Rwanda. Un génocide populaire (review)

The 1994 genocide in Rwanda has engendered a massive and steady stream of publications, ranging from thorough scholarly work (including a number of Ph.D. dissertations) to partisan pamphlets of doubtful quality. Although there is still a great deal that we do not know about this tragic episode, this considerable volume of research has contributed to a broader, more sophisticated, and increasingly balanced understanding of the complicated motivations, processes, and contradictions associated with the genocide. Of course, with continued publications the added value offered by new work tends to decrease over time; that is why Kimonyo's book is interesting.

Indeed, Un genocide populaire studies the genocide from an angle that has been grossly under-researched until now. In this work, Kimonyo inquires into local-level political and social relations, attempting to uncover the roles of history and of municipal power brokers, of longstanding frustrations with the functioning of the state, and even of the manipulation of the democratization process in convincing ordinary people to participate in the violence unleashed against the Tutsi. He focuses particularly on two provinces (préfectures), Butare and Kibuye, and, within these, on two municipalities (communes), Kigembe and Gitesi, where he conducted extensive field research, interviewing dozens of informants and consulting local administrative archives.

Before engaging with the local level data, Kimonyo offers a useful discussion of the historical background. In doing so, he has the courage (especially for someone living and working in present-day Rwanda) to challenge some of the current regime's fundamental tenets—such as the presentation of precolonial Rwanda as a haven of peace and harmony, or the claim that ethnicity merely was a creation of colonial rule. On the basis of hitherto unknown documents, he also shows to what extent the Habyarimana regime pursued a policy of definitively excluding the Tutsi refugees and of marginalizing and "marking" the internal Tutsi. Somewhat paradoxically, this led to increased assimilation of Tutsi, particularly in the countryside: by the end of the 1980s, the sense of difference in social relations between Hutu and Tutsi had considerably diminished. Not surprisingly, this trend was reversed when the Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) invaded the country in October 1990.

Kimonyo's analysis of the provincial and local levels offers new insights into the dynamics of anti-Tutsi violence. He finds that during the 1990s, in a context of declining influence by the ruling MRND party-state, other political parties—in particular the MDR (Mouvement Démocratique Républicain)—played a major role in popular mobilization, and he traces a clear link between the strength and ideological leanings of those parties that adopted vigorous policies of popular mobilization in the period leading up to the genocide, and those parties active during the period of the 1959–61 revolution. The ascendance of other parties relative to the MRND (Mouvement Révolutionnaire National pour le Développement, renamed in 1991 to Mouvement Républicain pour la Démocratie et le Développement) was facilitated by widespread popular discontent with the grave economic conditions and increasing class tensions, as well as by the regional favoritism practiced by the regime—a policy that had politically and socially marginalized the two provinces of Kimonyo's focus. After the RPF attack of October 1990, the context of war reinvigorated the popular memory of the "liberating" achievements of the old MDR-Parmehutu, and allowed the hardline political factions to reaffirm a fundamental ethnic antagonism between Hutu and Tutsi in a manner that ultimately legitimized violence against the Tutsi minority.

While his account is a useful addition to our knowledge of the genocide, however, Kimonyo may overestimate the degree of local autonomy and underestimate the role the state continued to play, not only at the national level, but at the regional and local levels as well. In reality, a consensus emerged between the MRND and the majority ("Hutu Power") wings of other parties; within the context of the war, a situation akin to single-party rule developed among...