Rashomon Goes to Rwanda
9
version. In the conventional view, the killing and other systematic violence
constituted a genocide under international law that was meant to: 1)
undermine support for the invading Tutsi rebels (coming from Uganda to the
North) and 2) eliminate supporters of conciliatory policies toward the Tutsi, both
those permanent residents of Rwanda as well as members of the greater Tutsi
Diaspora seeking to return to their perceived homeland.
There is consensus that the political movement/party ‘Hutu Power’ and
the militia groups collectively known as the Interahamwe (“those who stand
together”) planned and executed the genocide. There is also some consensus
that the Hutu are responsible for the missile attack and assassination of
Habyarimana (Rwanda’s president) and the president of Burundi – precipitating
the mass killing, although many hotly contest this view (Masden, 1999). Perhaps
most disturbing to those paying attention to the case was the widespread
amount of popular engagement with which the genocide was enacted. In the
commonly accepted view, seemingly everyone was involved; an entire society
descended on a vulnerable minority ethnic group – the Tutsi. Here, the military,
the militia, the police, farmers, teachers, doctors, lawyers, students, mothers,
fathers, cousins – everyone took part and as a result the entire society bears
both culpability and responsibility for murder, justice and reconciliation. This
view of a guilty society contrasts with the fact that many of the mass killings
were conducted by relatively small numbers of perpetrators. For example, in
Ruhengeri, where an estimated 25,000 died, only several hundred are believed
Convention