Aidan Russell on State Violence in Rwanda

The reprisals taken against Tutsi in Rwanda in early 1964, following a major incursion from Burundi by exiled militants, were the object of some of the earliest and most prominent accusations of genocide in postcolonial Africa. Yet despite these notable denunciations, the murder of over 10,000 civilians and execution of conciliatory politicians did little to undermine a fragile state. Instead, the subsequent management of information served to enhance the government’s position both within Rwanda and without. Central to this validation of violence was the paradoxical role of international organisations such as the UN, UNHCR, ICRC and the Catholic Church, all of whom recorded and denounced state crimes yet contributed substantively to the reconstruction of state legitimacy in their aftermath. As they inherited colonial knowledge of the country and its people, so these organisations internalised something of Belgium’s late colonial politics. Seeking to ‘restore the world’s confidence in Rwanda’, they counselled and conducted limited revelation of responsibility in order to expand the legitimacy of the state. Emphasis on popular action won out, the role of organised youth gangs, the 'gardiens de la paix', was encouraged, and implicated officials received farcical punishment. This paper explores the confluence of international priorities, techniques of state violence and the management of information in the early years of independent Africa. As the state transformed itself in extreme violence, international outrage and diligent investigation gave way to an implied tolerance of the emerging regional norm of governance through massacre.