ASSESSMENTS

The Geopolitical Roots of the Rwandan Genocide

Apr 9, 2019 | 05:00 GMT

People hold candles during a ceremony commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Rwandan Genocide on April 7, 2019, at the Amahoro Stadium in Kigali. A geopolitical clash between rival movements in Africa helped set the ground for the vicious killing of 1994.

(ANDREW RENNEISEN/Getty Images)

Highlights

Wider geopolitical factors such as the continent-wide battle between European powers' local allies and Marxist-inspired African nationalist groups helped pave the way for the Rwandan Civil War and subsequent genocide.
Hutu hard-liners put their plans for a genocide into force amid fears that the ongoing peace process would see them lose control over Rwanda.
The Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front would not have been able to pose a threat to the Hutu government in Kigali if it did not have the support of revolutionaries in places like Uganda, Tanzania and Mozambique.

It's been a quarter century since upward of 1 million people died in the Rwandan Genocide. But as Rwanda marks the 25th anniversary of the killings -- and the rest of the world is reminded of its inaction in preventing the massacres -- the occasion provides a solemn opportunity to explore the geopolitical context that precipitated the genocide. Geopolitics certainly don't absolve the perpetrators of their guilt, but they do provide a deeper understanding of how larger forces spurred hard-liners in Rwanda's government to initiate an unparalleled slaughter of their compatriots. Looking back in hindsight, the genocide represented a situation in which -- as happens frequently, if rarely to such extreme proportions -- the civilian population fell victim in a battle driven by larger geopolitical trends. Ultimately, it is impossible to detach the genocide from the wider regional context of African revolutionary movements and the way in which their ambitions came...

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