Rwanda will never forget the atrocities of the 1994 genocide and will reinforce its commitment to fight against ethnic hate and other crimes against humanity, said its President Paul Kagame this April 7.
On the 29th anniversary of the beginning of the Rwandan genocide, the leader took part in the national commemoration ceremony by lighting the Flame of Hope to start a 100-day national mourning period, which concludes with Liberation Day on July 4.
"It's very clear that the wounds are still deep but, Rwandans, I thank all of you, for refusing to be defined by this tragic history," the president stated, after laying a wreath at the Gisozi Genocide Memorial, a final resting place for more than 250,000 victims of the genocide.
On this occasion, Kagame also reaffirmed that ethnic hate will not be tolerated within Rwanda nor in the neighboring states as long as he is the country's leader. He urged nations across the world to unite in their efforts to prevent genocide, as well as fight together against any kind of genocide ideology and denial.
Background of 1994's Tragic Events
To understand the reasons for the genocide in Rwanda, it is necessary to look at the country's ethnic makeup which traces back to pre-colonial times.
Everything initially started on the basis of ethnic tensions between the Hutu and the Tutsi, said Vasily Filippov, doctor of historical sciences and a leading researcher at the Center for the Study of Tropical African Countries at the Institute for African Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, in an interview with Sputnik.
In the pre-colonial era, the minority Tutsi were the dominant community in the country. However, the historian explained, in the middle of the last century, the Tutsi, who were more educated and politically active than the Hutu, began to demonstrate a growing desire for independence.
"In this light, the Belgians, wanting to maintain their possessions on the Black Continent, dramatically changed the balance of power in the colonial administration: now they were looking for support among the Hutu," Filippov said, adding: "At that time, historical memory prompted the Hutu to take out their grievances on the descendants of their former oppressors."
The Tutsi did not want to accept the loss of power, he said, underlining that in fact, from the beginning of the 60s and right up to 1994, tensions between the Hutu and Tutsi flared up from time to time in Rwanda and neighboring territories. But at the beginning of the 1990s, the ethnic conflict "turned into a large-scale war," he underlined.
The assassination of the Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana on April 6, 1994, marked the beginning of the genocide. Almost immediately after the attack on the plane carrying the president, "as if following a pre-planned scenario", the Rwandan Army and the Hutu militias (Interahamwe) began to massacre Tutsi and "moderate" Hutu throughout the country. The wave of violence lasted for about 100 days and came to an end in late June that year.
UN's 'Bitter Failure' in Addressing Genocide
Talking about international awareness of the atrocities and support from the global community, the historian noted that Western peacekeepers at first "preferred not to interfere in what was happening," referring to the UN monitoring mandate. Later, France and Belgium reinforced their contingent to evacuate their citizens and save them from "the bloody frenzy."
The Tutsi massacres stopped only when heavily-armed Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) fighters defeated the Interahamwe combatants and forced the Hutu political leadership to flee to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
However, when the UN eventually intervened in the conflict, it was mainly a "bitter failure," said Mamadou Thior, a Senegalese expert in international relations and president of the Council for the Observance of the Rules of Ethics and Deontology in the media.
In his remarks on the genocide, the expert mainly referred to Operation Turquoise, a French-led military operation under the mandate of the United Nations, which started in June 1994.
"But when you look at the role of France, the role of the United Nations in general, it's a bitter failure as the blue helmets did not prevent the genocide from taking place," he underlined.
In this regard, he noted, it's really unfortunate that at that time the continent couldn't solve the problem by itself and find "an African solution to this African crisis."
According to Thior, a powerful African continental organization, such as the modern African Union, could have succeeded where the UN failed. He explained that the main problem of the UN interventions in some countries is that they often appear to be "out of step with local realities." Therefore, it is critical for any peacekeeping mission to know African realities "in order to be able to intervene and bring peace."
He also stated that Africans in general have learned a lesson from these tragic events, as many of them house various ethnic groups and are potentially at risk of growing ethnic tensions. The genocide once again demonstrated that people in African countries should consider themselves part of a whole nation and not focus "on small community identities."
"When two ethnic groups can't come to agreement, what will happen to countries where there are dozens of ethnic groups that must live together," the expert wondered.
Foreign Footprint Behind Atrocities
Apart from internal ethnic groups, other international powers have also played a role in the rise of tensions, particularly France, said Thior.
In 1994, Paris had clearly taken a position alongside Hutu President Juvenal Habyarimana, he recalled, saying that taking sides in this conflict was initially a bad strategy.
"When you take up the cause for one of the two sides of the conflict, which, as a result, has been defeated, it pursues you! And it took many years later for France to finally recognize its role in that genocide," he said.
He underlined that if France had been "equidistant from the two camps," it could have succeeded in bringing peace to the nation. However, Paris repeatedly denied its responsibility which was evident and "real."
Fillipov, for his part, also recalled that Kigali claims that Paris' intelligence services knew about the impending assassination attempt on the then-president of Rwanda and did nothing to prevent the attack.
In one of his interviews, Kagame stressed that Paris was present in the country "before, during, and after the genocide." He likewise accused the Elysee Palace of instilling the ideology that led to the genocide in Rwanda.
In particular, the president pointed at the direct role of Belgium and France in the political preparation of the genocide and the participation of the latter in its implementation. However, Paris denies these accusations.
Talking about the current day, Thior underscored that the country has taken a big step forward in terms of coming out of the crisis. He also praised the efforts of the incumbent present to stabilize political and socio-economic situation in the country.
"Today, whatever one may think of the president, Paul Kagame has succeeded in building a nation and ensuring that the two ethnic groups can live together in peace and joy," Thior stated.