Arielle Cohen

April 27, 2017

Reading Program
Mr. Estanislao
RP Benchmark #3 & Outline Format

Books, Documentaries, and Articles:

1) Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak by Jean Hatzfeld
2) A People Betrayed: The Role of the West in Rwandas Genocide by L R Melvern
3) We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We will be Killed with our Families: Stories from
Rwanda by Philip Gourevitch
Questions:
A) What happened after the genocide? Are racial tensions still present?
B) How was the rest of the world involved in this genocide?
C) How did the genocide start? How did it end?
D) Is it possible to stop a genocide before it starts? How can other countries be informed
that a genocide is happening?
E) What techniques did the Hutus use to assert their dominance over the Tutsis? How
many people died?
F) How was the Tutsi population affected both physically and psychologically?
G) How were so many people pushed to kill their fellow Rwandans? Can anyone be made a
killer? Who supplied the weapons?
H) Where did the Hutus hatred for the Tutsis come from?
I) Who is to blame for the Rwandan genocide?
J) Was the Rwandan Patriotic Front good or bad?
K) Can genocide only happen to minorities within certain populations?
L) Why did the French support Rwanda before and during the genocide?
Thesis:
In the Rwandan Genocide, almost one million people were killed because Western countries
werent able to stop the genocide. However, if Western superpowers involved in the UN closely
followed and continue to follow the dynamics of countries around the world, they will be able to
prevent genocide from happening in the future.

Ah-ha Moment:
The Rwandan Genocide was preventable and should have been stopped by western
superpowers. However, it wasnt, so many countries are to blame for the creation and
continuation of the genocide. The bystander is just as bad as the bully.

also...

Anyone can be made a killer. Humans are naturally altruistic, but they are also naturally greedy,
and greed, if strong enough, can drive anyone to kill, even the most innocent.
Preface:

Machete Season
First I cracked an old mamas skull with a club. But she was already lying almost dead on the
ground, so I did not feel death at the end of my arm. I went home that evening without even
thinking about it (Hatzfeld 21).
This is a really powerful quote because it shows what was going on inside of that mans head
when he killed a Tutsi. It leaves the reader with questions about why and how the genocide
happened, and is overall a good lead-in quote.

Paragraph 1: Background (the early makings of the genocide)

We Wish to Inform You

In the precolonial monarchy, pygmies [or the generalized Hutu race] served as court jesters,
and because Rwandas kings were Tutsis, the memory of this ancestral role meant that during
the genocide pygmies were sometimes put to death as royalist tools, while elsewhere they were
enlisted by Hutu militias as rapists... (Gourevitch 7-8).

Machete Season
At the time of Rwandas declaration of independence in 1962, the Hutu leaders who swept into
power had emerged from a violent and flawed social movement: the popular revolution of 1959,
following on the death of the last Tutsi king. Having conflated the once-privileged Tutsi
aristocrat with the hardworking Tutsi peasant, the populist Hutu administration depicted all
Tutsis as scheming, treacherous speculators and parasites in an overpopulated country
(Hatzfeld 54).
This quote provides more background on the rise of Hutu power.

Machete Season
Habyarimana ordered the seizure of goods and property, the uprooting of communities, the
imposition of educational quotas, and the passage of exclusionary laws and laws prohibiting
mixed marriage (which remained in force until 1976) (Hatzfeld 54).
This shows a few of the eight stages of genocide, written by Gregory H. Stanton. Can be
compared to the Holocaust or any other genocide.

A People Betrayed
The killing rate in Rwanda was five times that achieved by the Nazis (Melvern 4)
A fact that will interest the reader and that also shows the efficiency of the genocide.

We Wish to Inform You

Although the killing was low-tech---performed largely by machete---it was carried out at a
dazzling speed: of an original population of about seven and a half million, at least eight
hundred thousand people were killed in just a hundred days. Rwandans often speak of a million
deaths, and they may be right. The dead of Rwanda accumulated at nearly three times the rate
of Jewish dead during the Holocaust. It was the most efficient mass killing since the atomic
bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Gourevitch 3).

Machete Season
After the massacres, the population of Nyamata fell [from 119,000] to 50,500 inhabitants and
that of the three hills to 5,000. Within six weeks, about five out of six Tutsis had been killed
(Hatzfeld 20).
This shows how efficient the killings were in Rwanda by using a specific district as an example.
It will be good background information to include the statistics of the killings.

Machete Season
[The Rwandan Patriotic Front] was formed on the basis of exiled troops that organized in
Uganda and other neighboring nations in 1988; it began military operations against the
Rwandan army in 1990. On the opening day of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsis, it
launched a vast offensive and by July 4 took definitive control of the country, under the control
of Paul Kagame, who later became president of the Republic of Rwanda. The RPF was
subsequently reorganized into the regular Rwandan army, currently engaged mainly in the
Congolese region of Kivu (Hatzfeld 30).
This quote explains the basis of what the Rwandan Patriotic front was. It explains when it was
formed, who it was composed of, and when it took its most important actions, which is all vital
information. I may use this entire quote, or I may just paraphrase this information.\

A People Betrayed
Belgian rule was harsh and, as Belgian rule consolidated, hundreds of thousand of Hutu
peasants fled to neighboring Uganda to become migrant labourers (Melvern 10).
Background of the Hutus and Tutsis under Belgian rule.

Paragraph 2:The difference between Hutu and Tutsi

A People Betrayed
Some people were given a Tutsi card because they had more money or possessed the
required number of cows (Melvern 11).
In the midst of planning the Rwandan genocide, the now Hutu-run government distributed
classification cards to differentiate between Hutus and Tutsis. However, because both ethnic
groups physically looked so similar, and because strict records werent kept before then on
family lineage, some classifications were given based on a persons wealth. This was especially
pertinent in the South, where mixed marriages were more common than in the North. Given this
information, one may question whether the Hutus and the Tutsis were actually different ethnic
groups, or just of different social classes.

A People Betrayed
The Tutsi ruling classes were thought to have come from further north, perhaps Ethiopia, and
were more closely related to the noble Europeans (Melvern 8).
This was stated in an account written in the late 1850s by European explorer John Hanning
Speke. This distinction of the Hutus and Tutsis made by the Speke may have been the
beginning of the differentiation of races in Rwanda, and ultimately, the Hutus deep-rooted
hatred for the Tutsis.

We Wish to Inform You

With time, Hutus and Tutsis spoke the same language, followed the same religion, intermarried,
and lived intermingled, without territorial distinctions, on the same hills, sharing the same social
and political culture in small chiefdoms. The chiefs were called Mwamis, and some of them were
Hutus, some Tutsis; Hutus and Tutsis fought together in the Mwamis armies; through marriage
and clientage, Hutus could become hereditary Tutsis, and [Vice Versa]. Because of all of this
mixing, ethnographers and historians have lately come to agree that Hutus and Tutsis cannot
properly be called distinct ethnic groups (Gourevitch 47, 48).
Although this is true, it is human nature to create us and them groups. Again, the Hutus and
Tutsis were not of different races but of different classes. This was the only distinction between
the two groups, and it was at the heart of the genocide.

Paragraph 3: Hatred for the Tutsis (why the genocide happened)

A People Betrayed
...in April 1972 there [were]... massacres of Hutu of unprecedented magnitude. An estimated
200,000 Hutu were killed in a systematic slaughter which led to accusations of genocide
(Melvern 21).
This may have fueled some of the Hatred that the Hutus felt towards the Tutsis. Some called
this massacre a selective genocide because the Tutsis only targeted the educated Hutus who
may have had the potential to have leadership roles.

Machete Season
We no longer saw a human being when we turned up a Tutsi in the swamps. I mean a person
like us, sharing similar thoughts and feelings. The hunt was savage, the hunters were savage,
the prey was savage--savagery took over the mind (Hatzfeld 47).
The Hutu extremists were able to create hatred for a common enemy that was so strong, the
Hutu killers were able to look past the fact that they were technically the same race as their
fellow Tutsis, and that they were previously neighbors with them as well. They were able to
disassociate their race and that of the Tutsis and begin to differentiate from them. Even though
the Hutus and Tutsis looked almost physically identical in most cases, the Hutu killers now saw
the Tutsis as less than human, and less than themselves. Sometimes hatred can stem from
previous jealousy our newfound wealth, both of which occurred for most Hutus during this time.
However, the genocide is an extreme case of this hatred.
A People Betrayed
The Tutsi ruling classes were thought to have come from further north, perhaps Ethiopia, and
were more closely related to the noble Europeans (Melvern 8).
This was stated in an account written in the late 1850s by European explorer John Hanning
Speke. This distinction of the Hutus and Tutsis made by the Speke may have been the
beginning of the differentiation of races in Rwanda, and ultimately, the Hutus deep-rooted
hatred for the Tutsis.

A People Betrayed
A key ideological ingredient of [the] emerging Hutu revolution [in 1957] was the belief that
Rwanda had been overrun by Tutsi invaders who had enslaved the Hutu. This was an effective
appeal to Hutu solidarity, a rallying point for revolution (Melvern 13)
This quote explains the basis and reasoning behind the Hutus hatred for the Tutsis. It was a
strong enough belief to rally poor Hutu farmers 37 years later and create the Rwandan
Genocide.

Include quote about how the Hutus wanted government power, as they were the majority in
Rwanda. They wanted Rwanda to be purely Hutu.

Paragraph 4: Hutu Comradery

Machete Season
Suddenly Hutus of every kind were patriotic brothers without any partisan discord. We were
through playing around with political words. We were no longer in our each-to-his-own mood.
We were doing a job to order. We were lining up behind everyones enthusiasm. We gathered
into teams on the soccer field and went out hunting as kindred spirits (Hatzfeld 16).
Quoting the killer Ignace Rukiramacumu. The killings brought a sense of comradery to the
Hutus. A certain kind of bond is always formed between individuals who have a common enemy
(Ex: soldiers in war). The Hutus had people to blame for all of their problems, and were also
apart of a team effort. In this situation, anyone can be made a killer, if the push is strong
enough. Peer pressure played a factor in this (everyone else was killing, even the government,
who had all the power, was in on it) The propaganda played a role in this. (the radio stations).
And, peoples inherent greed played a role in this (the killers who were of the lower class were
allowed to loot their richer Tutsi neighbors).

Machete Season
We have always remained friends, always been united the same way despite the calamities of
life, exile, and prison. Whatever we have to do, we do it as comrades, in every situation
(Hatzfeld 35).
Quoting the Hutu killer Adalbert Munzigura. This quote is similar to the quote directly above it,
but also shows the extent to which the killers comradery goes. Committing genocide created a
life-long bond for friends in certain groups of Hutus.
Paragraph 6: Why and how the genocide was so successful (propaganda)

Machete Season
We got up rich, we went to bed with full bellies, we lived a life of plenty. Pillaging is more
worthwhile than harvesting, because it profits everyone equally (Hatzfeld 64).
The killers were allowed to loot their richer Tutsi neighbors and, in turn, were rewarded for their
participation in the genocide. The killings were fueled by greed, but greed could make people go
crazy. Many Hutus turned on other Hutus to gain more wealth or just because they wanted to
threaten to kill someone.

Machete Season
The more we killed, the more greediness urged us on (Hatzfeld 49).
Again, greed fueled the killings.

Machete Season
...kind words for Tutsis were more fatal than evil deeds (Hatzfeld 76).
The norms of most societies were turned upside down. Killing was better than not.

Machete Season
When you have been prepared the right way by the radios and the official advice, you obey
more easily, even if the order is to kill your neighbors. The mission of a good organizer is to
stifle your hesitations when he gives you instructions (Hatzfeld 71).
The Hutu extremists were good organizers.

We Wish to Inform You

...what if [a] system of communal obligation is turned on its head, so that murder and rape
become the rule? What if innocence becomes a crime and the person who protects his neighbor
is counted as an accomplice? (Gourevitch 34).

We Wish to Inform You

And the Tutsis had started it, [Dr. Ntaki, Pastor Elizaphan Ntakirutimanas son] said, by killing
the President. I [the author] reminded him that there was no evidence linking Tutsis to the
assassination; that, in fact, the genocide had been meticulously planned by the Hutu extremists
who set it into motion within an hour of the Presidents death. Dr. Ntaki ignored me. If President
Kennedy had been assassinated in this country by a black man, he said, the American
population would have most certainly killed all the blacks (Gourevitch 39).

We Wish to Inform You

Everyone was called to hunt the enemy They say, Hey, he might denounce us later. He
must kill. Everyone must kill at least one person. So this person who is not a killer is made to do
it. And the next day its become a game for him. You dont need to keep pushing him
(Gourevitch 24).

We Wish to Inform You

...they chanted the slogan Eliminate the Tutsis (Gourevitch 29).

Machete Season
It was to kill or be killed (Hatzfeld 230).
The Hutu killers believed they had only two option in the Rwandan Genocide: to kill or be killed.
And when faced with that option, and to also receive rewards for killing, this was the incredibly
successful push to become a killer. They also believed that they would get no penalty for it, not
if they were effective in eliminating all of the Tutsis. This also drove forward the speed in which
they were able to kill.

Paragraph 7: The psychology of killers (can anyone be made a killer?)

Machete Season
...nothing bothered us (Hatzfeld 47).
These people were made to be killer by what they thought was the majority, but was only really
a small group of Hutu extremists. Later it became the majority, and people, like the person
speaking in this quote, started to kill their neighbors. Most people have empathy and and a
natural sense of relation to other humans, but many of the Hutu killers in Rwanda

Machete Season
Man can get used to killing, if he kills on and on. He can become a beast without noticing it.
Some threatened one another when they had no more Tutsis under the machete. In their faces,
you could see the need to kill. But for others, on the contrary, killing a person drove a share of
fear into their hearts. They did not feel it at first, but later it tormented them They felt frightened
or sickened. Some felt cowardly for not killing enough, some felt cowardly for being forced to kill,
so some drank overmuch to stop thinking about their cowardice (Hatzfeld 49).
This is a killers view on the different types of killers in the Rwandan Genocide. He believes that
some men are natural killers, and others do have a sense of morality that is not easily overrun
by the mandatory killings. Maybe it just depends on the persons genetics, or how much control
of themselves they have. Morality is natural, and is proven to start at birth, but maybe
sometimes a person is easily made to break moral code for a reward and/or self-preservation.

Machete Season
I want to make clear that from the first gentleman I killed to the last, I was not sorry about a
single one (Hatzfeld 51).
Every killer was affected differently by the genocide. This killer felt no mercy for the people he
killed, he was just doing his job.
Paragraph 8: The Rwandan Patriotic Front

A People Betrayed
...the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF)... became an organization dedicated to the return of the
refugees to Rwanda. Its leaders denied that it was a Tutsi organization and it claimed
support from all those opposed to the repressive and backward Habyarimana regime (Melvern
26).
This is the goal of the RPF.

Paragraph 9: How the planning of the genocide was hidden from the rest of the world

Machete Season
In Germany and in Rwanda, efficient preparations preceded the formal decision on
extermination, as if the decision were too appalling to be announced in public until it was
already being carried out (Hatzfeld 58).
In reality, the efficient preparations were more important than the formal decision. This helped
the Hutu extremists keep the plan of genocide a secret from the rest of the world and allow it to
move forward without intervention.

A People Betrayed
Internationally, Rwanda was portrayed as a democratic country with rule by the majority.
Among non-communist countries Rwanda was probably the most controlled state in the world
(Melvern 25).
This was during Habyarimanas presidency. It allowed western countries to be fooled by the
appearance of a smoothly-running country. It was ruled by the majority, but that majority wanted
to wipe out the minority. They wanted the country of Rwanda all to themselves.

Paragraph 10: Colonization in Rwanda

We Wish to Inform You

...the Belgians had made ethnicity the defining feature of Rwandan existence (Gourevitch 57).

A People Betrayed
Belgian rule was harsh and, as Belgian rule consolidated, hundreds of thousand of Hutu
peasants fled to neighboring Uganda to become migrant labourers (Melvern 10).
Background of the Hutus and Tutsis under Belgian rule.

Paragraph 11: Who is to blame for the genocide?

We Wish to Inform You

...the Belgians had made ethnicity the defining feature of Rwandan existence (Gourevitch 57).
A People Betrayed
World Bank officials were fully aware of the militarization of Rwanda, but failed to share their
knowledge even with the UN Security Council (Melvern 5).
The continuation of the genocide seems to be the result of secret or disregarded information.

A People Betrayed
In 1933, the Belgian administration organized a census and teams of Belgian bureaucrats
classifies the whole population as either Hutu or Tutsi or Twa (Melvern 10)
Belgium, although not intentionally, laid out the first stage of the eight stages of genocide:
classification.

A People Betrayed
France believed that in Rwanda they were supporting a majority, the Hutu, against a
minority, the Tutsi. For them, this justified calling Rwanda democratic. That the majority was
defined along ethnic lines did not seem to matter; majority rule legitimized French military and
diplomatic support for the regime (Melvern 30).
The genocide could have been prevented if not for French support.

Paragraph 12: The involvement of the UN (could the genocide have been prevented)?

We Wish to Inform You

[Major General Romeo Dallaire, the Canadian in command of the UN force] labeled his fax
most immediate, and signed off in French: Peux ce que veux. Allonsy (Where theres a will,
theres a way. Lets go). The response from New York was: Lets not. The chief of UN
peacekeeping at the time was Kofi Annan, the Ghanaian who would become Secretary-General.
Annans deputy, Iqbal Riza, replied to Dallaire the same day, rejecting the operation
contemplated in his fax---and the extension of protection to the informant---as beyond the
mandate entrusted to UNAMIR (Gourevitch 105).
It should be the UNs job to resolve internal conflicts. However, at the time of the Rwandan
Genocide, the UN decided to allow the country to resolve the conflict themselves. The UN saw
that Rwanda at least had a government, so they thought it was possible that the genocide could
be avoided without any intervention. The Hutu-run government at the time, led by President
Habyarimana, was successful in hiding any information of the planning of the genocide from
many countries around the world. The government also created the illusion of stability by
protecting its people (the Hutus) from rebels who wanted to overthrow the country (the RPF,
which they said was made up mostly of Tutsis). In this way, the countries involved in the UNs
decision to withdraw their efforts in Rwanda were wrong in doing so. This decision cost the lives
of almost one million people. Using the Rwandan Genocide as the sole example, it is obvious
that the UN should always intervene when a country faces turmoil. However, in some cases, a
country's citizens might become angered with the intervention, and it might make the situation
worse. This issue is difficult to generalize, and should be dealt with case to case. However, the
UN made a terrible misjudgement of what was needed in the making of the Rwandan Genocide
and should have kept their involvement in the issue because of the power the Hutu extremists
had and the fact that the Tutsis were such a small minority.

A People Betrayed
...the [UN] peacekeepers were sneaking away. We could not believed what they were doing
just abandoning us when they knew the place was surrounded. There were thousands of
unarmed refugees...it seemed unthinkable (Melvern 3)
The UN abandoned all of the Tutsis when they withdrew, and this accounted for thousands of
innocent lives. This may have just looked like a civil war, but the UN did not pay attention to the
signs of genocide. There were massacres in broad daylight before the genocide, but still the UN
withdrew.

A People Betrayed
The more extreme the racism the more likely the genocide (Melvern 250).
Paraphrased from Raphael Lemkin, who coined the word genocide and initiated the Genocide
Convention. This may be one way for the UN to predict a genocide before it happens. There are
patterns one can see throughout history, and the UN should take these patterns and monitor
countries with them in order to prevent future genocides.

Paragraph 13: Conclusion and how the Tutsi Population was affected

We Wish to Inform You

I dont want to die in the street, I want to die at home. He resumed his normal voice. When
youre resigned and oppressed youre already dead. It shows the genocide was prepared for too
long. I detest this fear. These victims of genocide had been psychologically prepared to expect
death just for being Tutsi. They were being killed for so long that they were already dead
(Gourevitch 23).

We Wish to Inform You

Rwanda [is] two nations in one state (Gourevitch 62)

This genocide was successful because somehow, Hutu extremists were able to turn the normal
set of morality laws around to create a society where killing was normal. The push to kill was so
strong because it came from the government, who had the power to punish those who did not
participate in the killings.