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launch RTLM as a means to complement the message of state-run Radio Rwanda—that the way to

eliminate the RPF “problem” was to exterminate all Tutsi (Des Forges 1999, 96–105). Far from the

usual somber and serious tones of Radio Rwanda, RTLM programming was informal and playful and

was dedicated to voicing the opinions of ordinary Rwandans: “it still broadcast official voices often

enough to continue to enjoy the authoritativeness of national radio, but to that it added the appeal of

being the station to speak for the people” (Des Forges 2007, 29).

RTLM reported Ndadaye’s murder “in a highly sensationalized way to underline supposed Tutsi

brutality and heighten Hutu fears of Tutsi” (Des Forges 2007, 31). RTLM became the voice of Hutu

Power, and its extremist politics and anti-Tutsi vitriol were the order of the day. RTLM broadcasting

also denounced Hutu who were willing to share political power with Tutsi. It used increasingly violent

language, for example saying that Hutu militias would “rip into little pieces those Hutu who supported

the RPF” (Article 19 1996, 56). RTLM also denounced specific prominent Tutsi and politically

moderate Hutu “as enemies of the nation who should be eliminated one way or another from the

public scene” (Des Forges 2007, 30). The RTLM broadcasts contributed to the creation of a climate of

fear and insecurity among ordinary Rwandans, which in turn legitimized some ordinary people’s

decisions to kill when pressured to do so by Hutu Power militias between April and July 1994. Straus

(2007) shows that ordinary Rwandans exercised considerable agency in deciding whether and how to

participate in the genocide. He concludes that “the evidence amounts to a persuasive refutation of the

commonly held beliefs that radio had widespread, direct effects and that hate radio was the primary

driver of the genocide and participation in it. . . . Radio emboldened hard-liners and reinforced face-

to-face mobilization, which helped those who advocated violence assert dominance and carry out the

genocide” (Straus 2007, 630–31).

Hutu extremists within the MRND and the CDR fed the fear and insecurity of ordinary Rwandans—

educated and peasant folks alike—by making violence a normal and routine part of everyday life.

After the RPF invaded, in October 1990, the Habyarimana government adopted an increasingly

explicit policy of encouraging and planning mass violence among civilians. Local authorities used

false rumors and misinformation to promote ethnic hatred and to incite the local residents to take part

in attacks on Tutsi civilians, who were identified by Hutu Power extremists as either RPF infiltrators

(abacengezi) or accomplices (ibyitso). Local officials instigated violence through awareness-raising

campaigns (also known as “sensitization”) “to put local peasants ‘in the mood,’ to drum into them that

the people they were to kill are ibyitso (accomplices), actual or potential collaborators of the RPF

archenemy” (Prunier 1997, 138). The government staged the first event of Hutu violence against Tutsi

two weeks after the RPF invasion in Kibilira commune in Gisenyi province near its Virunga base in

northwestern Rwanda (Prunier 1997, 109–10). Local officials falsely reported that Tutsi accomplices

of the RPF had killed Hutu in their community (Article 19 1996, 14–15). In response, groups of

civilians, under the control of Hutu militia leaders, roamed the hills looking for RPF accomplices to

kill. Local and regional officials were aware of the violence but chose not to end it until several days

later, sending a clear message of tolerance, if not acceptance, of violence against (mainly Tutsi)

civilians. The RPF also showed little regard for civilian loss of life during its military campaigns in

northern and central Rwanda between October 1990 and April 1994. It was a tactic of both the RPF

leadership and the Habyarimana regime to attack civilians and then blame the deaths on the other side

(Umutesi 2004, 17–44). Once again, political elites on both sides scapegoated ordinary Rwandans.

Joseph M., a poor Tutsi survivor of the genocide, who was visiting family living in northern Rwanda

in April 1993, remarked caustically in one of our meetings, “To say it was tense would be about right.





It was not clear which neighbors were loyal to the RPF and who were not. Me, I wasn’t [loyal] because

I try to avoid politics. Even the way the Tutsi got targeted and even killed made it hard to know who

was against whom. I returned home [to southern Rwanda] as soon as I raised the money [for bus fare]

to do so. The north was too violent for normal life” (interview 2006).

As the civil war continued, the Habyarimana regime moved toward a more explicit policy of

promoting ethnic violence among ordinary Rwandans. The regime blamed the Kibilira massacre on

the RPF and its Tutsi accomplices, while international media reported it as an instance of “ethnic

hatred” (Article 19 1996, 15). Blaming the RPF for violence they had sponsored provided the Hutu

Power extremists with the cover they needed to authorize their officials to commit human rights

violations against ordinary Rwandans, including mass arrests and imprisonment, disappearances,

extrajudicial executions, and, in some cases, death. The civil war also provided the Habyarimana

regime with the necessary pretext to train the Hutu Power militias—the Interahamwe and the

Impuzamugambi—that would later incite ordinary Hutu to kill Tutsi during the genocide. Members of

both militias organized and implemented mass violence, targeting in particular Tutsi civilians and

politically moderate Hutu as accomplices of the RPF. The strengthening of Hutu Power militias added

to the normalization of violence and made fear and insecurity a staple of everyday life in pregenocide

Rwanda. Throughout 1992 and 1993, Hutu Power extremists ordered political assassinations and

large-scale massacres of Tutsi civilians in the central and northern regions of Rwanda. Murders,

beatings, disappearances, and imprisonment became a regular and accepted part of daily life (Umutesi

2004, 31). Augustin, a released prisoner, summed up the climate at the time well:

[sensitization] meetings that we had to attend. They would send armed men into

the hills to bring us to the meetings. Sometimes we would be sent to training

sessions to learn how to kill our neighbors. They told us this was part of our

work and not to forget that umuganda [collective work] was for the good of the

nation. We were told that Tutsi wanted to kill us and to learn to defend ourselves

for our own good. Sometimes they gave us food. We usually got [banana] beer.

I never thought about my Tutsi neighbors as evil, but the RPF was in Rwanda

and causing headaches for us [Hutu]. They [militia leaders] also told us that we

would be rewarded for good behavior when the war was over and peace was

restored. They offered things like livestock and mabati [roof sheeting]. As things

started to heat up [in the months leading up to the 1994 genocide], many of us

killed neighbors. We saw how things were going around us. Tutsi were scared,

and so were Hutu. We were told that democracy was the problem, that the RPF

wanted to take power from Hutu to impose themselves on us again. So yes, I

killed, thinking it would be the best thing for me and my family. I did not want

to be labeled an accomplice of the RPF. I had a son with a bad illness and had to

think about how to get enough money to take care of him. (Interview 2006)

Habyarimana continued to stall the implementation of the Arusha Accords. In early April 1994

President Ali Hassan Mwinyi of Tanzania convinced Habyarimana to attend a summit in Dar es

Salaam, Tanzania, to discuss the regional implications of the crisis in Burundi. On April 6, 1994,

Habyarimana returned from Tanzania by private aircraft. The passengers included some of the most





powerful members of his government, as well as the new Burundian president, Cyprien Ntaryamira.

As the plane was making its landing approach, unknown assailants fired a missile from a nearby hill.

The plane crashed; all passengers on board were killed instantly. The crash set off violent responses

from both Hutu Power militias and the RPF. Violence broke out immediately in the northern provinces

of Ruhengeri and Gisenyi. RPF troops stationed in Kigali took defensive positions around the city

(Dallaire 2003, 269). Within twenty-four hours there were no “moderates” left, leaving General

Roméo Dallaire, head of the ill-equipped United Nations Assistance Mission to Rwanda (UNAMIR),

to negotiate with Hutu extremists to stop killing ethnic Tutsi. Dallaire understood that the political

violence in Rwanda was genocide: “In just a few hours the Presidential Guard had conducted an

obviously well-organized and well-executed plan—by noon on April 7 the moderate political

leadership of Rwanda was dead or in hiding” (Dallaire 2003, 232).


THE POSTGENOCIDE “EMERGENCY” PERIOD (JULY 1994–DECEMBER 1995)


Across the country, the genocide ended as the RPF took territorial control. It controlled Kigali by July

1, 1994, and had total control of the country by July 18, 1994, when it finally defeated the last

remnants of the Hutu Power forces in Gisenyi in the north. In the process of securing territory, the

RPF did save Tutsi lives. However, its overarching military goal was to win the war and gain state

power. In fact, the RPF “expected their [1990] invasion to trigger a violent backlash against Tutsi

civilians in Rwanda” (Kuperman 2004, 61). Kuperman’s research also shows that the RPF understood

that its efforts to gain state power would provoke genocidal retaliation from Hutu extremists “but

viewed this as an acceptable cost of achieving their goal of attaining power in Rwanda” (Kuperman

2004, 63). As the RPF advanced, tens of thousands of ordinary Rwandans of all ethnicities fled, many

of them under duress from leaders of the Hutu Power militias. Others fled on the order of local

government authorities, which had spread rumors among the refugee population about RPF reprisal

killings. Millions fled west into eastern Zaïre; hundreds of thousands remained in the Zone turquoise

(which covered parts of Gikongoro, Kibuye, and Cyangugu provinces; see fig. 2, page 33) under the

protection of French troops who arrived in June 1994 (Kroslak 2008, 54). The French mission, known

as Opération turquoise, has been criticized for its failure to arrest genocidal leaders of the defeated

government as they fled into Zaïre either through the Zone turquoise or via the northern withdrawal

route through Gisenyi into Goma (Des Forges 1999, 682–84).

A new government was sworn in on July 19, 1994, and faced “seemingly insurmountable” obstacles

(UNDP Rwanda 2004, 6). Approximately 10 percent of the population was dead. Another 30 percent

had fled into exile (Reyntjens 2004, 178). Many of those who remained inside Rwanda were internally

displaced. During the genocide, Rwandans from all walks of life suffered, whether or not they were

targeted for killing. Everyone had been exposed to killing in some way or another, and, indeed, all of

the Rwandans to whom I spoke, whether formally in life history interviews or informally via

participant observation, reported some form of violent episode that they either experienced or

witnessed. Psychosocial trauma was prevalent. Some studies suggest that as many as 95 percent of

Rwandans witnessed or participated in “extreme acts of violence” (Ndayambajwe 2001, 46). As the

genocidal Hutu Power forces retreated into Zaïre, they looted or destroyed anything of value. In their

wake, they left razed government offices, schools, hospitals, health clinics, and businesses, including

market stalls and kiosks. Retreating government leaders of the interim government ordered the looting

of the central bank (Prunier 1997, 113). In the hills, crops rotted in the fields because there was no one

poor and elderly Twa woman who had lived through political violence in 1959 and 1962 and who did

not flee her home in 1994, remarked, “Never has I seen violence as dramatic as the most recent round

[meaning in 1994]. Those who lived had dead expressions on their faces. No one was whole. It was

like the hills had been ripped out and swallowed us whole [not clear to whom “us” refers]. It was the

worst violence of my life. How all who fled survived at all is a mystery I will never understand”

(interview 2006).

The new government reaffirmed its “commitment to the terms and spirit of the Arusha Accord”

(Reyntjens 2004, 178). A key exception was that the RPF gave itself all of the posts previously held by

the MRND and the CDR. It also created the new position of vice president, which was filled by Paul

Kagame (Prunier 1997, 300). The cabinet consisted of a Hutu majority (sixteen of twenty-two posts),

including the president (Pasteur Bizimungu, RPF) and the prime minister (Faustin Twagiramungu,

MDR). It seemed as though the RPF would establish an inclusive government that was committed to

national unity and reconciliation. Politicians, civil servants, judges, and military officials who had

served under the previous regime stayed behind in Kigali and “indicated their willingness to co-

operate with the RPF” (Reyntjens 2004, 180). The RPF also negotiated with the French military to

honor its commitment to withdraw on August 21, 1994; the French not only had continued to occupy

and control the Zone turquoise but also had provided tacit support to the rump Habyarimana

government (Des Forges 1999, 684–90). By the time of the French withdrawal, an additional five

hundred thousand Rwandans had left the Zone (including many of the organizers of the genocide, with

the knowledge of French troops), crossing into Zaïre at Bukavu town into the southern Kivu region of

Zaïre (Prunier 1997, 305).

These political developments indicated to old-caseload refugees (known in Rwanda simply as

“returnees”) that it was time to return home.10Their unofficial return to Rwanda (i.e., without being

processed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees [UNHCR]) caused some headaches

for the RPF-led government (HRW 2001a, 19–21). Many of the old-caseload returnees had no family

or social ties in Rwanda; as a result, they simply occupied homes abandoned during the genocide. As

the owners of these homes returned to Rwanda following the genocide, they found their homes either

destroyed or occupied by “Anglophone returnees who would not give up their new homes” (field notes

2006). In some cases, attempts by genocide survivors to repossess their homes were met with threats,

accusations of being genocide perpetrators, imprisonment, and even assassination instigated by

individuals who did not want to give up their property (Burnet 2005, 110). Hutu who returned home

faced the possibility of being denounced as genocide perpetrators by virtue of their ethnicity. In some

instances, aggrieved genocide survivors took revenge on Hutu, occupying their homes, stealing their

livestock and other property, and, in some cases, killing them. Hutu property- and landowners were

particularly vulnerable as returnees denounced them as genocide perpetrators, resulting in their arrest

and imprisonment.

Some Rwandans, particularly those living near the Zaïrian and Tanzanian borders, remained

vulnerable to attacks from members of the Hutu Power forces, the ex-FAR and Interahamwe, who

were hiding in the refugee camps. In addition, leaders of the genocide who now occupied positions of