with Tutsi at the top and Hutu and Twa at the bottom.
The Hamitic hypothesis or Hamitic myth was among the most influential of these racial ideas.[42] It was named after the Biblical character Ham, the youngest of Noah’s three sons. The relevant passage is found in the ninth chapter of Genesis. Following the establishment of the covenant between Noah and Yahweh, Noah consumes a copious amount of wine and falls asleep naked in a drunken stupor, a sight that causes Ham to erupt in laughter. When Noah awakes and learns of his son’s mockery, he curses Ham and decrees that his descendants will serve as slaves for the descendants of his brothers. Rabbinic treatises in the Middle Ages embellished the story to say that Ham was then cursed with darkened skin, larger lips, and short, tightly curled hair—traits generally associated with African heredity. The Curse of Ham was used to self-righteously affirm the view among Europeans that Africans were their inferiors and that their enslavement was justified. Employing tautological reasoning, they believed that Africans, because they were seen as fit for slavery, must be the descendants of the cursed Ham, and in turn, because they were the descendants of the cursed Ham, they were fit for slavery. This view was altered in some cases, as it was in Ruanda-Urundi. In such cases, the colonialists did not believe that all Africans were the descendants of Ham, but only those who exemplified a more “civilized” way of life and were able to establish political dominance. These Hamites were believed to have originated somewhere in the Near East, perhaps present-day Turkey, and eventually migrated to present-day Egypt, Ethiopia and Somalia. Because they originated closer to Europe, they had inherited some of the supposedly superior traits of Europeans. As for the reason the Hamites took on African physical features, this was simply due to inbreeding.
For a time, Tutsi elites were happy to confirm this belief as it only further validated their superiority in relation to the rest of the population. If they had indeed migrated from the north and were then able to subjugate the native Hutu and Twa, then it was a sign of their intelligence, resourcefulness, and thus their fitness to rule. By the end of the colonial-monarchial era, Hutu revolutionaries would turn the Hamitic myth on its head. The notion of Tutsi as foreign subjugators vis-à-vis Hutu indigeneity delegitimized the political domination of Tutsi and rallied Hutu to overthrow the monarchy.
The Colonial-Monarchial Alliance
Musinga was enthroned in 1896, shortly after the Germans encountered the Abanyiginya kingdom. Musinga may have ushered in a new dynasty, but he continued much of the practices of his forebears, including ubuhake and uburetwa. Given that he had ascended via a violent coup and that he was only in his teens, his claim to the throne was tenuous. Musinga realized that the Germans presented an opportunity to secure his power. The Germans were happy to oblige, because they, in turn, observed in the monarchical system the sort of civilizing effort that they had come to enact. They also supported the various patron-client policies because it supplied them with cheap labor and a clearly delineated system of labor and production. Operating indirectly through the monarchy and the patron-client policies it instituted, the Germans used Hutu clients to clear forests, build roads, cultivate coffee, and deliver supplies. The terms of clientshipwere thus expanded in ways that were even more demanding and arduous for Hutu. To ensure the strength of the monarchy and the continuation of its policies, they provided Musinga with military support. With German assistance, outlying kingdoms and chiefdoms in the north and west that had so far managed to remain autonomous were eventually forced to submit to Musinga’s rule. Germany also sent several Catholic priests, known as White Fathers, who established mission schools where they taught literacy and trained students to serve as colonial clerks. At first, only Tutsi were permitted to matriculate, though the schools did eventually open their doors to Hutu.[43]
Belgian Colonialism and the Further Racialization of Hutu and Tutsi
As important as the colonial foray was in propping up Musinga’s reign, the Germanpresence in Rwanda was actually quite small. This changed when Belgium took over. Besides scores of officials, soldiers, and priests, a number of French scholars (many of whom were also priests) arrived. They scrounged for more intellectual credibility to their racial theories by examining the oral literature of the monarchy. Influential ethnographies in this regard stemmed from Louis de Lacger (1930), Pere Page (1933), and Jacques Macquet (1954).[44] Post-colonial historians argue that the oral history of the court on which these colonial scholars based their research was likely fabricated—an “invented tradition,” to use Hobsbawm’s and Ranger’s terminology[45]—that legitimized the Tutsi monarchy.[46] According to these arguments, Europeans presented their racial theories to the royal court, and the court historians, realizing the advantages these conferred upon the monarchy, concocted stories about the origins of Tutsi, Hutu, and Twa and of the monarchy that confirmed their theories.
The most respected and famous Rwandan scholar of the late colonial-monarchial era was the Tutsi priest, Alexis Kagame. From 1943-47, under the directive of the king, he composed a monolithic chronicle of Rwandan history titled Inganji Kalinga (The Victory of Kalinga, referring to the dynastic drum of the Abanyiginya kingdom). Kagame provided the most convincing affirmation yet of the theory of separate racial origins. Moreover, he ascribed the ascension of the monarchy to its military might and large-scale conquests of Hutu chiefdoms by Tutsi kings. As he recounted these conquests, he detailed them in all their bloody glory, including numerous episodes of torture. Kagame’s work is still well-known if criticized by Rwandan students. Several of the stories he tells appear throughout Bikindi’s songs.
Like the Germans, the Belgians also recognized Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa as biologically distinct races. Throughout the 1920s the administration enacted a census, one of the purposes of which was to determine the “racial” demographics of the colony. Priests traveled throughout the realm taking all measure of phenotypical traits, especially height and cranial dimensions. Based on these metrics, they determined each person’s identity. In cases where it could not be determined, they inquired as to the number of cattle a person’s family owned. Ten or more, the person was regarded as Tutsi; less than ten, a Hutu. Upon completing its census in 1931, the colonial administration then issued mandatory identity cards that indicated people’s racial identity. Over sixty years later, these identity cards would be the mark of death for many Tutsi.
In the same year the Belgian administration issued the racial identity cards, it forced Musinga into exile and replaced him with his son, Rudahigwa (Mutara III). The Belgians distrusted Musinga because of his alliance with their German predecessors. Musinga also refused to acculturate himself to European norms. He declined Christianity, preferred to wear his customary robes, and continued to practice polygamy. The Belgians also wanted more control over the patron-client system so that they could streamline it and select the chiefs that would oversee it. Musinga resisted this.[47] His son, though, was more compliant. Rudahigwa converted to Catholicism, dressed in European-style suits, and traveled about by automobile. Following his lead, thousands of Rwandans also converted, and Catholicism soon became the dominant religion in Rwanda. Hutu were allowed to enroll in Catholic seminaries. Still, the sociopolitical and socioeconomic gap between Hutu and Tutsi grew even more unassailable. Again, most Tutsi were not wealthy and powerful, but of those Rwandans who were wealthy and powerful, almost all were Tutsi.
The Hutu Revolution of 1959-1961
By the early 1950s, in ways and for reasons that are too varied and complex to delve into here, colonial subjects throughout Africa began to organize and clamor for independence. Most European occupiers, their coffers depleted by World War II, recognized the unsustainability of the colonial enterprise and began preparing the transition towards self-government. Rudahigwa initially worked with the Belgians to their mutual benefit, but he eventually grew embittered with the manner in which they manipulated and meddled in the political and economic affairs of his kingdom. He and other Tutsi elites became enamored with the Congolese independence leader, Patrice Lumumba, and his Marxist ideals. Inspired by Lumumba, Rudahigwa began to seek the support of communist-bloc nations.
Around the same time, a small cadre of seminary-educated Hutu, led by Grégoire Kayibanda, Jean Habyarimana Gitera, and others, began to radicalize the Hutu population. Demonstrations routinely broke out, demanding better treatment of Hutu and more Hutu representation in the government.[48] Gitera specifically requested that the great drum, Kalinga, be removed as it was an affront to Hutu. Rudahigwa refused to comply with any of this.
Ostracized from state politics, these Hutu counter-elites used their connections within the local Catholic hierarchy to acquire status and influence. Many of them, in fact, were ordained clergy. Further aiding their cause, a new influx of Flemish priests and nuns was gradually replacing the elder clergy. Unlike their predecessors who mostly hailed from the levels of French aristocracy, this new clerical body hailed from more modest backgrounds and as such tended to sympathize with the plight of Hutu. The Belgian government was also wary of the monarchy’s new ties to Lumumba and communist Europe, and so it too began to shift its favor towards the pro-democracy Hutu cohort. In 1959, Rudahigwa died suddenly of a brain hemorrhage.[49] To this day, many still suspect he was killed by the Belgians. Rudahigwa left no heir, and so the choice of who would rule fell to the abiru.Without consulting the colonial administration, they chose his younger brother, Ndahindurwa (Kigeri V).[50] He would be the last king of Rwanda.
In 1957, Gitera founded APROSOMA (Association Pour la Promotion Sociale de la Masse), and Kayibanda founded MSM (Mouvement Social Muhutu). The purpose of these organizations was to galvanize Hutu as a political bloc, attain greater political representation, and eventually banish the monarchy once and for all. At first these were activist organizations, but by 1959 they had evolved into political parties at which time the more popular MSM was renamed PARMEHutu (Parti du mouvement de l’emancipation Hutu). Whereas Gitera was a firebrand, authoring anti-monarchial screeds and fomenting violent demonstrations, Kayibanda was a quiet tactician who gradually built up support and a rich logistical network. Gitera simply desired to abolish the monarchy and liberate all Rwandans—Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa alike. Kayibanda, however, promoted the ideology of Hutu Power. He desired to replace the monarchy with an exclusively Hutu government. Tensions between Gitera and Kayibanda reflected not just their divergent aims but a longstanding conflict between their respective regions. Gitera was more influential in the northwest and Kayibanda in the south. It was the northwestern kingdoms that were the last to fall to the central monarchy, and its inhabitants would remain resistant to central authority throughout most of the 20th century, even if that authority was in the hands of fellow Hutu. Overcoming this regional conflict is a salient theme throughout Bikindi’s songs.
Fearing these newly emergent Hutu-dominated parties and the loss of power in coming election, the monarchy formed its own party, UNAR (Union Nationale Rwandaise). UNAR leaders and their supporters employed violence, terror, and coercion as a means of preventing people from supporting PARMEHutu or APROSOMA. On November 1, 1959, a group of young UNAR supporters attacked Dominique Mbonyumutwa, a local chief and Hutu who was a prominent supporter of the anti-monarchial revolt.[51] Mbonyumutwa survived, but the attack set off a two-week wave of anti-Tutsi reprisal violence across Rwanda. Few were actually killed; the protesters mainly destroyed property and burned down houses, but it was enough to send a clear message. Ndahindurwa ordered his army to suppress the uprising and to arrest or kill its leaders. Gitera found protection with the Belgians, Kayibanda went into hiding, but other Hutu leaders were captured and tortured, and some were killed. By mid-November, an uneasy calm was restored when the Belgian administration sent in more troops to take control of the situation. Still, much of the population refused to obey their Tutsi overseers. In response, the Belgians supplanted about half of the chiefs with Hutu who were supportive of either APROSOMA or PARMEHutu. Tutsi had ruled Rwanda for nearly three hundred years, but almost overnight, the Belgians irrevocably reversed the polarities of power in a way that now favored Hutu. From June 26 to July 30, 1960, the colonial authority mandated and supervised local communal elections. PARMEHutu representatives easily won the majority of seats. This was followed by legislative elections on September 25, 1961. Again, it was a landslide with PARMEHutu winning thirty-five out of forty-four seats. A referendum was then held to abolish the monarchy. Ndahindurwa was forced into exile (he now lives in Washington, D.C.). On July 1, 1962, Belgium formally declared Rwanda an independent republic and transferred all authority to the new government, led now by Kayibanda and PARMEHutu.
The Independent Republic Era
There is little dispute that the firstdecade of independence, referred to now as the First Republic, was a tumultuous period, a time when stringent anti-Tutsi laws were passed. Anti-Tutsi discrimination was punctuated by a number of massacres of Tutsi that resulted in mass exoduses and retaliatory attacks by Tutsi exiles. Disagreement arises between the pro-RPF and anti-RPF sides mainly over two broad issues: the treatment of Tutsi during the Second Republic and the motivations and actions of the RPF. The anti-RPF side views the founder of the Second Republic, General Juvénal Habyarimana, as an autocratic but peaceful ruler who provided far more protection and freedom to Tutsi than his predecessor. They believe that the RPF invasions were unprovoked and unjustifiable and that RPF soldiers intentionally slaughtered thousands of innocents. This, they claim, is what ultimately incited genocide, perhaps even that the genocide was intentionally and subversively provoked by the RPF as a way to justify their takeover. The pro-RPF side believes that little changed under Habyarimana and that the oppression of Tutsi continued unabated. Not only that, but it was Habyarimana’s cronies in the government and military who conspired to incite genocide as a way of negating political opposition and consolidating public support. They also believe that if Habyarimana would have permitted Tutsi exiles to peacefully return and reintegrate and allowed RPF representation in the government, then the RPF would not have needed to invade. As for the deaths of innocents, the pro-RPF side diminishes the body count and regards it as unintended collateral damage.
Rubanda Nyamwinshi and the Persecution of Tutsi under PARMEHutu
A wave of anti-Tutsi discrimination and violence followed the abolition of the monarchy. Between 1959 and 1964, fearing for their lives, over a hundred thousand Tutsi fled the country. Most settled in Burundi, Uganda, Tanzania, and Congo. Several small militant groups emerged from this massive group of exiles. They staged a few border skirmishes in the futile hope of recapturing the country.[52] These militants were nicknamed “cockroaches” (inyenzi), a derisive trope that would come to refer to all Tutsi exiles and, by the 1990s, to all domestic Tutsi as well. The attacks failed miserably and only led to an uptick in anti-Tutsi resentment and violence. Over a two-month period, between December 1963 and January 1964, over 10,000 Tutsi were massacred—a mere preview of the atrocities that would be carried out thirty years later. In Rwanda’s former sister colony, Burundi, this lesser genocide instigated the retaliatory murders of scores of Hutu politicians and intellectuals, including the Prime Minister. Reprisal massacres between Hutu and Tutsi continued in Burundi, culminating in the 1972 genocide in which up to 300,000 Hutu were killed and another 300,000 fled, mostly to Tanzania. Afterward, Tutsi retained control of most of the Burundian government.
Alarmed by anti-Hutu violence in Burundi, the Hutu leadership in Rwanda worked to ensure that the same fate would not befall them. They passed a series of ethnic quota laws that served to marginalize Tutsi and prevent them from attaining significant political influence. Because Tutsi only comprised 9% of the population according to a government census, they should only be allowed to comprise 9% of government positions, student bodies, and all sectors of employment. The dominant political ideology that framed these policies was known as rubanda nyamwinshi—“majority rule”—understood along ethnic lines. In reality, though, the suppression of Tutsi was less severe than that. This would change in 1972. Reacting to the Burundian genocide of Hutu, Kayibanda organized a number of “vigilante committees” to scour the nation’s schools, businesses, and local public administration departments in order to make sure that the ethnic quota laws were being enforced.[53] The purging of Tutsi led to another mass exodus, this time mostly to Uganda. Altogether, according to Prunier, between around 500,000 to 700,000 Tutsi had now fled Rwanda due to political persecution since PARMEHutu took power.[54] In addition to their official purpose of restoring ethnic proportionality within the public domain, the vigilante committee members also recognized the opportunity to enrich themselves and their friends. Ousting Tutsi from various sectors of employment and education provided openings that could be easily exploited. This only led to more internal political turmoil, especially between northern-western and southern-central politicians as they argued over how these new openings should be reapportioned and used the vigiliate committees to settle scores.
Habyarimana and the Second Republic
Though a gifted organizer, Kayibanda was a feckless leader who was unable to quell the political infighting between representatives of the northwest and south-central regions. Just as important, he failed to generate any level of prosperity throughout society. Rather than invest in infrastructure and economic development, his administration focused on punishing Tutsi and preaching Hutu Power. Throughout his leadership, Rwanda ranked as one of the three or four poorest nations in the world.
Kayibanda was from Gitarama, which made him a Munyanduga, a term that refers to southern-central Rwandans. His top military commander, Juvénal Habyarimana, hailed from the northwestern town of Gisenyi, making him a Mukiga. He was loved by his soldiers and enjoyed a loyal following in the northwest. On July 5, 1973, he leveraged his popularity to remove Kayibanda from power and install himself as President, establishing the Second Republic. The following year, he organized a new political party, MRND (Mouvement Révolutionaire National pour le Développement), and outlawed PARMEHutu and all other parties. He then decreed that all Rwandans were to become members of MRND.[55]
The policies of rubanda nyamwinshi remained loosely in effect under Habyarimana. There were almost no Tutsi in his government, but he relaxed the enforcement of the ethnic quota laws, allowing more Tutsi back into schools, public service jobs, and other sectors of employment. Quite a few Tutsi thrived as entrepreneurs. Habyarimana also ensured the protection and safety of Tutsi. His main message to them seemed to be that as long as they did not interfere in politics, they would be left alone.[56]
Like Kayibanda, Habyarimana was deeply morally conservative, and this quality came to characterize Rwandan society under his administration.[57] He banned any sort of lewd media. In his speeches, he preached virtue and strongly discouraged adultery and divorce. Church and school attendance continued to bloom under his leadership. Moreover, his administration cultivated an ethos of hard work and closely monitored labor and production. Rwanda’s GNP and per capita income steadily increased, the Rwandan franc became central Africa’s most stable currency, and Western aid came pouring in.
Economic Collapse and Multipartyism
Habyarimana’s reign was at first relatively peaceful and prosperous if still discriminatory towards Tutsi. Things began to unravel in 1987 when the global price of coffee, Rwanda’s most important export, went from a steady decline into a rapid freefall and would continue to plummet for the next two years. For years prior, Habyarimana had run deficits because of the stability of Rwanda’s currency, but the coffee crisis exploded the national debt. This resulted in food shortages, made all the worse by drought conditions during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Meanwhile, in 1988, upwards of 25,000 Hutu were murdered in Burundi in another wave of reprisal killings. Fearing for their lives, 60,000 Burundian Hutu fled to Rwanda, which by this time was already the most densely populated nation in Africa.
Habyarimana was unable to address the abysmal economy, overpopulation crisis, or the famine. In 1989, he slashed the budget by 40%, mainly by cutting social services. He then raised taxes and required more participation in communal labor projects (umuganda—still carried out once a month under the RPF). These measures entailed a significant loss of his support.[58] Beyond his inability to address Rwanda’s economic woes, he was beholden to his Bakiga[59] constituency, favoring the area when it came to infrastructure investments and choosing whom to promote and serve in his administration. As it had for three centuries, Rwanda continued to be sociopolitically divided along a fault line between the northern-western and southern-central regions. Tired of Habyarimana’s ineffectiveness, new political factions organized, especially among the southern-central Banyanduga. On July 5, 1990, Habyarimana formally opened up the political landscape to oppositional parties, and over the next two years, ten different parties would form.[60] Habyarimana’s toleration of multipartyism, though, was mainly symbolic, a way for him to save face, especially with the French government on whose military support in the forms of arms and equipment he had come to rely. Elections did not immediately materialize, much in part because the RPF invaded just three months later. Rather than engender a peaceful democratic process, the farce of multipartyism would beget widespread violence as party loyalists, notably the youth wings, took to the streets in order to brutalize their opponents into submission. Kidnappings, beatings, murders, grenade attacks, bomb explosions, the burning of forests, and the destruction of homes and other property became commonplace.
War with the RPF and the Arusha Accords
By 1990, the RPF was fully armed, mobilized, and ready to strike. The weakening of Habyarimana’s authority, the fracturing of the polity, and the frail economy presented the RPF with an opportunity that was too good to pass up. If successful, the conditions would allow the RPF to insert itself into the inevitable political reforms as the dominant power broker. RPF leaders first demanded repatriation and political representation. Habyarimana refused, citing overpopulation and economic woes. The RPF then decided to take matters into its own hands and force their demands through the use of combat, invading on October 1.
The initial attack failed. The RPF was decimated and its head commander, Fred Rwigema, was killed, perhaps by his second-in-command, Major Banyingana, who fiercely disagreed with Rwigema’s cautious tactics.[61] Soldiers and their commanders retreated to Uganda to regroup and recruit. Over the next two years, the RPF grew from a couple thousand soldiers to over 12,000. The FAR, meanwhile, grew from 5,000 soldiers to somewhere between 30,000 and 50,000[62] as throngs of destitute men signed up in the hopes of a decent meal and a place to sleep.[63] Though France supplied the FAR with weaponry, the Rwandan government was unable to pay all these new soldiers, and by mid-1992, mutinies were breaking out.
The situation was far different for the RPF. Well-funded, well-organized, well-supplied, and full of Zionist-like zeal under the new leadership of Paul Kagame, it made its encampment high in the Virunga volcanic chain that lies along the Rwandan-Congolese-Ugandan border. Some of the peaks rise to heights of over 15,000 feet, and it would get so cold that a few RPF soldiers froze to death during the nights. Still, morale never wavered, and subsequent invasions were increasingly successful if not exactly honorable. Innocent civilians were killed, and the clashes resulted in the largest refugee crisis yet as nearly a million northern Rwandans fled south.[64]
In July1992, Habyarimana and other MRND delegates began meeting with representatives of rival parties and with RPF officials in Arusha, Tanzania, in order to negotiate a peace settlement and power-sharing agreement. Other African heads of state and UN dignitaries were present to help nudge the process along, but the negotiations were a mess. Habyarimana half-heartedly agreed to allow elections, the repatriation of Tutsi exiles, and RPF representation in the government. Meanwhile, hardliners in the MRND and a few other parties viewed Habyarimana’s capitulations to the RPF as a form of surrender. They broke off and formed a new party, CDR (Coalition pour la Défense de la République), their members unified in their hatred of the RPF and an insistence on maintaining Hutu Power. To bolster support, CDR’s leaders attempted to focus and redirect people’s inchoate angst not just towards the RPF, but towards what Prunier describes as an enemy that “was both facelessly abstract and embodied in the most ordinary person living next door”: the Tutsi.[65] Younger, impoverished men were recruited to join the MRND and CDR youth brigades, Interahamwe for the MRND and Impuzamugambi for the CDR, and trained to fight in order to defend the nation from the RPF. In essence, the youth brigades were a cheaply organized extension of the FAR. Many of the recruits were refugees who had either fled from the massacres of Hutu in Burundi or from the RPF invasions in the north.
On January 9, 1993, the various delegates in Arusha signed the Protocols of Agreement on Power-Sharing, one of several agreements that would become known as the Arusha Accords. Hardline loyalists of CDR and MRND responded with a week-long rampage of death and destruction throughout Kigali and Bugesera, killing an estimated 300 citizens, mostly Tutsi, who were suspected of supporting the power-sharing agreement.[66] Cowed by the more extremist elements in his administration, Habyarimana was hesitant to implement the power-sharing agreement. The RPF, fearing the rapid ascent of the CDR and the threat it represented to Tutsi, became disgusted with Habyarimana’s dissembling. On February 8, just a month after the protocols had been signed, the RPF broke the cease-fire agreement contained therein.[67] With Rwanda’s military in tatters, the RPF easily captured large chunks of the north, including the major town of Ruhengeri, and came within twenty miles of the capital city of Kigali. As it advanced, RPF soldiers killed more innocent civilians. For many Rwandans, this confirmed that the RPF truly was their enemy, and it cast more suspicion on their Tutsi neighbors. Further stoking their smoldering animosities towards Tutsi, on October 21, 1993, Melchior Ndadaye, the first Hutu and first democratically elected president of Burundi was stabbed to death by Tutsi soldiers after only three months in office.
The Genocide
Throughout 1993 and early 1994, anti-Tutsi rhetoric intensified on the newly formed radio station, RTLM, in extremist news journals such as Kangura, and in political meetings, speeches, and rallies. Rwandans refer to the time between the RPF’s February invasion and the genocide a little over a year later as Igihirahiro—“the time of hesitation/uncertainty.”[68] Participants in this dissertation describe it as a time of chaos, a time when they had no idea what would happen to their government, their country, or their own lives. “Akabyutso” and “Intabaza,” composed a month after the RPF’s onslaught, were in many ways the anthems of Igihirahiro.
On August 4, 1993, the RPF and the Rwandan government signed the last of the Arusha Accords, bringing (another) end to the war. Eight months later, on April 6, 1994, Habyarimana and the new Burundian President, Cyprien Ntaryamira, were returning from yet another round of talks in Arusha. Around 8:30 p.m., their single-engine Dassault Falcon 50 jet was approaching the airport in Kigali when two surface-to-air missiles were fired from a nearby hillside. The first hit the jet’s wing, the second hit its tail, and the jet went down in flames, killing everyone aboard. Pieces of the plane landed in the lawn of the presidential mansion.
Panic immediately ensued. Many Rwandans first heard the news on RTLM. The broadcasters claimed that the jet had been shot down by the RPF. The RPF blamed Rwandan forces who viewed the signing of the Arusha Accords as a betrayal on Habyarimana’s part. To this day, the assassination of Habyarimana officially remains an unsolved case.
Hours after the crash, the Presidential Guard began scouring Kigali and killing moderate politicians who had supported the Accords. One of the first to be killed was the Prime Minister, Agathe Uwilingiyimana. Within days, it was not just politicians who were targeted but the entire Tutsi population and anyone who sympathized with them. As RTLM’s broadcasters, government officials, and local agents urged on the massacres, it was not just soldiers who killed but the youth brigades as well and soon thereafter thousands of ordinary civilians.
The Arusha Accords mandated that the RPF could station a battalion of six hundred troops in Kigali. These troops engaged the Presidential Guard and the remnants of the FAR. The rest of the RPF swept down from its strongholds in the north, first towards Kigali, then fanning out to the south and west. In general, genocidal killing was most intense in those areas where the RPF vanguard was threatening to advance. It began in Kigali and first moved northward and westward. Butare, where I conducted most of my research, was one of the last areas to be engulfed in violence. The town is located in the far south of the country, and boasting the nation’s most prestigious university, is considered the intellectual center of Rwanda. As such, it was a bastion of more moderate thinking and home to the PSD party (Parti Sociale Démocrate), which embraced the Arusha Accords and found support among many Tutsi. Because of its location and more liberal atmosphere, most residents did not believe they would be affected by the violence raging throughout the rest of their nation. Many Tutsi, therefore, never thought to flee. When the militias and youth brigades eventually showed up, it was a bloodbath. Local residents told me that at least 75% of the Tutsi population was annihilated.
There was no single motive for participation in the genocide. While many killed out of pure ethnic hatred, many others believed they were acting out of self-defense, which is not quite the same. They had been led to believe that most Tutsi were indeed allies of the RPF and therefore needed to be killed in order to defeat the RPF. They did not really hate Tutsi; they just saw them as political adversaries. From this perspective, the genocide was an extension of war, the assassination of President Habyarimana having escalated things to the point that it inspired the active involvement of ordinary civilians. Many killed because they were coerced into doing so, threatened with punishment or death if they refused to participate. Some killed in order to loot property or claim larger homes and more land, others because they did not want to appear weak before their peers. Some killed because their minds were so addled with drugs[69] that they were easily seduced into killing, and some killed because they had already killed and, in a strange way, killing again was a way to bury their guilt. Most killed due to a combination of these reasons. The vast majority of Hutu, though, did not kill or act as accomplices. Most were afraid for their own lives and tried to hide.[70] The genocide should thus never be used to indict the entire Hutu population. It is the generalization of blame, after all, that has been the most destructive and tragic legacy of Rwanda’s history.
Concluding Remarks
In interpreting Bikindi’s lyrics and, more importantly, in interpreting Rwandan interpretations of Bikindi’s lyrics, the question of how to define ethnicity in Rwanda inevitably surfaces. For example, Bikindi speaks of the oppression of and infighting between bene Sebahinzi—“the children of the Father of Farmers.” Many interpret this as a reference to Hutu, but in fact, most Tutsi also farmed for their livelihoods. The preceding overview of Rwandan history showed that the identities of Hutu and Tutsi (and to a lesser extent, Twa) have been defined according to a fluctuating combination of heredity, kinship ties, morphology, occupation, political and socioeconomic status, and a certain mythologization of the past. The identities of Hutu and Tutsi then are not really even “ethnic,” as that term has been variably conceptualized throughout Western scholarly discourse. However they are defined, what matters is what it means to be Hutu, Tutsi, or Twa in relation to one another and to the centers of political and economic power, how these relations have been transformed throughout Rwandan history as a result of that history, and how Rwandans conceptualize and experience ethnicity. If the answers are not so clear to foreign scholars, it is perhaps because the answers are not uniform among Rwandans either. This is an area still in need of further research. As my interpreter and guide, Frank, sadly expressed at the conclusion of four summers of field research together:
And you know, still now, there is ambiguity in our history between Hutu and Tutsi. We have two ideologies that come in. One, they say that there is Hutu and Tutsi by nature, by physical features, by everything, and the other ideology says there is no Hutu and Tutsi; the difference between them had to do only with wealth. And so, even still, there is ambiguity in our history—we have not grasped which one is which.
Following his summation of the “problem” of ethnicity in Rwanda, Frank went on to criticize Bikindi’s songs for exploiting and manipulating this supposed ambiguity during a time when Rwandan society was fracturing along ethnic lines. In line with the pro-RPF narrative, his main criticisms were that Bikindi overstated the cruelty of the monarchy, purposefully led his audience to associate the monarchy with all Tutsi, and ignored the persecution and discrimination of Tutsi at the hands of Hutu following the 1959 Revolution. If Bikindi had softened his denouncement of the monarchy and also mentioned ways in which Tutsi had also been harmed, then there would have been less of a problem. Frank concluded, “And so out of this, in the middle of our conflict in our history, Bikindi picks just a little bit from this history and puts it in the song.” He believed that Bikindi did this strategically in collusion with pro-genocide government and media officials as a way of promoting Hutu Power at the expense of Tutsi.
However difficult it is to define ethnicity in Rwanda, its existence is a fact of life. In an e-mail, I shared my thoughts about this with my friend, Jeanette, a Rwandan refugee living in the U.S. with whom I took weekly Kinyarwanda lessons. Responding with the following three points, she effectively summarized what I have tried to outline throughout this discussion. Her bristling tone is due to her anger concerning the RPF’s attempts to do away with ethnic identity, a move she believes is not only ahistorical but is a cynical tactic employed by the RPF to deflect accusations that it too has indulged in ethnic favoritism:
- I do believe that all Rwandans understand well what it is to be Hutu or Tutsi. We became Hutu or Tutsi depending on the ethnicity of our fathers because Rwandan society is patriarchal. For example, I’m recognized as Hutu even though mom is Tutsi. No one will contest this. This element is fundamental for me.
- The likely confusion for Rwandans jumps in when talking about governance and benefits. Throughout history, some Hutu became Tutsi in order to gain favors from Tutsi authorities. On the other hand, Tutsi wished to become Hutu when Hutu took power. But I strongly believe they were still Hutu and Tutsi in their heart! At this level, those who have political interests will call Hutu and Tutsi economic groups! Political groups! I acknowledge that Hutu and Tutsi do not match with the sociological definition of ethnicity. However, members of each group recognize themselves as Hutu or Tutsi. Moreover, we know there are Hutu and Tutsi in Burundi and Republic of Congo who recognize themselves as Hutu and Tutsi. Are they also economic groups? Political groups?
- Rwandan history changes too, depending on who is using it and why! Some facts will be omitted by Tutsi because the facts compromise them; Hutu will do the same! Western scholars are trapped in this game, but as I said, Rwandans don’t have any confusion about being Hutu or Tutsi!
[1] Claude Lévi-Strauss, The Savage Mind (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966), p. 257
[2] This will be discussed further in Chapter 8. Over the last several years, a few scholars whose research criticizes the RPF have been harassed and forced to leave the country.
[3] A recent example of this involves a combative e-mail exchange between the two famous activist intellectuals, George Monbiot and Noam Chomsky. Chomsky refuses to use the term “genocide” to characterize the violence in Rwanda because he believes the term has become a political tool wielded by Western leaders to deflect attention away from human rights abuses committed by their own administrations and abuses embedded in their nations’ histories. Several prominent genocide scholars swiftly joined Monbiot in denouncing Chomsky’s denial of genocide. See http://www.monbiot.com/2012/05/21/see-no-evil/. In a book that has earned the scorn of much of the genocide scholarly community, Edward S. Herman and David Peterson have attempted to lend credible support to genocide denialism. In fact, Chomsky wrote the foreword, provoking the exchange with Monbiot. See The Politics of Genocide (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2010).
[4] An excellent discussion of this issue is found in Dominique Franche, Généologie du genocide rwandais (Brussels: Tribord, 2009).
[5] In Francophone scholarship, the similar term ethnie or ethnique is commonly used.
[6] These phases are commonly termed the pre-colonial, colonial, post-colonial, and post-genocide phases. This is problematic in that European colonialism becomes the primary referent for conceptually orienting Rwanda’s history (for that matter, all African history). As forceful of an impact as it has had on the history of 20th-century Rwanda, colonialism was but a small part of African history taken as a whole. Furthermore, such terminology suggests that colonialism eclipses the ultimately more significant role that Rwandans have had in determining their history.
[7] Kings and kingdoms certainly existed in Rwanda before the 17th century, but this date marks the beginning of the Abanyiginya dynasty, the most powerful and influential kingdom to emerge in the region.
[8] The colonial administration was based in Bujumbura, now the capital of Burundi. At first, the colonial occupation was much more entrenched in Burundi earlier than Rwanda.
[9] Mbonyumutwa served officially as Rwanda’s first President, but it was only of a provisional nature. Deeply unpopular, his time as President lasted all of nine months, and he was replaced by Kayibanda.
[10] “Brief History of Rwanda.” Official Website of the Government of Rwanda. Available at: http://www.gov.rw/History.
[11] See Mamdani 2001, p. 41, who makes a similar point. Instead of referring to the two narratives as the pro-RPF and anti-RPF sides, he refers to them, respectively, as the Tutsi and Hutu narratives.
[12] Twa tend to live in isolated communes and have long been marginalized by the rest of Rwandan society. Recently, their plight is receiving more attention as efforts are being made by the government and charity organizations to increase their status.
[13] Jan Vansina, Antecedents to Modern Rwanda: The Nyiginya Kingdom (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004), pp. 30-31. See also David Newbury, “The Clans of Rwanda: A Historical Hypothesis.” In Africa 50 (1980), pp. 97-111.
[14] Vansina 2004, pp. 36-38.
[15] There is much controversy over the extent to which these categories are genetically unified. They originated in colonial racial discourse as Europeans observed morphological traits that broadly distinguished the inhabitants of various regions. Much of this was discarded in the anti-colonial movement in scholarship from the 1970s onward. Recently, though, DNA testing has begun to confirm colonial observations that Africans were comprised of biologically distinct groups. See Tishkoff, Reed, Friedlander, et al, “The Genetic Structure and History of Africans and African Americans.” In Science (22 May 2009), vol. 324, no. 5930, pp.1035-44. The main problem with colonial scholarship was not the observations themselves; it was the hierarchical valuations the colonial scholars ascribed to different groups of people.
[16] See also J. Hiernaux (1956) and A. Froment (1998), cited in Vansina 2004, p. 235.
[17] Vansina 2004, pp. 37-38.
[18] Mamdani 2001, p. 44.
[19] See the discussion of these scholarly works in Taylor 1999, pp.71-75.
[20] “Ruganzu” translates as “The Great.”
[21] In general, Hima herds were much larger than Tutsi herds. This was mostly due to geography. Southern Uganda, where Hima flourished, is much flatter than Rwanda and covered by grasslands. As one travels into Rwanda, the landscape becomes suddenly more mountainous, not ideal conditions for herding cattle. However, the relative scarcity of cattle makes them a more valuable commodity, and thus owning cattle becomes even more a mark of wealth and prestige.
[22] Vansina 2004, pp. 44-66.
[23] As C. Newbury (1988) has convincingly shown, the Abanyiginya’s domain of control was not nearly as widespread as scholars once believed. Kingdoms and chiefdoms in the northern and western regions remained largely independent until the Belgium colonial administration brought them under the centralized power structure of the monarchy.
[24] Vansina 2004, p. 44.
[25] Ibid., pp. 33, 47.
[26] Occasionally, the transaction might involve other goods, but cows were the most commonly used commodity.
[27] Ibid., pp. 47-48.
[28] C. Newbury 1988, pp. 74-82.
[29] Johan Pottier, Re-imagining Rwanda: Conflict, Survival and Disinformation in the Late Twentieth Century (Cambridge University Press: 2002), p. 13.
[30] Vansina 2004, pp.126-39.
[31] C. Newbury 1988, pp. 79, 119.
[32] C. Newbury, pp. 79-81; Vansina 2004, pp. 40, 132, 134.
[33] Ibid., p. 134.
[34] Ibid., p. 135.
[35] Ibid., p. 37.
[36] C. Newbury 1988, p. 11.
[37] Because Twa have historically sequestered themselves in isolated communities and have rarely intermarried, they still appear quite distinct from most other Rwandans.
[38] Rwandan kings were identified by both their given birth name and their royal lineage name, the latter indicated in parentheses. The birth name seems to be more commonly used in Rwandan historiography.
[39] Vansina 2004, pp. 134-39.
[40] Newbury 1988, pp. 140-44.
[41] Vansina 2004, pp. 136-37.
[42] See Taylor 1999 and Mamdami 2001.
[43] For more on how the church’s complicity in ethnic and political division, see Timothy Longman, Christianity and Genocide in Rwanda (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010).
[44] Louis de Lacger, Ruanda I. Le Ruanda ancient, (Kabgayi, Rwanda, 1930); Pere Pages, Un royaume hamite au centre de l’Afrique (Brussels: Institut Royal du Congo Belge, 1933); Jacques Macquet, Les système des relations socials dans le Ruanda ancient (Tervuren, Belgium: Musée Royal de l’Afrique Centrale, 1954); all cited by Taylor 1999, pp. 71-75.
[45] See Eric Hobsbawm and Terrence Ranger (eds.), The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
[46] Taylor 1999, pp. 75-77. For exhaustive transcriptions of this body of oral literature, see Pierre Smith, Le récit populaire au Rwanda (Paris: Armand Colin, 1975).
[47] Alison Des Forges, Defeat is the Only Bad News: Rwanda under Musinga, 1896-19 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2011).
[48] C. Newbury 1988, pp. 180-94.
[49] His wife, Rosalie Gicanda, remained in Rwanda but was murdered during the genocide.
[50] Rudahigwa never bore any sons.
[51] Ibid., pp. 194-206.
[52] Prunier 1995, pp. 56-57
[53] Ibid., pp. 60-61.
[54] Ibid., pp. 62-63.
[55] Ibid., p. 76.
[56] Ibid., pp. 75-76.
[57] Ibid., pp. 80-82.
[58] Ibid., p. 87.
[59] Bakiga and Banyanduga are the plural forms respectively of Mukiga and Munyanduga.
[60] Ibid., p. 90.
[61] Ibid., p. 94.
[62] Mamdani puts the number at 30,000, while Prunier puts it at 50,000.
[63] Ibid, p. 113.
[64] Ibid., pp. 114-20, 174-80.
[65] Ibid., p. 170.
[66] Ibid., p. 174.
[67] Ibid.
[68] Prunier 1995, p. 210.
[69] Drug and alcohol abuse was widespread among the youth brigades.
[70] See Scott Straus, “How many perpetrators were there in the Rwandan genocide? An estimate.” In Journal of Genocide Research, Vol. 6/1 (March 2004), pp. 85-98.