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and opponents with allegations that they are “un-Rwandan.” Individuals, elite and ordinary folk alike,

who question the role of the RPF in stopping the 1994 genocide or who make public references to war

crimes or other human rights abuses that it committed before, during, or after the genocide are beaten

up or imprisoned or disappear; some are killed in mysterious circumstances (Beswick 2010; field

notes 2006; HRW 2007, 2011). The RPF limits public speech to acceptable topics, namely the hero

status of the RPF for liberating Tutsi from “the noose of Hutu power” and the resilience and ability of

Tutsi survivors to forgive “the wrong-doings of Hutu who killed” (interview with senior RPF official

2006).

In government discourse, the second component of the official narrative of “national unity and

(read Hutu) tell the truth about what they did during the genocide. As one senior RPF official in the

Ministry of Culture explained:


In Rwanda’s parlance, reconciliation is short for national unity and national

reconciliation. Rwandans are just simple peasant people, and they need us to

make decisions for them. We have given them peace, but they don’t know what

to do with it. Survivors are traumatized because of what happened to them. That

is why we brought back gacaca and ingando camps. Hutu will tell the truth about

what they did during the genocide, and justice will come. They will get

reconciled because that is how it used to be between Hutu and Tutsi. Once we

teach them, they will learn. . . . National unity and reconciliation is within reach.

(Interview 2006)


The ordinary Rwandans who participated in my research are more than just skeptical about the

government’s commitment to national unity and reconciliation; they also recognize it as a form of

social control. The words of Joseph M., a poor Tutsi survivor, are emblematic of the widely held

perception among survivors I interviewed:

We need to have the right to bury them where they belong [at home], not in

public memorials. We need to know how they died and who killed them. They

talk about national unity and reconciliation. But they don’t know what unity or

reconciliation means. I know I am a Tutsi, how can I not? I ran and hid because

of being a Tutsi. Now I have to forget that in the name of unity and

reconciliation. Unity for whom? Reconciliation for whom? It is a political game

that is the responsibility of local officials. Reconciliation is not an

administrative matter; it is an affair of the heart, of accepting the wrong and then

forgiving the ones who harmed you. (Interview 2006)

got caught up in politics when they came back [from Zaïre]. I confessed to get a

reduced sentence.6 But they changed the rules, and some who confessed got





between twenty and twenty-five years at gacaca. They said I would get out after

ten years if I confessed. Part of confessing was reeducation. Reeducation to learn

how to live with my Tutsi neighbors. I didn’t actually know what that meant

because I have always lived with Tutsi. The Tutsi I know are poor like my

family, and we struggled together sometimes. But the new government says that

we must learn national unity and reconciliation. So I got reeducated in 1999.

There I learned about national unity and reconciliation. But I told my truth. It

was even acknowledged by the authorities because they reduced my sentence!

But then at gacaca [in 2005] my truth was denounced as a lie and [I] got another

twenty-five years! National unity and reconciliation is just a way for this

government to eliminate Hutu. It’s like the new authorities are trying to kill

former Hutu through excessive punishment. (Interview with Jean-Claude, a

convicted prisoner, 2006)


Third, the collectivization of Hutu guilt for the 1994 genocide: in labeling all Hutu as perpetrators

of the genocide (génocidaires), the RPF has effectively chosen a strategy of maximum persecution.

The RPF arrested anyone who took part in the genocide without regard to individual motivations for

participating in the killing. Interahamwe militias and other state agents of the previous regime forced

many ordinary Hutu men to participate. By 2000 the RPF had detained more than one hundred

thousand individuals for acts of genocide (PRI 2007, 12). In assigning collective guilt to the Hutu

population, the policy of national unity and reconciliation makes no distinction among different types

of participation in the 1994 genocide. The Ministry of Local Government estimates that there were at

least three million perpetrators (MINALOC 2002). Academic research does not support the

government’s practice of collective guilt, finding instead that between 175,000 and 200,000

individuals participated—hardly the numbers needed to justify the assignment of collective guilt to

Hutu (Straus 2004).

Collective guilt also limits the participation of individual Hutu in community life. Opportunities

for paid employment are scarce at best, and the difficulties Hutus face in finding work are

compounded by the suspicion that “those who fled [into neighboring countries] must be by definition

guilty of genocide” (field notes 2006; Tertsakian 2008). Full participation in community life is also

limited because the perception that all Hutu are guilty of genocide shapes individual opportunities to

reintegrate into one’s hill. Many Hutu men told me that it is better not to participate in community life

rather than to be regarded with suspicion (corroborated by Tertsakian 2011). For example,


When we go to umuganda [community work], everyone knows which of us

[Hutu] is a released prisoner. Tutsi neighbors tell the [local official] that they are

too afraid to work next to us [Hutu], particularly when we work with pangas

[machetes]. Then you see them later and they laugh because we had to do their

umuganda labor. I was released for lack of evidence, but that does not matter. I

am Hutu, so I must be guilty. (Interview with Thomas, a salaried poor man,

2006)


Fourth, politicization of Tutsi victimhood: under the policy of national unity and reconciliation,

only Tutsi are able to call themselves “survivors.” This has the effect of negating the lived

experiences of the genocide of Hutu and Twa men and women who also risked death in Rwanda in





1994. It also silences the experiences of individuals from ethnically mixed families who lost some

family members but not others on the basis of ethnicity before, during, and after the genocide.

According to one RPF official, “Hutu cannot be survivors because they were not targeted for dying”

(interview with Ministry of Culture official 2006). While this interpretation accords with the legal

definition of genocide, it is also an effective technique for silencing non-Tutsi about the violence they

suffered before, during, and after the genocide at the hands of the RPF. As Joseph N., a destitute Tutsi

survivor of the genocide, said, “In April, we mourn as we are told [by our local officials]. If we mourn

too much or not enough, there can be trouble. One time, my son showed sympathy for a former Hutu

who is our pastor and neighbor. This is illegal so he went to prison until I could raise enough money to

get him released.”

Fifth, politicization of individual mourning: individual mourning is politicized in that the

government officially recognizes it only during the annual mourning period during the month of April.

Only official survivors are recognized, and the RPF represents only their trauma symbolically through

the image of the lonely, wounded survivor as the personification of the genocide. The government

invokes this image of the traumatized survivor to silence criticism, particularly from the international

community. Especially powerful is the image of the wailing survivor, usually a woman, head in hands,

and in a spasm of trauma that has come to reflect Rwanda’s mourning week, which is dedicated to

remembering and memorializing Tutsi lives lost. Lives lost—Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa—in the violence

before and after the genocide are not memorialized. Instead, the government uses the mourning period

to assert its official version of what happened during the genocide and to “keep the genocide alive”

(Rwandan ombudsman, quoted in Meierhenrich 2011, 292). The government requires that Rwandans

of all ethnicities attend mourning events throughout the month of April, notably the exhumation of

mass graves and the reburial of bodies, and listen to the speeches of government officials that remind

the population of the need to “never again” allow genocide in Rwanda.

Many ordinary Rwandans that I spoke with in 2006, both in formal interviews and through

participant observation, said that they felt the RPF was manipulating the way the genocide is

remembered to maintain its position of power and wealth rather than truly seeking to unify the country

(field notes 2006, corroborated by Meierhenrich 2011, 287–93). For example, “We dig up bodies for

reburial at the national ceremony but how do we know those remains are even Tutsi bodies? We

[Hutu] died as well, but nothing is mentioned about how we suffered during the genocide. Not all of us

killed. Instead we go because our new government says we must; we were told this very clearly at

ingando” (interview with Gaston, a destitute released Hutu prisoner, 2006). Others, particularly Tutsi

survivors, acknowledged the reburials as “a little bit necessary for national healing” but would prefer

to do it in private, “away from the spotlight” (field notes 2006). Rwandan culture frowns upon public

displays of emotion, and most of the Tutsi survivors that I spoke with found mourning week

“offensive,” “upsetting,” and “humiliating” (field notes 2006). This was particularly so for Tutsi

widows who had lost their Hutu fathers, husbands, sons, or brothers during the genocide, as there is no

official outlet for their grief. In homogenizing the diverse individual lived experiences of victims of

the genocide—Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa—as well as those of individuals who lived through the violence

of the 1990–94 civil war and the emergency period after the genocide (1994–2000), the RPF is stage-

managing and politicizing individual mourning.

In May 2008 the RPF amended the 2003 constitution to require that the genocide be known

officially as the “genocide committed on Tutsi” (AFROL 2008; IRDP 2008). This move further

excluded the possibility of non-Tutsi survivors while allowing the government to continue to reify its

role in stopping the genocide, as the amendment makes a powerful distinction between those who





were the perpetrators of the genocide (Hutu) and those who stopped it (the RPF). It also eliminated the

possibility that “Hutu men made fateful choices to participate in violence against their Tutsi neighbors

because they were afraid and because they felt pressure from other Hutus to do so” (Straus 2006, 231).

Instead, the constitutional amendment was yet another tactic that the RPF-led government used to

affirm its contention that the deep-rooted but latent ethnic enmity of all Hutu for all Tutsi was a root

cause of the genocide. Similarly, the government created the National Commission for the Fight

against Genocide (known by its French-language acronym, CNLG) in September 2007 in an effort to

further legitimize its official version of history. Part of the commission’s mandate was to research the

causes and consequences of the genocide and “to elaborate and put in place strategies that are meant to

fight revisionism, negationism and trivialization” (MINIJUST 2007b, art. 1[7]; CNLG 2013).

Sixth, new national symbols: in 2001, the RPF adopted a new flag, national anthem, and national

seal, since “the old ones are stained with Tutsi blood. We need a fresh start with new symbols to

represent Rwanda as it is: peaceful and prosperous” (interview with Ministry of Culture official 2006).

The flag, the official said, needed to be changed because of its “association with Hutu domination over

Tutsi.” The old flag was based on the Belgian flag and was made up of three vertical bands, one each

of red, yellow, and green, with the letter “R” in the middle. The new postgenocide flag is made up of

three horizontal stripes, green on the bottom, yellow in the middle, and light blue on top, with a

beaming sun on the right side. The green represents “the promise of prosperity” through the “modern

and rational use of the country’s resources”; the yellow band of the sun’s rays represents the hope of

economic development and the “awakening” of the Rwandan people from “old tendencies of hatred”;

and the blue represents “peace and stability for all” (interview with Ministry of Culture official 2006).

The RPF adopted a new national anthem on October 25, 2001, with the official justification that the

old song encouraged the Hutu to throw off the “chains of Tutsi oppression.” It replaced the old anthem

with new lyrics that “promote the idea of one Rwanda for all Rwandans” (interview with Ministry of

Culture official 2006). Ordinary Rwandans who participated in my research, Tutsi and Hutu alike,

were baffled by the introduction of new national symbols, noting that the new symbols “seemed to be

designed for those who returned after the war” rather than “designed to facilitate peace and security”

(interview with Emmanuel, a poor Tutsi survivor of the genocide, 2006). Another individual

recognized that the new symbols were an effort to “remind those like me [a released prisoner] that

Rwanda no longer belongs to us [Hutu]” (interview with Tharcisse, a destitute released Hutu prisoner,

2006). Burnet found similar sentiments among Rwandans she spoke with at the time the new flag and

anthem were introduced: “The majority of Rwandans that I asked about the new flag and anthem

smiled wanly or made a comment to the effect that the state does as the state sees fit and the citizens

wait to see what will happen next. The few Rwandans willing to speak more openly wondered why, if

the country was the same, the people needed a new flag and a new national anthem. They viewed the

new symbols as representing RPF dominance in the New Rwanda” (Burnet 2012, 166). A majority of

the Rwandans I consulted told me that for them, the new national anthem is actually an RPF war song

that warns Tutsi to protect themselves against Hutu.7

Seventh, the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission (NURC): in 1999, the RPF created the

NURC. The NURC is managed on a daily basis by the executive secretary, who is responsible to its

deputy chairperson.8 The deputy in turn reports to the chairperson of the NURC, who is accountable to

Parliament for all its activities and publications (interview with NURC official 2006; NURC 2007a).

There is also a Council of Commissioners, which acts as an advisory body under the guidance of the

chairperson (NURC n.d.). There are twelve commissioners, all of whom “are directly appointed by

President Kagame” (interview with NURC official 2006). There are two substantive NURC programs





—Civic Education and Conflict Management and Peace Building—both of which are staffed by young

Anglophone returnees (NURC 2007c, 2007d). All NURC staff “must be members of the RPF”

(interview with NURC official 2006). All staff are based in Kigali and travel to the “hills [rural areas]

to check in on how unity and reconciliation activities are faring once every month” since it is “a non-

negotiable option for Rwandese” (interview with NURC official 2006).

The NURC is tasked with “emphasizing the unifying aspects of Rwandan history, such as our

shared culture and language and deemphasizing divisive ones like the legacy of colonial rule and

divisive politics” in all activities in the public sphere, including government, the private sector, civil

society, and the media (interview with senior NURC official 2006). Its primary task is to sensitize

“Rwandans on the importance of national unity,” propose “measures that can eradicate divisions

among Rwandans and . . . reinforce national unity and reconciliation,” and denounce and fight “against

acts, writings and utterances which are intended to promote any kind of discrimination or intolerance”

(NURC 2007b). It also holds regular consultative meetings, including a national summit (held

biannually, usually in August) to ensure that all government agencies, political parties, local officials,

and Rwandans “from all walks of life respect and observe the policy of national unity and

reconciliation” (NURC 2000, 21, 2007g). It organizes the ingando reeducation camps, holds

community festivals to promote unity and reconciliation “among the grassroots” (NURC 2007h),

provides funds to students’ clubs (NURC 2007i), and consults with other government bodies on key

aspects of their mandate to ensure across-the-board compliance with the policy of national unity and

reconciliation (NURC 2007b). For example, in 2006 the NURC approved the secondary school

curriculum produced by the Ministry of Education, following careful review to ensure strict adherence

to the “proper version of Rwandan history and our historical unity before the colonizers arrived”

(interview with NURC official 2006).9

Eighth, the ingando reeducation camps: another mechanism of national unity and reconciliation is

the “reeducation” of certain segments of the population through solidarity camps. The RPF encourages

some Rwandans—government ministers, church leaders, university lecturers—and requires others—

ex-soldiers, ex-combatants, released prisoners, gacaca judges, and incoming university students—to

attend ingando for periods ranging from several days to several months to study government programs

and Rwandan history, and to learn about how to unify and reconcile (NURC 2006a, 2006b, 2006c). 10

The format differs according to the profile of the participants. Those individuals required to attend