Consequences of the Liberation War

1Why this matters

Every year on 4 July Rwanda celebrates Kwibohora, Liberation Day. A historian studies both what the liberation achieved and what it cost. This lesson sorts the consequences into those that brought loss and those that built a new Rwanda.

2Costs and losses

• Loss of life among soldiers and civilians.
• Displacement. By 1993 around a million people had fled the fighting in the north and lived in camps.
• Economic damage to farms, roads and trade, on top of the existing crisis.
• Extremists exploited the war. They called every Tutsi an "accomplice" of the RPF to spread fear and hatred. The war did not cause the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi: it was planned and chosen by the extremists who controlled the state. But they used the war as an excuse.

3Political change and a new Rwanda

• Political opening (1991–1993). Pressure from the war helped force multi-party politics and the Arusha negotiations.
• The Arusha principles, power-sharing, the rule of law, one national army and the return of refugees, shaped the transition after 1994.
• The 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi was stopped. The RPF Inkotanyi's victory ended the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi (see the next unit).
• A Government of National Unity was formed on 19 July 1994, with Pasteur Bizimungu as President and Paul Kagame as Vice-President and Minister of Defence.
• Refugees came home. Hundreds of thousands of refugees, some in exile since 1959, returned.
• An end to ethnic labels. Ethnicity was removed from identity cards, and unity became a founding principle of the state.
• Rebuilding institutions. A new national army was formed, and justice and reconciliation institutions were created in the following years.

Worked example: classifying consequences

Question: Sort these into short-term and long-term consequences: (a) people displaced in the north; (b) ethnic labels removed from identity cards; (c) the ibyitso arrests.

(a) and (c) happened during the war itself (1990–1993), so they are short-term. (b) came after the RPF's victory and still shapes Rwanda today, so it is long-term. Method: ask when the effect happened and whether it still lasts.

Practice

Solution. Liberation Day. On 4 July 1994 the RPF Inkotanyi took Kigali.

Solution. Pasteur Bizimungu was President, and Paul Kagame was Vice-President and Minister of Defence.

Solution. Any two of: deaths of soldiers and civilians; about a million people displaced in the north by 1993; economic damage; extremists using the war to spread hatred of Tutsi.

Solution. Because it was planned and carried out by extremists who controlled the state. They used the war as an excuse, but it was their choice, prepared over years, to exterminate the Tutsi.