Rashomon Goes to Rwanda
5
that have come to constitute the conventional wisdom on the Rwandan
genocide. First, it could have been stopped, saving hundreds of thousands of
lives if the international community had the will to do so (e.g., Gourevitch, 1996;
Kuperman, 1999; Power, 2002). Second, most of Rwandan society was involved
in some capacity, either as victims or perpetrators (e.g., Mamdani, 1999). Third,
some form of punishment and reconciliation should be imposed and facilitated
for the killers as well as their victims (e.g., Africa
Rights, 1995 ; De Forge, 1999).
And, fourth, rebuilding civil society and political participation are the keys to
facilitating Rwandan development and preventing a recurrence of the mass
killings (e.g., Newbury, 1988; Bates, 2002).
The research and discussion leading to these conclusions presumes that
we actually understand what took place during the civil war that ran unabated
from 1990 to 1994 and during the period of genocide, then extrapolating from
this common understanding to issues of conflict processes, reconciliation, and
state building. In essence, the conclusions linked to policy recommendations
assume away the Rashomon problem, assuming that there is a known objective
account of what happened in Rwanda in 1994. For example, Alaine Destexhe,
argues that “although we will never know exactly how many died, this should
not be used to lessen the significance of the crime itself. It is not necessary to
speculate on the exact final figure for the number of deaths. There was a
genocide last year in Rwanda. That is a fact, not speculation (Destexhe, 68).”
Unfortunately, just as Kurosowa’s film highlights, the fractured and subjective
Convention