Kyle Blankenship

May 12, 2014

Genocide in the Central African Republic: When will the world speak out?
In 1994, the eyes of the world were trained in horror upon a tiny central African nation, one that until
the stench of hundreds of thousands of rotten bodies reached the nostrils of the international
community was almost completely ignored.
Rwanda, known by Belgian colonialists as le pays de Mille Collines, or the land of a Thousand Hills,
is a land of striking alpine beauty and secrecy. However, beneath the natural riches, Rwanda has for
decades seethed with the blackest human evils. Populated by an ethnic group called the Banyarwanda
and split into two major castes, known as Hutu and Tutsi and a smaller group called the Twa, the
country of Rwanda, etched out and ruled by Germany and Belgium until its independence in 1962, has a
history indelibly marked by violence.
Since 1994, Hutu and Tutsi have become titles associated with tribal conflict, though that term is
misleading and often used a catch-all. In much the same way that sectarianism is used liberally in
current coverage of Middle Eastern conflicts, most famously in relation to the bloodshed between the
Sunni and Shia branches of Islam in post-Hussein Iraq, tribalism is most often used as a way of
simplifying conflicts and distancing the international community from the horrors of the unknown
world. However, especially when considering the history of the Rwandan genocide, most conflicts are
often a confluence of familiar class-based and political tensions, and often the truth is far uglier and hits
closer to home than those watching from overseas may recognize.
In Rwanda, a history of ethnic tension fueled by the struggle for political and economic strength
created a recurring cycle of violence between the Tutsi minority, comparable to a feudal aristocracy in
pre-colonial Rwanda, and the Hutu majority. This system, before the arrival of the Germans into Central
Africa in the 19th century, was considered fluid, with intermarriage and accessibility to wealth and power
a reasonable hope for the poorer Hutu peasant class. Colonialism, with its focus on cultivating a
collaborative native population in its pursuit of extractable wealth, manifested itself in Rwanda with the
generous treatment and formation of a Tutsi monarchy at the expense of Hutus, whose access to
political power and wealth was blocked by both Belgian colonialists and rich Tutsi overlords.
The Belgians, using fictional and racist classifications, believed that Tutsis were in fact genetically
different from the Hutu and the Twa, having come from more regal stock in the Nile Valley in North
Africa, and therefore were destined to rule over their less evolved charges. In turn, they flooded the
Tutsis with opportunity and relegated the Rwanda majority to poverty and subservience. Within this
unjust system, ethnic tensions began to reflect the imbalanced economic and political environment,
with anti-Tutsi sentiment taking on religious undertones and prophetic beliefs in a return to Hutu
domination coursing through the peasantry. For years, this system was kept viable through Belgian
heavy handedness, but as the end of colonialism fast approached, the Belgians reversed course and

allowed Hutu participation in the political scene, endangering Tutsi domination and empowering a Hutu
majority that had stewed in subjugation for decades.
With independence, Rwanda imploded. Hutus took control of Rwandan government in 1960, ending
the long-standing monarchy in 1961 and securing independence from Belgium in July 1962. But ethnic
tensions remained, exacerbated by the collapse of the colonial government and the mercenary struggle
for power that gripped the nation. A series of conflicts stemming from the Hutu effort to push the Tutsi
from the country in the 1960s led to a radicalization of the Hutu party, and spurred the opening salvo of
calls for ethnic cleansing and large-scale killing.
With population growth rampant and the country floundering in poverty, an ultra-conservative Hutu
party seized control of Rwanda in 1972, beginning a series of pogroms against the Tutsi minority that
sent hundreds of thousands of Tutsis running for neighboring Burundi, Zaire and Uganda. The country
struggled for two decades and the fear of Tutsi reprisals for their expulsion fostered a deep terror in the
Hutu majority.
In April 1994, with tensions between the two groups at their peak, the president of the ruling party,
Juvenal Habyarimana, travelled to Arusha, Tanzania, to broker peace between the Hutu leadership and
the Rwandan Patriotic Front, a largely Tutsi military force composed of Rwandan refugees from the 1975
purges, who had crossed the northern Rwandan border with Zaire and threatened to seize power unless
they could secure a place in a new transitional government that would have dismantled the single-party
political system run in Rwanda since 1975.
Having agreed to the invaders terms, Habyarimana boarded a plane for Kigali, Rwandas capital, to
prepare the way for the RPFs participation in the new leadership. His plane would never touch the
ground; it was shot from the sky on April 5 by unknown assassins. For years, the Hutu ultra-conservative
party had whipped ethnic tensions to a frenzy, arming military youth groups, known as Interahamwe,
and giving out lists of Tutsi collaborators to local prefectures. With Habyarimanas death, and a
propaganda machine calling for systematic extermination, the ethnic cleansing began.
As the killings escalated and reports of tens of thousands of Tutsis slaughtered began to leak out
through the veil the Hutu government draped over the country, many nations refused to respond with
military or financial aid. In fact, as some human rights organizations have alleged, the United Nations
was well aware of the earliest possibilities of genocide and refused to become involved, with a more
pressing conflict in the former Yugoslavia sapping much of their military and financial capabilities. Even
as the killing raged, and a small contingent of U.N. researchers watched in horror as the nation crumbled
to the ground, the world refused to act, arguing that international agencies had no right to intervene in
the civil affairs of independent countries. It was during this time that the accusations of genocide began
to circulate, though many international scholars and leaders refused to agree, likely fearing the
repercussions of acknowledging the crime so late in the conflict and failing to act.
Three months after the beginning of the purges, somewhere between 500,000 and one million Tutsis
and moderate Hutus lay dead in the streets, their bloated bodies a rotting admonishment against the

crimes of the Rwandan leadership and an international community that saw the developing signs of the
conflict and refused to commit the necessary deterrent forces.
At the root of their ignorance of the ongoing conflict lay a single word: genocide. Defined as the
systematic destruction of all or part of any ethnic, religious or national group, genocide carries much
weight in the international community, hearkening back to the horrors of Auschwitz and the Nazi
Holocaust. At the time of the Rwandan massacres, accusations of genocide, which would have made
Rwanda the first recognized incident since the end of the Second World War, would have been
inflammatory indeed. To ignore such an accusation would make a non-acting nation an accomplice to a
heinous crime against humanity.
There was much to be lost in participating in relief efforts in Rwanda, especially for the United States,
who had suffered a publicity nightmare in their involvement in Somalia and the military fiasco in the
streets of Mogadishu in 1993. The American leaderships intransigence in acknowledging the truth of
the Tutsi genocide and their clout on the United Nations Security Council was rumored to have had a
major influence on the slow response taken in granting sufficient military aid to the country.
Despite the calls of many, including Lieutenant-General Romeo Dallaire, the Canadian Force
Commander of the punchless United Nations-sanctioned UNAMIR mission in Kigali before and during
the killing, whose book, Shake Hands with the Devil, detailed the expanse of the genocide, the world
turned a blind eye as Rwanda slowly killed itself. In fact, it was only much later, after the majority of the
killing had been done and the RPF, after months of ignoring the violence, had begun to take action, that
the international community committed the necessary forces, and by then the worst was over.
What is perhaps most telling about the genocide and the parasite of unchecked violence was the
deleterious effect upon Rwandas neighbors. Once the tide had turned on the Hutu party in Rwanda,
hundreds of thousands of men, women and children bolted for the borders, some with the blood of
their neighbors still wet on their hands. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly Zaire, these
refugee Hutus were instrumental in the series of civil wars that ousted Congolese president Joseph
Mobutu and created a similar cycle of horrendous violence and massacres. In Burundi, with its own
history of Hutu-Tutsi conflict and its own accusations of genocide, pogroms and massacres have
occurred sporadically since the early 1990s, with many human rights activists warning the international
community of mounting tensions between the two groups to this day.
It would seem particularly pressing for the international community to learn its mistakes from the
handling of the Rwandan genocide and learn that each conflict has its own set of rules and
consequences. The United Nations in particular should be prepared to be flexible in the handling of
international conflict, especially now, as the atrocities of the past have raised their head once again in
Central Africa.
The massacres in the Central African Republic have just begun to grab the worlds attention, yet a lack
of aid has left the country torn apart by civil war and a vacuum of leadership and stability. The story of
this conflict is at once unique and glaringly familiar, and as photos of the empty streets of Bangui, the
CAR capital, can attest, a serious humanitarian effort is still needed. But as seen in the Rwandan

conflict, the accusations of genocide have begun to surface and it worth investigating whether these
allegations hold water, and if so, we the international community must be open to acknowledging
reality and be ready to take the proper military and financial action to deter continued violence.
On March 24, 2013, former Central African Republic President Francois Bozize was overthrown in a
military coup by a coalition of rebel groups called the Seleka, who accused the president of grievous
human rights abuses. The Seleka themselves, many of whom were Muslims, were accused of numerous
attacks against civilians throughout the country and, after Bozizes expulsion, essentially ruled the
country by the gun.
Facing increasing international pressure after the killings were brought to light in the fall of 2013, a
civilian government led by interim president Michael Djotodia declared the dissolution of the Seleka and
the end of the grave civil rights abuses against the civilian population by the Seleka. However, a
separate force arose to combat the now ex-Seleka forces who continued their reign of violence.
Predominately Christian anti-balaka, or anti-machete, forces soon began to coalesce in the CAR
countryside and directed attacks against suspected Muslims in retaliation for the Seleka massacres. In
December of last year the killing began to take off.
Anti-balaka militias, supporting the reinstatement of deposed president Bozize, launched a massive
attack on the capital of Bangui, seeking to run off ex-Seleka fighters and throw out interim president
Djotodia. More than one hundred people were killed in that push, and Djotodia fled the country to
avoid the collapse of the interim administration. Since that time, and with the anti-balaka militias
entrenched in the CAR capital, the atrocities have proceeded apace, with retaliatory attacks between
the Muslim and Christian militias increasing in scale and ferocity.
In April, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees announced that more than
2,000 people had been killed in the series of attacks between the ex-Seleka and anti-balaka militias since
December of last year, and nearly a million CAR residents were either internally or externally displaced
at the height of the violence. Despite an African Union peacekeeping force, joining nearly 2,000 soldiers
deployed by France and a much larger force committed by the United Nations, the violence has
continued and threatens to spill over from small skirmishes to large-scale killings, with many Muslims
and Christians consolidated into small, isolated neighborhoods and many of the militias controlling the
major roads throughout the country. The United Nations force, with 12,000 troops authorized, is
scheduled to arrive in September, with the first 120 peacekeepers having arrived last week. A massive
effort to evacuate the Muslim population of Bangui has taken place, and many international bodies
believe the worst of the violence in the capital has been avoided.
However, on May 1, John Ging, the director of U.N. humanitarian operations, admitted that the
international community had failed the CAR, saying, The reality is, thousands have been killed in the
most brutal manner. Hundreds of thousands have fled. ... There has, in effect, been an ethnic cleansing.
These are strong words from a leader of the worlds largest relief agency, but perhaps not strong
enough. As stated, accusations of genocide have begun to circulate in the CAR, and although the death
toll has so far been miniscule in relation to the Rwanda massacres, the two opposing forces in the CAR

have launched directed attacks on Muslim and Christian civilians, and both could very well be accused of
committing genocide.
It is troubling, even as only 20 years ago today men, women and children were being chopped to
pieces in the streets of Kigali, that the international community still has such powerful reservations
against acknowledging and intervening to stop these terrible atrocities. As Ging warned, the
international community has not done enough to provide the financial and military resources to
effectively protect human life, and until it can, we will continue to fail the citizens of the CAR. More
importantly, we will continue a cycle of violence that has become more than familiar throughout the
war-torn nations of Africa, with the violence of Rwanda still echoing in the conflicts of its neighbors, and
the unrest in Libya and the Sudan spreading throughout North Africa and into the Middle East. In only
months, the tensions from the influx of the nearly one million CAR refugees in the DRC, Chad and
Uganda could spark more killing.
If the international community is willing to take the serious steps to intervene in the CAR and help
prevent current and future atrocities in Central Africa, it must learn its mistakes from Rwanda and come
to grips with the reality of genocide, its implications and the ways it can be both stopped and prevented
in the future. Just as important, our international agencies must continue to evolve in their research of
at-risk nations, taking the requisite steps to understand the onset of violence, be able to draw accurate
conclusions about the causes of continuing conflict in war-torn nations and create long-term and
efficient plans of actions that seek to secure and protect the basic rights of humanity.
Even after 20 years, the atrocities of Rwandas past weigh heavily on the world, not just in the
shocking images of bloated corpses scattered in the streets and children with arms and legs missing, but
with Rwanda and its neighbors still crippled by the horrific violence that tore the region apart. The
atrocities committed fall not just on the shoulders of the Rwandan people, but on those international
actors who saw the signs, were given undeniable evidence of the crimes and refused to act. But more
importantly, it weighs heavily on an international community that has seen the extent of the violence
and refused to learn its lesson. To protect not only Africa but other parts of the world engulfed in crisis
and violence, its time for we the international community to take a stand and look deeply with open
eyes into our past. May we never forget Rwanda.