Genocide Prevention in Rwanda and Abroad
Senior 6 · History
Genocide Prevention in Rwanda and Abroad
Lesson 2 of 5
25 min
The 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi began on 7 April 1994, but the practices that made it possible had been building for sixty years. Figure 2 sets them out in order. Read it from top to bottom and ask two questions: at which point could the process have been stopped, and who had the power to stop it?
Figure 2. Practices that prepared the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, matched to stages of Gregory Stanton's model. Drawn by Ganzaa from the sources credited below.
Definition
Gregory Stanton's model of the stages of genocide: a framework by the American scholar Gregory H. Stanton, founder of Genocide Watch, which describes genocide as a process. First set out with eight stages, it now has ten: classification, symbolisation, discrimination, dehumanisation, organisation, polarisation, preparation, persecution, extermination and denial.
Dehumanisation: describing members of a group as animals, vermin, disease or foreigners, so that killing them seems acceptable.
Polarisation: driving groups apart with propaganda, banning contact between them and silencing or killing moderates.
Incitement: urging others to commit a crime. Direct and public incitement to genocide is itself a crime under Article III of the 1948 Convention.
From labels to laws (stages 1–4). The Belgian administration's census of 1933–34 and its identity cards turned social categories, which people could once move between, into fixed labels written on paper. After 1959 these labels were used to exclude Tutsi from power, and quotas from the 1970s limited their places in schools and jobs. From 1990 the newspaper Kangura and, from July 1993, the radio station RTLM (Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines) spread fear, presented Tutsi as foreign enemies and used insulting names for them. In November 1992 a senior official of the ruling party, Léon Mugesera, gave a speech at Kabaya in which he called Tutsi foreigners who should be sent "back" and urged his audience to act against them; Rwanda's High Court convicted him of incitement to genocide in 2016.
From words to plans (stages 5–7). The ruling party's youth wing became the Interahamwe militia, trained and armed. Lists of Tutsi and of Hutu opponents were drawn up. In January 1994 an informant told the commander of the UN peacekeeping force that Tutsi in Kigali were being registered and that weapons had been hidden for an extermination (Lesson 3).
From plans to killing (stages 8–9). Massacres of Tutsi in 1990–1992 at Kibilira, against the Bagogwe in the north-west and in Bugesera were rehearsals: they went largely unpunished, which taught the organisers that killing carried no cost. On 7 April 1994 the extermination began. In about 100 days more than one million people were murdered, overwhelmingly Tutsi, together with Hutu and others who opposed the genocide.
Denial (stage 10). Denial started during the killing, when perpetrators destroyed evidence, and continues today in attempts to dispute the facts, minimise the numbers or blame the victims.
| Practice | The Holocaust (1933–1945) | Cambodia (1975–1979) | Srebrenica (July 1995) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Classification and symbols | the Nuremberg Laws (1935) defined who counted as a Jew; Jews in Germany had to wear a yellow star from September 1941 | the Khmer Rouge divided the population into "base people" and "new people" driven out of the cities | Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) men and boys were separated from the women at Potočari |
| Organisation | the SS, police and mobile killing units, supported by ministries and railways | a security system of prisons such as S-21 (Tuol Sleng) in Phnom Penh | the Bosnian Serb army and police under General Ratko Mladić |
| Concealment and denial | killing centres destroyed and bodies burned before the Allies arrived | surviving leaders denied responsibility for decades, until their trials | bodies moved to secondary graves to hide the crime, as the ICTY found |
Analysis. The practices are similar because genocide is a modern, organised crime: it needs categories, propaganda, a chain of command and the means to kill and to hide the killing. The stages do not always follow in order; several happen at once, as in Rwanda between 1990 and 1994, when propaganda, militia training and massacres overlapped. That is exactly why each stage is also a chance for prevention.
Warning
Do not use the model as a checklist that must be complete. Stanton himself stresses that the stages are not a ladder climbed in strict order; they overlap and can go on together. In an answer, show how several practices reinforced each other at the same time, rather than listing ten stages.
Tip
Evidence, then stage, then prevention. For each piece of evidence in a source, write three things: what happened (for example, RTLM broadcasts from July 1993), which stage it shows (dehumanisation and polarisation), and what could have stopped it (jamming the broadcasts, prosecuting incitement). Examiners reward that chain.
Important
Discuss. Words came before weapons: Kangura and RTLM prepared people for murder. Where is the line between free speech and incitement? Use Article III of the Convention and Rwanda's Law N° 59 of 2018 in your answer.
Note
Further viewing, with your teacher
Al Jazeera's documentary Rwanda: how hate propaganda became organised violence against the Tutsi (Al Jazeera Untangles, about 25 minutes) traces how the colonial categories, the hate media and local officials prepared the genocide. It contains survivor testimony and distressing archive footage, so watch it only with your teacher and do not watch it alone.
Practice
Sources and credits
Written by Ganzaa: the timeline (Figure 2), the analysis, the comparison table and the exercises.
