Consequences of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi
Senior 3 · History and Citizenship
Consequences of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi
Lesson 2 of 5
25 min
When the RPF Inkotanyi stopped the genocide and took Kigali on 4 July 1994, it found a country with almost nothing left of its state. Read this extract from a United Nations refugee agency report on what happened next.
By late August 1994, there were over two million Rwandan refugees in neighbouring countries: about 1.2 million in Zaire, 580,000 in Tanzania, 270,000 in Burundi and 10,000 in Uganda.
Source A. Figures from UNHCR, The State of the World's Refugees 2000, chapter 10.
Analysing the source. The same report explains that this exodus was not spontaneous. Many people fled fighting or feared revenge, but the collapsing genocidal regime also organised a panic, so that it could take as much of the population with it as possible as a human shield. Rwanda's population in 1993 was about eight million (World Bank estimate), so these figures mean that, together with the dead, a very large share of the population was gone. The country had lost its workers, taxpayers, teachers and farmers at the same time.
Definition
Political consequences: effects on government, security, justice and relations with other countries.
Economic consequences: effects on production, trade, incomes, jobs and public money.
Gross domestic product (GDP): the total value of the goods and services produced in a country in a year. When GDP growth is negative, the economy has shrunk.
Refugee: a person who has fled their own country because of war, persecution or violence and cannot safely return.
Impunity: a situation in which people who commit crimes are not punished. Ending impunity was one of the first tasks after the genocide.
A source on the economy. The chart shows how much Rwanda's economy grew or shrank each year.
Analysing the chart. In 1994 the economy shrank by about half (−50.2%). The large growth in 1995 (+35.2%) does not mean Rwanda was suddenly rich: it was growth from a very low starting point, as people returned to farm and trade. Growth stayed above 8% a year from 1996 to 1998, but it took years to get back to the level of production before the genocide.
Worked example: reading a percentage change
Question: Suppose a district's farms produced 1,000 tonnes of beans in 1993 (illustrative). If production fell by 50% in 1994 and then rose by 35% in 1995, was production back to 1,000 tonnes in 1995? (3 marks)
Step 1 1994: 1,000 − 50% of 1,000 = 500 tonnes.
Step 2 1995: 500 + 35% of 500 = 500 + 175 = 675 tonnes.
Conclusion: No. Production was still about a third below 1993. A rise of 35% after a fall of 50% does not make up the loss, because the rise starts from a smaller base. This is why Rwanda's recovery took many years.
The refugee camps in eastern Zaire held both innocent civilians and armed groups who had led the genocide. Why did this make the camps a political problem for Rwanda and for the countries around it?
Tip
Political or economic? Ask: is it about power, security and justice (political), or about money, production and jobs (economic)? Some consequences are both. Refugees, for example, created insecurity and also removed workers from the economy; say so in an exam.
Practice
Sources and credits
