General
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UNIT 1: COMPARISON OF THE GENOCIDES
Key unit competency: The student-teacher should be able to compare
different genocides in the 20th Century.
Introductory activity
It is asserted that the occurrence of Genocide not only happened in Rwanda
but also elsewhere in the world. There have been other cases of genocide in
different parts of the world that occurred in different times. Some of the cases
of genocide that happened in the 20th century are as follows:
Among other causes of the Herero and Nama tribes’ genocide in the today
Namibia are racism, land expropriation and discrimination. These causes
are interrelated to colonial causes that pushed European powerful countries
like England, Italy, German, Spain, and Portugal to conquer and export white
civilization in Asia, Latino-America and Africa.
German invasion development
In the 1880s Germans made South West Africa (today Namibia) their
own colony, and settlers moved in, followed by a military governor
who knew little about running a colony and nothing at all about Africa.
Major Theodor Leutwein began by playing off the Nama and Herero
tribes against each other. More and more white settlers arrived, pushing
tribesmen off their cattle-grazing lands with bribes and unreliable deals.
In January 1904, the Herero, desperate to regain their livelihoods, rebelled.
Herero and Nama rebellion
Under their leader Samuel Maherero they began to attack the numerous German
outposts. They killed German men, but spared women, children, missionaries,
and the English or Boer farmers whose support they didn’t want to lose. At
the same time, the Nama chief, Hendrik Witbooi, wrote a letter to Theodor
Leutwein, telling him what the native Africans thought of their invaders, who
had taken their land, deprived them of their rights to pasture their animals on it,
used up the insufficient water supplies, and imposed unfamiliar laws and taxes.
His hope was that Leutwein would recognize the injustice and do something
about it.
In January 1904, the Herero people and Nama of South West Africa led by
supreme Chief Samuel Maherero and Hendrick Witbooi revolted against the
Germans colonialists. The white settlers were given a surprise attack by a force
of about 7 000 men. Before the Germans could organize to defend themselves,
over one hundred settlers and soldiers had been killed. The railway line from
Swakopmund to Windhoeklock was cut in several pieces and telegraph lines
were broken. German settlements and garrisons were surrounded until 1904when the German re-enforcements were sent to rescue them.
The Germans under Lentwein and Commander General Von Trotha began an
offensive in June 1904. The Herero, young and old, armed and unarmed, with or
without cattle were shot as Trotha waged a war of extermination.
The rescues of the Herero were driven into the desert of Omaheke where they
starved to death.
The Herero fled into the desert and von Trotha ordered his troops to poison
water holes, erect guard posts along a 150-mile line and shoot on sight any
Herero, be the man, woman or child, who attempted to escape. To make his
attitude to the Herero absolutely clear, Von Trotha then issued the extermination
order.
Von Trotha’s methods caused a public disagreement which led the Imperial
Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow to ask William II, German Emperor, to relieve
von Trotha of his command. This, however, was too late to help the Herero, as
the few survivors had been herded into camps and used as labor for German
businesses, where many died of overwork, malnutrition, beaten to death or
disease. Prior to the uprisings, there were estimated to be 80,000 Herero. About
54 000 of Herero died while 10 000 of Nama were died.
By December 1905, the Herero rebellion had been brought down but it was
about the same time that the Nama under Witbooi rose up against the Germans.
The Nama were more skilled at guerrilla warfare than the Herero and so their
rising lasted longer. Witbooi was killed in October 1906 and the leadership was
taken over by Jacob Morenga who was also died in 1907.
As the consequences, this genocide had devastating result as many people died:
about 2 000 Germans killed, 54 000 of Herero died out of 80 000 while 10 000
of Nama were died;
The he Germans continued a systematic purge of Nama and Herero to South
Africa and to Bechuanaland together with King Samuel Maherero. But the NamaKings Hendrich Witbooi and Morenga were killed.
c. Herero genocide
Nama and Herero who were the cattle keepers lost almost all their cattle, which
were confiscated by the Germans;
Germans banned all ethnic organizations and practices together with traditionalceremonies of the natives;
Some native people accepted to go and work for the Whites on their roads,
farms and railways construction and other projects as sign of submission to
save their life;
Thousands of African women and children who survived the war of resistance
were put in concentration camps and shepherded by German government.
Most of them died of sunny desert climates of Kalahari and the vinegary effects
of forced labor;
There was increase of German settler population because after this rebellion,
the Germans doubled in number. Their number grew from 4 600 in 1905 to 15
000 in 1913 and German administration became more secure as the uprising
was dealt with a knock down force;
The cross ethnic and cultural alliance against a common enemy left behind the
feeling of patriotism and nationalism. This background led to the formation
of a multi-ethnic and tribal organization called “South West African People’s
Organization” (SWAPO) founded under Sam Nd’joma who fought against the
South African White rule in his country and led it to its independence in 1990.
This genocide against the Herero was recognized by the Germany government
and the family of General Von Trotha but not yet recognized by the UnitedNation Organization
1.2.2 The Jews Holocaust (1939-1945)
a. What is holocaust?
The Holocaust (from the Greek holókaustos: hólos, “whole” and kaustós, “burnt”),
also known as the Shoah (Hebrew: HaShoah, “catastrophe”; Yiddish: Churben or
Hurban, from the Hebrew for “destruction”), was the genocide of approximately
six million European Jews during World War II.
It was a program of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi Germany, led
by Adolf Hitler, throughout Nazi-occupied territories. Of the nine million Jews
who had resided in Europe before the Holocaust, approximately two-thirds
perished. In particular, over one million Jewish children were killed in the
Holocaust, as were approximately two million Jewish women and three million
Jewish men.
b. Causes of Holocaust
The Nazis used a euphemistic phrase, the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question”
and the phrase “Final Solution” has been widely used as a term for the genocide
of the Jews subsequently. Nazis also used the phrase “Life unworthy of life” in an
attempt to justify the killings philosophically.
The Holocaust have been prepared and explained through the different myths
like Myths of the Nazi ideology and the Myth of Aryans developed during 18th
and 19th centuries.
This myth of Aryans was believed by a number of theoreticians, who included
Joseph Arthur de Gobineau, who had expressed his ideas in his book untitled
“Essay on the Inequality of Human Races (1853-1855). He stated that the Aryans
or white race was superior to all other races. Other supporters of this myth
were Eduard Drumont and Huston Stewart Chamberlain.c. Preparation and execution of Holocaust: Genocide ideology
Adolf Hitler used the Gabineau’s theory of race inequality to sustain that
the Germanic race was superior and therefore had to be protected from any
contamination emanating from mixed marriage. According to de Gobineau, the
intermarriage diminishes the proportion of the Aryan blood that they have. A
practice that was consequently forbidden and this targeted the Jews.
Hitler claimed that since the Jews were declared impure, their aim was to
intermarry with the pure Aryan people thereby corrupting the entire group
and spread bad and harmful ideologies such as Marxism, internationalism,
individualism and liberalism.
Another myth was the “Myth on Jews” developed in the 19th century was based
on religious beliefs. The Jews were accused by the first Church members not
to recognize Jesus Christ as the son of God and to have killed the son of God
(deicide). Since then, the Anti-Semitism which was political, social and economic
agitation and activities directed against Jews, was supported by the “Church
Fathers”; who included Saints Ambroise, Augustine etc.
The term of “Anti-Semitism” is now used to denote speech and behavior that is
derogatory to people of Jewish origin, whether or not they are religious. The
word Semitic originally was applied to all descendants of Shem, the eldest son
of the biblical patriarch Noah.
In the 14th century, the bubonic plague and the Black plague known as “Black
Death” devastated Europe for 20 years and killed about 25 million of people,
estimated to be 75 % of whole population. The Jews were held responsible
and rumors were spread that the Jews had poisoned water fountains. Between
1348 and 1350 due to those rumors, many Jews were hanged or buried live.
After the First World War, between 1914-1918 (WW I), many Germans blamed
the Jews for Germany’s defeat in World War I, some even claiming that German
Jews had betrayed the nation during the war. In addition, at the end of the war
a Communist group attempted to carry out a Bolshevik-type revolution in the
German state of Bavaria. Most of the leaders of that failed attempt were Jews.
As a result, some Germans associated Jews with Bolsheviks and regarded both
groups as dangerous enemies of Germany. After the war, a republic known as
the Weimar Republic was set up in Germany. Jewish politicians and intellectuals
played an important role in German life during the Weimar Republic, and many
non-Jews resented their influence.
On the basis of his anti-Semitic views, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler attacked the
impressive role Jews played in German society during the Weimar Republic,
especially in the intellectual world and in left-wing politics. He referred to themas a plague and a cancer.
In his book Mein Kampf (My Struggle, translated 1939), which was published
in 1926, Hitler blamed the plight of Germany at the end of World War I on an
international Jewish plan and used terms such as extirpation and extermination
in relation to the Jews. He claimed that the Jews had achieved economic
dominance and the ability to control and manipulate the mass media to their
own advantage. He wrote on the need to eradicate their powerful economic
position, if necessary by means of their physical removal.
On April 7, 1933, the Reichstag enacted the “Law for the Restoration of the
Professional Civil Service”, the first anti-Semitic law passed in the Third Reich;
the Physicians’ Law; and the Farm Law, forbidding Jews from owning farms
or taking part in agriculture. Jewish lawyers were disbarred, and in Dresden,
Jewish lawyers and judges were dragged out of their offices, courtrooms and
beaten. Jews were excluded from schools and universities (the Law to Prevent
Overcrowding in Schools), from belonging to the Journalists’ Association, and
from being owners or editors of newspapers. In the same year, the books
written by Jews were publically burnt.
In July 1933, the “Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring”
calling for compulsory sterilization of the “inferior” was passed. This major
eugenic policy led to over 200 Hereditary Health Courts being set up, under
whose rulings over 400,000 people was sterilized against their will during the
Nazi period.
On September 15, 1935, the Reichstag met in Nurnberg and passed two laws,
known as “The Nurnberg laws”. The first, the “Reich Citizenship Law” declared
that only individuals of “German blood” could be citizens of the German Reich
(state), thus depriving German Jews of their citizenship. The second, the “Law
for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor”, formalized barriers
between Jews and Germans, forbidding marriage and sexual relations between
Jews and “Aryans.” Thus, the Nazis deprived German Jews of all civil rights and
effectively excluded them from social and cultural life. Their policy was then
aimed at expropriating Jewish property with a view to compelling Jews to
emigrate from Germany.
From Jews physical violence to large pogrom
On November 7, 1938, a young Jewish Herschel Grünspan assassinated Nazi
German diplomat Ernst vom Rath in Paris. This incident was used by the Nazis
as a pretext to go beyond legal repression to large-scale physical violence againstJewish Germans. What the Nazis claimed to be spontaneous “public outrage”
was in fact a wave of pogroms instigated by the Nazi party, and carried out by
SA (Sturmabteilug or Storm detachment) members and affiliates throughout
Nazi Germany.
These pogroms became known as “the Night of Broken Glass” (literally “Crystal
Night”), or November pogroms. Jews were attacked and Jewish property was
vandalized, over 7,000 Jewish shops and 1,668 synagogues (almost every
synagogue in Germany) were damaged or destroyed. The death toll is assumed
to be much higher than the official number of 91 dead. 30,000 were sent to
concentration camps, including Dachau, Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald, and
Orangeburg concentration camp, where they were kept for several weeks, and
released when they could either prove that they were about to emigrate in the
near future, or transferred their property to the Nazis.
Before the war, the Nazis considered mass exportation of German (and
subsequently the European) Jewry from Europe. Plans to reclaim former
German colonies such as Tanganyika and South West Africa for Jewish
resettlement were halted by Hitler. Diplomatic efforts were undertaken to
convince the other former colonial powers, primarily the United Kingdom and
France, to accept expelled Jews in their colonies. Areas considered for possible
resettlement included British Palestine, Italian Abyssinia, British Rhodesia,
French Madagascar, and Australia.
The question of the treatment of the Jews became an urgent one for the Nazis
after September 1939, when they invaded the western half of Poland, home
to about two million Jews. Himmler’s right-hand man, Reinhard Heydrich,
recommended concentrating all the Polish Jews in ghettos in major cities,
where they would be put to work for the German war industry. The Warsaw
Ghetto was the largest, with 380,000 people, and the Łódź Ghetto the second
largest, holding 160,000. About 3 million of Jews were heaped together in those
ghettos where they died of hunger and suffered from dreadful deprivations and
diseases.
In January 1942, the Nazi leaders organized a conference in Berlin, the
Conference of Wannsee, where they devised the “Final solution of Jews problem”,
explicitly to kill the 11 million of Jews living in Europe.
As head of the German SD or Security service, or Security Service, Reinhard
Heydrich was asked by Nazi leader Hermann Göring to organize a “final
solution to the Jewish question.” And Adolf Eichmann was entrusted by theleaders of Nazi Germany with responsibility for carrying out and coordinating
the “final solution”; the murder of almost 6 million Jews during World War II
(1939-1945). Under Eichmann’s direction, Jews from all over German-occupied
Europe were sent to concentration camps to be killed.
About Jews concentration camps
A concentration camp is a place in which large numbers of people, especially
political prisoners or members of persecuted minorities, are deliberately
imprisoned in a relatively small area with inadequate facilities, sometimes to
provide forced labour or to await mass execution. The term is most strongly
associated with the several hundred camps1945.
Due to the role played by these prominent personalities, the concentration
camps were built mainly in Auschwitz, Majdanek, Treblinka, Chelmno, Sobibor
and Belzec where the majority of the deportees would perish on their arrival
in gas chambers.
The crematorium was used to incinerate the bodies of people killed in the
camp’s four gas chambers. Birkenau, along with the nearby Auschwitz complex,
was the site of scientifically planned and executed genocide by Nazi Germany
during World War II (1939-1945). It is estimated that between 1.4 million and
4 million people were killed at Auschwitz and Birkenau during the war.
Although it was the Jews who were targeted by the “Final Solution”, among the
victims were also the Gypsies, the Communists, Slavic, the Russian prisoners
of war, the invalids, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses and any other person
suspected of not adhering to the Nazi ideology.
When the WW II ended in 1945, on September 2nd, the entire Jewish secular and
religious culture in Europe had been completely destroyed and near 6 million
Jews and about 11 million of Non-Jewish Europeans were exterminated.
After the war, the Allies established an International Military Tribunal at
Nuremberg in Germany to prosecute the surviving Nazi leaders for war crimes
and crimes against humanity. Later, in 1948, a United Nations Organization
resolution established crime against humanity as a crime under international
law with no limitation period for the prosecution of those accused such crimes.
After the Holocaust, some 250 000 Jewish were survived and in 1947 the UN
voted to partition Palestine into Jews and Arab States. The Israel, a Jewish State,was established in May 1948 as a homeland for the Holocaust Jewish survivors.
Role of Eichmann in Holocaust
Otto Adolf Eichmann is considered as one of the major organizers of the
Holocaust. He formulated a plan to deport 600,000 Jews into the General
Government. The plan was stymied by Hans Frank, governor-general of the
occupied territories, who was disinclined to accept the deportees as to do so
would have a negative impact on economic development and his ultimate goal
of Germanisation of the region.
Under his order, Jews were concentrated into ghettos in major cities with the
expectation that at some point they would be transported further east or even
overseas. On 15 August 1940, Eichmann released a memorandum titled Reich
Main Security Office: Madagascar Project calling for the resettlement to
Madagascar of a million Jews per year for four years.
Eichmann’s office was responsible for collecting information on the Jews in each
area, organizing the seizure of their property, and arranging for and scheduling
trains. His department was in constant contact with the Foreign Office, as Jews
of conquered nations such as France could not as easily be stripped of their
possessions and deported to their deaths. Eichmann held regular meetings
in his Berlin offices with his department members working in the field and
travelled extensively to visit concentration camps and ghettos.
Throughout October and November 1944, Eichmann arranged for tens of
thousands of Jewish victims to travel by forced marches in appalling conditions
from Budapest to Vienna, a distance of 210 kilometres (130 miles).
Role of Heydrich in Holocaust
Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich is regarded as the most fearsome member
of the Nazi elite. He was one of the main architects of the Holocaust during
the early war years, answering only to, and taking orders from, Hitler, Göring,
and Himmler in all matters pertaining to the deportation, imprisonment, and
extermination of Jews.
Heydrich was one of the organisers of “Crystal Night” (Kristallnacht),
a pogrom against Jews throughout Germany on the night of 9–10 November
1938. Heydrich sent a telegram that night to various SD and Gestapo offices,
helping to co-ordinate the pogrom with the SS, SD, Gestapo, uniformed police
(Orpo), SA, Nazi party officials, and even the fire departments. It talks about
permitting arson and destroying Jewish businesses and synagogues and orders
the confiscation of all “archival material” out of Jewish community centres andsynagogues. Twenty thousand Jews were sent to concentration camps.
On Himmler’s instructions, Heydrich formed the task forces (Einsatzgruppen)to
travel in the wake of the German armies at the start of World War II. On 21
September 1939, Heydrich sent out a teleprinter message on the “Jewish question
in the occupied territory” to the chiefs of alltask forceswith instructions to round
up Jewish people for placement into ghettos, called for the formation of Jewish
councils (Judenräte) ordered a census, and promoted Aryanization plans for
Jewish-owned businesses and farms, among other measures. The task forces
units followed the army into Poland to implement the plans. Later, in the Soviet
Union, they were charged with rounding up and killing Jews via firing squad
and gas vans.
On 29 November 1939, Heydrich issued a cable about the “Evacuation of
New Eastern Provinces”, detailing the deportation of people by railway to
concentration camps, and giving guidance surrounding the December 1939
census, which would be the basis on which those deportations were performed.
On 10 October 1941, Heydrich was the senior officer at a “Final Solution”
meeting of the RSHA in Prague that discussed deporting 50,000 Jews from
the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia to ghettos in Minsk and Riga. Given
his position, Heydrich was instrumental in carrying out these plans since his
Gestapo was ready to organize deportations in the West and his task forces were
already conducting extensive killing operations in the East.
In 1941 Himmler named Heydrich as “responsible for implementing” the
forced movement of 60,000 Jews from Germany and Czechoslovakia to the Lodz
Ghetto in Poland.
Earlier on 31 July 1941, Hermann Göring gave written authorization to Heydrich
to ensure the cooperation of administrative leaders of various government
departments in the implementation of a” Final Solution to the Jewish question”
in territories under German control. On 20 January 1942, Heydrich chaired a
meeting, now called the Wannsee Conference, to discuss the implementation ofthe plan
The camps increasingly became places where Jews and prisoners of war (POWs)
were either killed or made to work as slave laborers, undernourished and
tortured. It is estimated that the Germans established 15,000 camps and sub
camps in the occupied countries, mostly in Eastern Europe. The transportation
of prisoners was often carried out under horrifying conditions using rail freight
cars, in which many died before reaching their destination.
Starting in December 1939, the Nazis introduced new methods of mass murder
by using gas. First, experimental gas vans equipped with gas cylinders and a
sealed trunk compartment, were used to kill mental care clients of sanatoria inPomerania, East Prussia, and occupied Poland, as part of an operation termed
Action T4. In the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, larger vans holding up to
100 people were used from November 1941, using the engine’s exhaust rather
than a cylinder.
Action T4 was a program established in 1939 to maintain the genetic purity of
the German population by killing or sterilizing German and Austrian citizens
who were judged to be disabled or suffering from mental disorder. The program
was named after Tiergartenstraße 4, the address of a villa in the Berlin borough
of Tiergarten, the headquarters of the General Foundation for Welfare and
Institutional Care, led by Philipp Bouhler, head of Hitler’s private chancellery
and Karl Brandt, Hitler’s personal physician.
A need for new mass murder techniques was also expressed by the Nazi leaders.
It was this problem which led the SS (Security Squadron) to experiment with
large-scale killings using poison gas. Finally, Christian Wirth seems to have been
the inventor of the gas chamber.1.2.3 The 1994 Genocide against Tutsi in Rwanda
The 1994 genocide against the Tutsi was a carefully planned and executed to
annihilate Rwandan Tutsi population and Hutu political opponents who did not
agree with the prevailing extremist politics of the time. It was the fastest and
most cruel genocide ever recorded in human history.
a. Causes of the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda
It is so hard to identify the root causes of the genocide against the Tutsi in
Rwanda. This because all Rwandans were united and shared the elements for
national cohesion like same king, clans, language, values, same religion, culture
and same country. But the following factors had contributed to the disunity of
Banyarwanda and led to the genocide:
The racist ideology
The genocidal ideology identified the two antagonist groups like “Us” and
“Them” or “You” and after proceeded by the nomination or qualification of
those two groups.
The genocidal ideology in Rwanda is based on ideas, attitude and practices
of discrimination and hatred against the Tutsi. It has been implemented
and disseminated by the political leaders since 1959. The most important
manifestation was persecution, killing, public hatred message, loose of
goods and properties, exclusion from political and administrative functions,
discrimination in many sector like education, forced exile, physical andpsychological violence etc….
Since independence the Tutsi have been identified as “enemies” of the Hutu.
In 1960’s, the first president of the Republic, G. Kayibanda, used the hatred
speeches to qualify the danger of the Tutsi to the Hutu due to the attacks of
Inyenzi (groups of refugees) from outside of Rwanda. From 1990 with the attack
of RPF – Inkotanyi, the ideological speeches pointed out again the “double treat
presented by the Tutsi (of internal and of external) against the Hutu”. From
those qualifications and propaganda, many Newspapers and Radios, called
upon all Hutu for their self-defense, “to kill before being killed”.
Besides the presentation of the threats against the Hutu, another factor was
the dehumanization or qualification of enemy not as humankind but as an
animal like rats, snakes or cockroaches. The aim was to incite to direct and
public reactions against the “common enemy of the Hutu”, the Tutsi. This shows
that genocide crime before being act of physical destruction of enemy, the
genocidal ideology begins by ideas developing the vision of a “group-enemy”
to be exterminated.
Persecution and impunity
During the colonial period, the colonizers had favored a group of” Tutsi elites”
which was associated to colonial power as auxiliaries. When their alliance
broke up in the end of 1950s, the colonizers changed from supporting the Tutsi
elites on power considered as “minority” (“Rubanda nyamuke”), to support the
Hutu elites, the “majority” (“Rubanda nyamwinshi). This change is the origin
of the political and ethnic violence which happened since November 1959
characterized by mass killings against the Tutsi and members of UNAR party.
The same scenarios of mass killing targeting Tutsi repeated in 1963/64, 1973
and in 1990-1994. They were scapegoats of the failure of the government.
The authors of such massacres were never punished for the crimes committed.
Contrarily, many of them were promoted to the post of responsibility. On
the side of international community, it has always considered the respective
governments of Rwanda as the true representatives of population majority.
It has totally ignored the crimes committed and the injustices which those
governments are responsible for.
Discriminatory leadership
Under the two Republics (1962 – 1994), the social inequality was maintained and
encouraged by exclusion, favoritism and regionalism. It was under the Second
Republic that the policy of “ethnic and regionalism balance” was reinforced. The
social promotion was not based on meritocracy but on ethnicity and origin; a
choice which has generated negative effects on the development of the countryand the relations among Rwandans.
Over the period of 1978 and 1990, three Prefectures (Gisenyi, Ruhengeri and
Kigali) received 51% of budget allocated to prefectures. The prefectures of
Gisenyi and Ruhengeri monopolized positions of responsibility in the public
administration. The “quotas system” was adopted in 1970’s as solution to social
injustice. However, this policy led to the exclusion of the Tutsi from schools
and services. It prevented the Tutsi to enjoy their rights on education and
employment.
Finally, the governments of the first and second republic had systematically
ignored the problem of refugees who were roaming around in the neighbouring
countries since 1959. From such date, their number was increasing to 500 000
persons (according to minimum estimations). The reaction of the government
to their request of returning to their country and recovering their properties
and their rights was still the same stating that the country in overpopulated
and could not receive any other population. It was this repeated refusal that
made the refugees to organise them self in a politico-military structure, named
RPF – Inkotanyi and opted return by force.
b. Course of the genocide against the Tutsi
Mass killings started in the night of 6th April 1994, immediately after crash
of the Presidential airplane. Following the incitement from the media and
genocidal planners, soldiers of the presidential guards and Interahamwe
militias (created on September 1991) started systematic elimination of Tutsiand Hutu politician’s figures in opposition.
Following the meetings held at the High Command of the F.A.R (Forces Armées
Rwandaises), the interim government has been formed. On April 8th ,1994,
when Dr Sindikubwabo Theodore was nominated President of Republic andKambanda Jean as Prime Minister. This government was composed by ministers
belonging to extremist wing of political parties which accepted to be part of the
coalition.
From the night of April 6th – 11th, 1994, horror had spread throughout the
entire country except Gitarama and Butare Prefectures. Here killings began
respectively on 15th and 19th April after the sensitization of some members of
the interim government.
At the beginning, the assailants in small groups killed the victims at their
homes, on the roads or arrested them at the road blockers. But later on, as the
Tutsi used to escape and to look for asylums at the public offices and Churches,
the killers also went to attack and kill them in those places: Church offices,
commune offices, hospitals and health centers, school, stadiums, etc... There
were no any safe places for protection.
The concentration of the Tutsi at such places was encouraged by the local
authorities with the plan of facilitating and accelerating the mass killings
because the assailants found the Tutsi in mass in one place. The places served
as the “death camps”.
April 12th, 1994, the interim government (called also “Abatabazi”) fled the capital
of Kigali due to the advance of the RPF – Inkotanyi and settled in Gitarama, at
Murambi. Later on it will move to Gisenyi and in refugees camps located in
Goma Zaire today Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
At the beginning of killing, men were mainly targeted and killed, at least until
mid-May. But later on, as the plan was to exterminate all Tutsi, killers started to
kill also women and children.
One of the characterics of the genocide against the Tutsi is the many forms of
extreme violence. The main tools used during this genocide against the Tutsi are
machetes, grenades, bullets, impiri called “nta mpongano y`umwanzi”, burning
people alive, throwing living people into pit latrines, forcing family members to
kill each other among others.
Finally, RPF – Inkotanyi soldiers stopped the mass killings and scored victory
over the genocidal forces. On 4th July 1994 Kigali City and Butare were liberated.
c. Main actors of genocide against the Tutsi
The main actors and killers include soldiers of the Forces Armées Rwandaises
(FAR) and Gendarmerie. In particular, the elite Presidential Guard carried
responsibility to begin killings; another group of actors is made up by civilauthorities from the top to the local authorities: the members of the former
President Habyarimana political party (MRND) and the Interim government,
the Préfets of prefectures, the Burgomasters, the communal councilors who
basically mobilized and encouraged people to kill on hills;
There are militias such as Interahamwe and Impuzamugambi, respectively
formed as youth wing of MRND and CDR political parties and members of Hutu
Power;
The extremist Medias (newspapers and radios) who disseminated the hate
speeches during the genocide and encouraged the population to exterminate
the “enemy” namely Kangura, La Medaille Nyiramacibiri, RTLM or Radio
Television des Milles Collines...
The international representatives to have not intervened to stop the genocide
or assist victims, although they were informed about the preparation and had
enough troops in Rwanda or in the region;
Lastly, the large group of killers is composed of extremist Hutu in general over
the country.
The targeted group to be exterminated was the Tutsi population without
any distinction of age, religion, region, etc. According to the survey done by
the Ministry of Local Government in 2002, the number of the Tutsi killed is 1
074 017. Another group targeted by the killers was the members of political
opposition like the leaders of some political parties of Parti Social Démocrate
(PSD), Pari Liberal (PL), Mouvement Démocratique Républicain (MDR), Parti
Démocrate Chrétien (PDC), Parti Démocratique Islamique (PDI), and Parti
Socialiste Rwandais ( PSR) and other dissent mostly who were the Hutu as
journalists, human rights activists, lawyers and civil servants opposed to
genocide initiative.
According to the National Service of Gacaca Courts, 1 678 672 persons were
guilty of having committed the crime of genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.
d. Death camps
Many victims of the genocide against the Tutsi were killed at their respective
homeland, but a number of other had tried to look for asylum at some special
places where they thought to get protection. However, these places, to some
extent, served as “death camps”.
These included the schools, church offices (Kabgayi, Ntarama, Nyarubuye, Saint
Famille, Nyange, Kibeho, Cyahinda, Adventist Church of Ngoma, Nyamasheke,Mosque of Nyamirambo, Mugina, Mibilizi, etc
Commune offices (Mugina, Musambira, Rwamatamu, Kamembe, etc). Hospitals
and health centres (Centre Hospitalier de Kigali “CHK”, Centre Hospitalier
Universitaire de Butare “CHUB”, Kibuye hospital, health centre of Kaduha,
Mugonero, etc. ).
Schools (Collège Saint André Nyamirambo, Petit Séminaire Ndera, Saint Joseph
Rwamagana, Collège Marie Merci Kibeho, Ecole Technique Officielle “ETO “
Kicukiro, etc,).
Stadiums (Gatwaro in Karongi district today, Amahoro in city of Kigali and
Kamarampaka in Rusizi district today).
e. Effects of genocide against the Tutsi
The consequences of the genocide are numerous at all levels of life of Rwandans.
More than one million of men, women and children had been killed in 100 days
(1 074 017);
The genocide against the Tutsi led to the destruction of infrastructures and
equipment where the public properties and private properties were massively
destroyed;
During this genocide, the perpetrators did not only kill the victims but they also
damaged the body of the some survivors who still live with physical handicap;
The 1994 genocide against Tutsi created high level of psychological trauma
amongst the Rwanda population. This was caused by the horrific actions the
people were exposed to. These among others included rape, torture, murder
and extreme violence;
A large group of refugees, displaced people, orphans, widows, (incike) and
families who disappear completely;
The 1994 genocide against the Tutsi has led to social destruction of the Rwandan
society because it had created the suspicion and mistrust among the Rwandans.
After the genocide, Rwanda faced the problem of delivering justice. At the end
of the 1994 genocide against Tutsi, more than one million (1 678 672) were
suspected of having participated in committing genocide had been apprehended
and imprisoned. Considering the big number of these prisoners who waited to
be judged, it was impossible to give justice to both victims and prisoners in a
reasonable period. Alternatives solutions, such as Gacaca has been initiated for
that purpose.Decadence of the country’s economy: during the genocide most of the active
population abandoned their economic activities for looting and killing; other
abandoned the country as refugees and displaced people. The country recovered
the development stage after their return and re-installation.
Disgrace of Rwanda’s international image: after the genocide against the Tutsi,
the country was only seen in negative way by considering almost the Rwandans
as the killers. The Rwanda was also seen as a country totally destroyed and
without any humanity and hope for the future.
1.2.4. Srebrenica genocidea. The roots cause of Srebrenica genocide
The Srebrenica massacre, known as the Srebrenica genocide, refers to the
July 1995 killing, during the Bosnian War, of more than 8,000 Bosniaks (Bosnian
Muslims), mainly men and boys, in and around the town of Srebrenica in Bosnia
and Herzegovina, by units of the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) under the
command of General Ratko Mladić. A paramilitary unit from Serbia known
as the Scorpions, officially part of the Serbian Interior Ministry until 1991,
participated in the massacre and it is alleged that foreign volunteers including
the Greek Volunteer Guard also participated.
The multiethnic Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was inhabited
by mainly Muslim Bosniaks (44 percent), Orthodox Serbs (31 percent) and
Catholic Croats (17 percent). Following a declaration of national sovereignty on
15 October 1991 as the former Yugoslavia began to disintegrate, a referendum
for independence was held on 29 February 1992. The result, in favor of
independence, was rejected by the political representatives of the BosnianSerbs who had boycotted the referendum.
b. The course of Srebrenica genocide
The Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was formally recognized by the
European Community on 6 April 1992 and by the United States the following
day. Following the declaration of independence, Bosnian Serb forces, supported
by the Serbian government of Slobodan Milošević and the Yugoslav People’s
Army (JNA), attacked the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina in order to
unify and secure Serb territory. A fierce struggle for territorial control ensued,
accompanied by the ethnic cleansing of the non-Serb population from areas
under Serb control; in particular, the Bosniak population of Eastern Bosnia,
near the border with Serbia.
The predominantly Bosniak area of Central Podrinje (the region around
Srebrenica) had a primary strategic importance to Serbs, as without it there
would be no territorial integrity within their new political entity of Republika
Srpska. They thus proceeded with the ethnic cleansing of Bosniaks from Bosniak
ethnic territories in Eastern Bosnia and Central Podrinje.
In neighboring Bratunac, Bosniaks were either killed or forced to flee to
Srebrenica, resulting in 1,156 deaths, according to Bosnian government data.
Thousands of Bosniaks were also killed in Foča, Zvornik, Cerska and Snagovo.
By the evening of 11 July 1995, approximately 20,000 to 25,000 Bosniak
refugees from Srebrenica were gathered in Potočari, seeking protection within
the UN compound there. Several thousand had pressed inside the compound
itself, while the rest were spread throughout the neighboring factories and
fields. Though the vast majorities were women, children, elderly or disabled,
63 witnesses estimated that there were at least 300 men inside the perimeter
of the UN compound and between 600 and 900 men in the crowd outside.
The Dutch claimed their base was full. Conditions in Potočari were deplorable.There was very little food or water available and the July heat was stifling
From the morning of 12 July 1995, Serb forces began gathering men and boys
from the refugee population in Potočari and holding them in separate locations
and as the refugees began boarding the buses headed north towards Bosniakheld territory, Serb soldiers separated out men of military age who were trying
to clamber aboard. Occasionally, younger and older men were stopped as well
(some as young as 14 or 15).
These men were taken to a building in Potočari referred to as the “White House”.
As early as the evening of 12 July 1995, Major Franken of the Dutchbat heard
that no men were arriving with the women and children at their destination in
Kladanj.
On 13 July 1995, Dutchbat troops witnessed definite signs that the Serb soldiers
were murdering some of the Bosniak men who had been separated. When
the Dutchbat soldiers told Colonel Joseph Kingori, a United Nations Military
Observer (UNMO) in the Srebrenica area, that men were being taken behind
the “White House” and not coming back, Colonel Kingori went to investigate. He
heard gunshots as he approached but was stopped by Serb soldiers before he
could find out what was going on.
The vast majority of those killed were adult men and teenage boys but thevictims included boys aged fewer than 15, men over the age of 65, women and
reportedly even several babies. The Preliminary List of People Missing or Killed
in Srebrenica compiled by the Bosnian Federal Commission of Missing Persons
contains 8,373 names, some 500 of them under 18, and includes several dozen
women and girls. As of June 2011, 6594 genocide victims have been identified
through DNA analysis of body parts recovered from mass graves and 5,138
victims have been buried at the Memorial Centre of Potočari.
c. The international community responsibility
In 1999, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan submitted his report on the Fall of
Srebrenica. In it, he acknowledged that the international community as a whole
had to accept its share of responsibility for its response to the ethnic cleansing
campaign that culminated in the murder of some 7,000 unarmed civilians from
the town designated by the Security Council as a “safe area”.
In his address to the 10th anniversary commemoration at Potočari, the UN
Secretary-General paid tribute to the victims of “a terrible crime – the worst
on European soil since the Second World War”, on a date “marked as a grim
reminder of man’s inhumanity to man”. He said that the first duty of the
international community was to uncover and confront the full truth about what
happened, a hard truth for those who serve the United Nations, because great
nations failed to respond adequately. There should have been stronger militaryforces in place, and a stronger will to use them
a. The role played by Pol Pot
Cambodia was under the Khmer Rouge rule, Communist movement, from 1975
to 1979. The regime, which was headed by Cambodian guerrilla commander
Pol Pot (his real name Saloth Sar), came to power after years of guerrilla
warfare. While in power the Khmer Rouge murdered, worked to death, or killed
by starvation close to 1.7 million Cambodians, or more than one-fifth of the
country’s population.
Cambodia was a French protectorate under the nominal control of a king
from 1863 until 1953, when France granted Cambodia its independence. At
the same time, Communist forces known as the Viet Minh were engaged in an
independence struggle against France in neighboring Vietnam; the Viet Minh,
which had recruited an army of Cambodian allies in common cause against
French colonialism, defeated France in 1954. Although Cambodian guerrilla
forces and the Viet Minh controlled much of Cambodia by 1954, the Geneva
Conference, which marked the end of the war in 1954, left Cambodia in the
hands of its monarch, Norodom Sihanouk.
As political factionalism grew in Cambodia, Norodom Sihanouk has served, at
different times, as Cambodia’s king, prime minister, and head of state began
to crack down on his opponents, including Communists. The Communists fell
into two groups: Vietnamese-trained veterans of the independence struggle,
including former Buddhist monks and their peasant followers; and youngerurban radicals such as Pol Pot. While the former were major targets of Sihanouk’s
repression, Pol Pot and his followers were left largely untouched because of their
privileged backgrounds and French education. This group gradually assumed
leadership of the Communist movement. After Pol Pot became secretary general
of the Workers’ Party of Kâmpŭchéa (later renamed the Communist Party of
Kâmpŭchéa, or CPK) in 1963, the party made a concerted effort to seize control
of Cambodia.
b. Effects of American intervention in Cambodia genocide
By 1966, the American escalation of the war in neighboring Vietnam began
to have a destabilizing effect on Cambodia. North Vietnamese and National
Liberation Front (NLF) forces, made up of Vietnamese Communist guerrillas,
established logistical bases and supply routes in Cambodia. While Sihanouk
attempted to keep his country out of the Vietnam War, his political repression
increasingly drove veterans of Cambodia’s anti-French struggle back into
dissidence, where Pol Pot’s CPK drew them into its plans for rebellion. The CPK
launched a revolt against Sihanouk in 1967. Sihanouk termed the rebels Khmer
Rouge (French for “Red Khmers”), so-called after Cambodia’s predominant
ethnic group, the Khmers. Communist insurgency campaigns continued until
the Khmer Rouge took control of the government in 1975.
In 1969, embroiled in Vietnam, the United States began a secret B-52
bombardment of Cambodia in an effort to knock out strongholds of the North
Vietnamese and NLF (National Liberation Front). A year later, Sihanouk was
overthrown by U.S.-backed General Lon Nol. The Vietnam War spilled across
the border, and the conflict tore Cambodia apart for five years. During the
secret bombing American planes dropped 490,000 metric tons (540,000 tons)
of bombs, killing about 100,000 Khmer peasants by August 1973, when the
bombardment ended. Meanwhile, the Khmer Rouge, aided by Sihanouk and
the North Vietnamese, who did not want a pro-U.S. Cambodian government,
battled Lon Nol’s government for control of Cambodia.
c. Cambodia under Khmers Rouge leadership and American defeat
On April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge armies defeated the Lon Nol regime and
took the capital, Phnom Penh, immediately dispersing almost all of its more
than 2 million inhabitants to a life of hard agricultural labor in the countryside.
Other cities and towns were also evacuated. The Khmer Rouge renamed the
country Democratic Kâmpŭchéa (DK), and for the next four years the regime,
headed by Pol Pot as prime minister and other members of the Standing
Committee of the CPK (Communist Party of Kâmpŭchéa ) Central Committee,terrorized the population.
d. Consequences of genocide in Cambodia
Almost 1.7 million Cambodians were killed in the takeover, including members
of minority and religious groups, people suspected of disagreeing with the
party, intellectuals, merchants, and bureaucrats. Millions of other Cambodians
were forcibly relocated, deprived of food, tortured, or sent into forced labor.
Of about 425,000 Chinese Cambodians, only about half survived the Khmer
Rouge regime. While most of about 450,000 Vietnamese Cambodians had been
expelled by the Lon Nol regime, more were driven out by the Khmer Rouge;
the rest were tracked down and murdered. Of about 250,000 Muslim Chams
(an ethnic group inhabiting the rural areas of Cambodia) in 1975, 90,000 were
massacred, and the survivors were dispersed.
By 1979, 15 percent of the rural Khmer population and 25 percent of the urban
Khmer population had perished. The most horrific slaughter took place during
the second half of 1978 in a purge of the Eastern Zone on the Vietnam border,
where resistance to the Khmer Rouge was strong. At least 250,000 people were
killed in the worst single massacre of the Khmer Rouge period.
Religion in Cambodia was also affected by the Khmer Rouge regime. Buddhism
was completely suppressed from 1975 to 1979; many monks were defrocked
and sent into forced labor, while others were killed. The Khmer Rouge also
attacked the neighboring countries of Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos in an attempt
to reclaim territories lost by Cambodia many centuries before.
On 15 July 1979 following the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge the new
government passed “Decree Law No, 1”; this allowed for the trial of Pol
Pot and Leng Sary for the crime of genocide. They were given an American
defense lawyer, Hope Stevens. They were tried in absentia and convicted of
genocide.
In January 2001 the Cambodian National Assembly passed legislation to form
a tribunal to try members of the Khmer Rouge regime. In 2013, the Cambodian
Prime Minister Hun Sen passed legislation which makes illegal the denial of the
Cambodian genocide and other war crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge.
The legislation was passed after comments by a member of the opposition, Kem
Sokha, who is the deputy president of the Cambodian National Rescue Party.
Sokha had stated that exhibits at Tuol Sleng were fabricated and that theartifacts had been faked by the Vietnamese following their invasion in 1979.
The above types of genocides have the following as common features or
similarities:
Thorough preparation and execution by the Government using militia or
army; Large mobilization of means and human resources to execute the
genocide intention of destroying or completely wiping out the targeted group;
Involvement of the government in coming up with the necessary measures to
destroy the targeted group; Ruthless killing of the targeted group in masses;
Innocent people belonging to the targeted group were killed. The survivors
were amputated, mutilated and maimed; Cruel methods were used to torture
victims before killing them. Some examples of torture methods that have been
used are; burying them alive in mass graves, starving victims to death and
fumigating them to death in gas chambers with poisonous gases.
Trauma has been caused to the survivors of genocides as a result of loss of their
loved ones, loss of property and displacement.Authorities in the involved countries have strongly denied genocide.
1.3.2. Differences between the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi and
other Genocides
The 1994 genocide against the Tutsi is different from other genocides due to
the following facts:
It was executed within a short period of time. Over one million people lost their
lives in a period of one hundred days.
People killed their fellow citizens, their relatives and neighbours. People who
shared common culture fought, injured and killed each other.
The government agents, church members, security were all organs actively
involved in the Genocide.
The International Community did not intervene to stop Genocide in Rwanda
while it was informed. The Genocide was stopped by Rwandans themselves. It
came to an end when the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) defeated the genocidal
forces in July 1994.
Cruel methods were used in the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi. For example,
torturing victims before killing them, people were buried alive in mass graves,
women were raped before being killed, babies were crushed in mortars orbeing smashed on walls.
The unit analyses the crime of genocide looking at different such cases that
happened around the world. Among these genocides we have Jews, Serbians,
Herero and Nama, Cambodian and genocide against Tutsi in Rwanda. Beyond
this listing, a deep comparison is done on how the crime was perpetrated. A
list of steps is identified and many of them are similar. We can talk about state
involvement, population racist intoxication, medias usage and exterminationetc…