Genocide and Its Features
Senior 1 · History and Citizenship
Genocide and Its Features
Lesson 5 of 5
25 min
Important
A lesson of remembrance
This lesson is about the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. Many Rwandan families carry its memory. We study it with respect for the victims and for the survivors who live among us, and without upsetting details. If you need to pause, pause, and talk to someone you trust.
You studied the causes and course of these events in earlier classes. This lesson asks a different question: what do the definition, the features and the stages of genocide (Lessons 1 and 2) help us understand about the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, and how does Rwanda remember? Start with the main dates.
Important
The facts to remember
Worked example: applying Article II to the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi
Question: Use Figure 1 (Lesson 1) to explain why the events of 1994 were genocide in law.
Conclusion: all three parts of the definition are present, so these events were genocide.
Definition
Kwibuka: Kinyarwanda for "to remember": the annual commemoration of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, which begins on 7 April with a week of national mourning and continues for 100 days. Its themes are to remember, unite and renew.
Definition
Survivor: a person who lived through the genocide while being targeted. Survivors are witnesses to the truth; supporting them is a duty of the whole society.
Definition
Rescuer: a person who risked his or her own life to protect people targeted by the genocide. Rwanda honours such people of integrity as Abarinzi b'Igihango.
Definition
Genocide ideology: ideas, words or acts that support or call for the destruction of a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. In Rwanda, showing such an ideology in public is a crime under Law No. 59 of 2018 on the crime of genocide ideology and related crimes, which also punishes denial of the genocide.
The 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi did not begin on 7 April. Lesson 2 showed that genocide is a process; this table traces that process.
| Stage (Lesson 2) | Evidence from Rwanda's history |
|---|---|
| Classification and symbolisation | Before colonial rule, Hutu, Tutsi and Twa were social categories: Rwandans shared one language, one culture, the same clans and the same hills, and people could move between categories. After a census in 1933 to 1934, the Belgian colonial administration fixed these categories as "ethnic" labels on identity cards. A colonial race theory falsely presented Tutsi as foreign invaders; this ideology was later used to justify hatred. |
| Discrimination | From 1959, waves of violence drove many Tutsi into exile, and the refugees were refused the right to return. Under the First and Second Republics, quotas limited Tutsi places in schools and public jobs. |
| Dehumanisation | From 1990, extremist newspapers such as Kangura, and from 1993 the radio station RTLM, spread hate, called Tutsi insulting names and presented them as enemies. |
| Organisation and preparation | Militias such as the Interahamwe were trained and armed; weapons were distributed and lists of names were drawn up before April 1994. |
| Polarisation | On 7 April 1994, political leaders who opposed the extremists, among them Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana, were among the first to be killed. |
| Persecution and extermination | From 7 April to mid-July 1994, Tutsi were targeted in every part of the country, whatever their age. |
| Denial | Denial continues today in some places; in Rwanda it is a crime under Law No. 59 of 2018. |
Remembering. Each year on 7 April the flame of remembrance is lit and Kwibuka begins, with a week of national mourning and 100 days of commemoration. Survivors share testimonies, communities hold night vigils and walks to remember, and people visit memorials to honour the victims. In 2023, UNESCO added four memorial sites, Nyamata, Murambi, Gisozi and Bisesero, to the World Heritage List, so that the whole world remembers.
Learning. The Kigali Genocide Memorial, created in 2004 by Rwandan authorities with the Aegis Trust, is also where Peace and Values Education began; it is now part of the national school curriculum. The Genocide Archive of Rwanda, at the Memorial, keeps survivors' testimonies and documents so that the truth cannot be erased.
Choosing unity. On 18 March 1997, armed infiltrators attacked Nyange secondary school and ordered students to separate into Hutu and Tutsi. The students refused, answering "We are all Rwandans". Some of them paid with their lives. Rwanda honours them as national heroes in the Imena category.
The Nyange students chose unity at the moment it was most dangerous. What does "Never Again" ask of you in everyday life: in your class, in your school and online? Give three actions and explain how each works against one of the stages in Figure 2.
Tip
Three things to remember, always: the exact name, the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi; the dates, 7 April to mid-July 1994; and the promise, Never Again, which begins with the words we choose.
Aegis Trust: "Evolution of Education: how Aegis helps to build peace". A short film on the peace education programme that began at the Kigali Genocide Memorial. Watch for the skills and values it teaches young people, and choose one you can practise this week.
Practice
Further reading for this unit
Sources and credits
This lesson adapts CC BY-SA material and is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.
