3. k. Denial
Since many years, the genocide against Tutsis faced attacks of revisionists. On the forefront are the fallen dignitaries of the former regimes who are accused to be the masterminds of the killings. They try everything in their possibilities to reduce the killings of Tutsis to simple interethnic riots, claiming that Hutus killed their fellow compatriots to revenge the death of President Habyalimana and the other Hutus who perished with him in the downed presidential jet. These people are aware of the gravity of the crimes they are said to have instigated or performed. In their attempts to escape the international justice, they deny their crime to be called genocide. They believe that once the killings of Tutsis are reduced to a simple civil war, the international attention will no longer be on them and the international restrictions at their encounters would be lifted. They even hope to see one day the Rwandan history rewritten to endorse their version of facts.
In another hand, we find an increasing number of international scholars and researchers who question the validity of the genocide against Tutsis for various reasons. According to their publications, they would be classified into two major categories: these who recognize the mass killing of Tutsis but who claim that it is not a genocide and these who tag Tutsis to be the real actors of the Rwandan mayhem and declare Hutus to be the only victims.
People qualified in the first category of revisionists recognize the atrocity and the mass killings committed against Tutsis from April to July 1994. But at the same time they claim that these killings cannot be called genocide as –still according to them – they don’t comply with the genocide’s process as developed by The Genocide Watch 1999. The supporters of this theory claim that killings of Tutsis were never planned. They explain what happened as a lush of revenge of Hutus against Tutsis after the untimely death of the President. For Herman and Peterson in the Politics of Genocide, it is incredible for a minority group(Tutsis) held under discrimination by a tormenting majority (Hutu) to defeat that majority and seize the power, in a so short time.
The Rwandan genocide happened in a particular environment with a different society when compared to other genocide reported in the whole world. Rwanda like many other African Countries remained an oral society until the 20th century. The first Catholic priests built the first schools since their arrival in the country in 1900, but a big part of citizens remained analphabetic until late in eighties. Rwandans never use things like diaries to write down their daily experiences. They prefer to keep things for themselves or tell them to people they trust. Such personal writings would have been a best way to track what were the actions or feelings of both Hutus and Tutsis under the first and second Republic, time in which the genocide is believed to have been planned. Same thing would have happened to track what happened in 1994 with exactitude, especial for these who are killed. The lack of such evidences leaves no alternative other than to rely on testimonies for researches. Even though the country’s institutions were led by school graduated people, the oral culture prevailed and on the eve of the genocide, most of orders and directives were given orally and it’s almost impossible to track them through the state’s archives –especially the compromising ones.
Despite all the challenges, and as demonstrated in the above paragraph, once you understand very well the nature of the Rwandan society, they way people operate and react on events and pressures; you see very well that the genocide against Tutsis took a constant process. The steps of that process might not have occurred in a same time frame as indicated in the Genocide Watch document, but every stage took place at a time or another between 1959 and 1994. Even Dr. Stanton said in his document that “The process is not linear. Stages may occur simultaneously. Logically, later stages must be preceded by earlier stages. But all stages continue to operate throughout the process”.
The murder of President Habyalimana didn’t serve as a ‘trigger’ of the mass killings of Tutsis by a revengeful Hutu community as many people –deniers and non deniers – often refer to it. The death of Habyalimana served as an ‘excuse’ for extremist Hutus to set the country ablaze and align masses of Hutus behind their diabolic plan. The Rwandan society of 1994 was made of more than 99 % of Christians. Besides, the two ethnic groups cohabiting for a long time in an environment of a so called peace, developed strong ties among neighbours and acquaintances, through marriages and religious traditions. For the majority of these Christians, an “excuse” was needed to justify the killings and absolve their souls from the abominable sin. The extremists knew that fact and used the President’s death to reach their target: Have Hutus kill Tutsis.
In the second category of revisionists, we find these who totally claim that Tutsis were never discriminated or persecuted and what happened in 1994 is a long term plan of the RPF –Tutsi led movement to exterminate Hutus and take over the power in Rwanda. To deny the genocide against Tutsis simply because the RPA forces won the liberation war which took place at the same time, is ignoring on purpose one crucial aspect of the pre- 1994 the Rwandan history. When a group of Tutsis were tormented inside the country, another big one was banned into exile in different neighbouring countries. Tutsis of outside the country got military trained and armed by some of the countries in which they have found shelters and led a military attack on Rwanda in October 1990. Their cause caught the international community’s attention and many powerful countries endorsed it, providing support and advocacy, leaving Habyalimana’s regime more isolated. On the eve of 1994, the rebellion army occupied a big region in the north of the country, bending Habyalimana’s regime to accept peace talks. Before the end of 1993 an RPA contingent of 600 soldiers was allowed in Kigali, escorting a group of the RPF politicians who were selected to be part of the Transitional Government which was waiting to be launched under the terms of the Arusha Peace Agreements.
Right after the shooting down of the presidential jet, the FAR forces started exterminating Tutsis and moderate Hutus inside the country, while the Tutsis led rebellion forces initiated a final attack to liberate the country and save the lives of these who were hunted down and killed. At the same time, the rest of the Rwandan regime’s sympathizers among the international community stopped their assistance as the reports of internal killings were increasing. This last point weakened considerably the Rwandan regime which was already under a weapon embargo and fighting on several battlegrounds. The battle initiated by the RPA forces; one in the capital city and trying to contain the invasion from the East and North of the country. At the same time soldiers were called in reinforcements wherever Tutsis of inside the country were resisting Hutus’ attacks. All of these combined facts signed the defeat of the RPA forces over the government’s army and speeded the war which was ended within three months.
Where Are my People? A Question for Genocide Deniers Page 8