- Rwanda Since the 1994 Genocide
Rwanda Since the 1994 Genocide

NEWS

What I know about Rwanda

By dagan on January 22, 2013

1) Many blame the UN [peacekeeping troops] for having the ability to save lives and even prevent the genocide from happening. However, I have learned that the time it would have taken for UN to deploy troops and supplies and “save” Rwandans would have been 2 weeks — by then half of those killed would have already been dead. (learned from Alan Kuperman (2001), The Limits of Humanitarian Intervention: Genocide in Rwanda)

2) People often forget the third “ethnic” group in Rwanda – Twa (understood from general readings/literature, visit to country)

3) The Constitutional Revision of 2003 outlaws any mentioning of race, ethnicity, or other discriminatory/divisive label, for fear of inciting genocide ideology. As a result, the identities “Hutu,” “Tutsi,” and “Twa” have been banned from public discourse, only to be expressed under government-imposed sanctions (learned from thesis research — Desrosiers, Thomson, Freedman et al., NYTimes, Constitutional Revision, amongst others)


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