In 1990, a civil war broke out in the east African state of Rwanda, which led to numerous acts of violence and ultimately to the genocide against the Tutsi minority in 1994. Between 7 April and 15 July 1994, racist and radical Hutus killed between 800,000 and 1 million people in 100 days, in full view of the world. Despite years of close partnership with Rwanda and a past German colonial history in the region, German authorities and organisations did not intervene when the violence broke out in 1994. The international community did not intervene either, despite the presence of UN troops. Finally, three months after the killing began, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) ended the genocide using military means.
The victims were predominantly Tutsi as well as opposition and moderate Hutu, but also other opposition members and minorities. Since 2003, 7 April has been the International Day of Remembrance of the genocide and a ‘Day of Reflection’. The United Nations calls on all member states to commemorate the day.
From 7 April to 4 July every year, a 100-day period of national mourning is observed in Rwanda and the victims of the genocide are commemorated at the Kigali Genocide Memorial. The memorial and education centre in the Rwandan capital of Kigali also serves as a resting place for more than 250,000 victims of the genocide, buried in communal graves. Other important places of remembrance and memorials are located in Murambi in the south of Rwanda, in Ntarama, Bisesero, Nyarubuye, and Nyamata, with more than 250 across the country. While the memorial in Bisesero was newly built, the others were built onto existing buildings directly linked to the genocide, such as former church buildings where people sought refuge from persecution and violence, and a building on a former school site in Murambi, where it is estimated that up to 43,000 people were murdered. Massacres of the Tutsi minority were committed at all these sites, and mass graves were subsequently dug. Many of the victims have still not been identified.
Even before the civil war began, there were numerous conflicts and acts of violence between the Tutsi and Hutu social groups. The origins can in part be traced back to Germany’s colonial rule in ‘German East Africa’, which included the present-day territory of Rwanda. Based on the racist ‘Hamite theory’ imported from Europe, the superiority of a ‘Hamite race’ located in North Africa was asserted over the so-called ‘Negroid’ population due to their supposed kinship to Europeans. The continuation of Belgian colonial rule in Rwanda during the First World War ultimately led to the ethnicisation of the Tutsi and Hutu social groups and their division into different ‘tribes’, which gave rise to the widespread misconception that the genocide in Rwanda was a matter of ‘tribal conflicts’. The colonial powers used racist criteria, such as supposed physical characteristics and character traits of the respective groups, to categorise people into different ‘tribes’. Where there had previously been no ethnic differences, these were created from the outside to differentiate the social classes of Hutu agricultural labourers and Tutsi cattle breeders so as to strengthen the colonial power by politically supporting the supposedly superior group. Ethnic affiliation was also noted in documents, which led to racial attributions. The Germans and Belgians promoted the assumption of political power by members of the Tutsi and the oppression of members of the Hutu, which led to social inequality and systematic mechanisms of oppression. However, social permeability had existed before the colonisers divided the population into different ethnic groups: someone initially belonging to the Hutu social group could become a cattle farmer, and therefore a member of the Tutsi.
European colonialism thus helped fuell conflicts within Rwandan society while also creating the basis for the ideological implications of the genocide.
The international community is still dealing with the genocide today. France, for example, acknowledged its co-responsibility for the genocide in 2021 after a commission of historians conducted an analysis of documents. French arms deliveries and France’s acceptance of the racist rhetoric helped strengthen the Rwandan regime under the leadership of Juvénal Habyarimana. In its final report, the commission accuses the then government under President Mitterrand of ‘blindness’ and ‘failure’, concluding that France bears a ‘heavy’ and ‘overwhelming’ responsibility for the Rwandan genocide. While France has struggled for years to come to terms with its role in the genocide in Rwanda and is now officially asking for forgiveness, it remains important for others to realise their historical responsibility for the colonial legacy.
