Introduction

The Rwandan genocide in 1994 remains one of the most devastating and unique episode of mass violence in the 20th century, with over 800,000 people killed in approximately 100 days. This genocide was not spontaneous, it was the result of a long historical process who taked place in a colonial legacy, a political propaganda, and a deep economic inequality. The genocide was mainly against the Tutsis and moderate Hutus who opposed the extremist ideology of the governing party. The Rwanda was left in a deep social and political problems due to the late international community intervention and due to the total collapse of the social trust left, they then needed to face the complexicity of the tansitional justice and the politics of memory.

In order to explore this topic, it is first of all important to define the key terms. The first word « genocide » was introduced during the UN Convention in 1948, which is defines it as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” « Transitional justice » refers, according to Teitel (2000), to “mechanisms used by societies to address massive human rights violations, including trials, truth commissions, and reparations.” Finally, the « politics of memory » (Aron, 2008) is refers to « the ways in which societies remember and interpret their past, particularly in relation to historical traumas and events. » In order to detailled this topic we will ask ourselves : How have Rwanda's policies of memory and transitional justice shaped its social and political reconstruction after the 1994 genocide?

The thesis of this paper is that while structural causes explain why the genocide occurred, Rwanda’s recovery can only be fully understood through the combined role of transitional justice and politics of memory. By examining mechanisms of remembrance and justice, such as memorials, gacaca courts, and national commemorations, this essay shows how Rwanda rebuilt social trust after national trauma while also considering the risks of politicized memory.

To guide this discussion, the essay will first provide an overview of the historical and political causes of the genocide (“Causes”). It will then analyze Rwanda’s recovery strategies through transitional justice (“Justice”), focusing especially on the ICTR (The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda) and the Gacaca courts. Finally, it will explore the politics of memory (“Memory”) and evaluate their role in social reconstruction and their potential limits.

Causes

The genocide was not just a « tribal conflict », it was the product of specific historical and political conditions that transformed social tensions into violence. Before the Belgian colonization, the Rwandan society was complex, with tree groups : Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa, living in a social structure where status often depended on wealth rather than ancestry. Mamdani (2001) argues, it was the Belgian colonial rule that intensified these distinctions. For example, the Belgians introduced identity cards that forced every person to be classified as Hutu, Tutsi, or Twa. This process created inequality and created ethnic hierarchies who didnt exist before. The Tutsi were given political and educational privileges, reinforcing the social hierarchy and transforming social categories into rigid ethnic identities. The inequalities really start with the Belgian Colonization.

While the term “colonial racism” can be strong, it is accurate to say that colonial anthropology and racial « science » encouraged divisions, for example, when Belgian administrators measured people’s noses in order to determine if they were “Tutsi” or “Hutu’’, in order to defines their statut in the society.

After independence in 1962, the political elites used ethnicity as a tool to reinforce their power. The Hutu governments promoted a narrative of “majority rule” against the Tutsi minority. During the Revolution of 1959 the attacks on Tutsis created fear that lasted for decades. Hintjens (1999) notes that the 1959 massacres caused a large wave of Tutsi exile with around 500 000 Tutsi , which created a “permanent refugee crisis” in neighboring countries. This legacy of exile was crucial in the later civil war, because many exiled Tutsis formed the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) that invaded Rwanda in the early 1990s. The regime of the president Habyarimana (president of Rwanda from 1973-1994), used propaganda to mobilize the fear and the hatred. The newspaper such as Kangura or the RTLM (Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines), radio station spread stereotypes and dehumanized Tutsis as “cockroaches” (Newbury, 1995). One RTLM broadcast reportedly instructed listeners to “go to this house, kill this family” (Chrétien, 1995, The Media of Hate), demonstrating how propaganda directly incited violence. The RTLM radio even spread phrase like : « Go to work », as a code to start killing or even say names and addresses of Tutsi families. This propaganda was effective because it mixed fear with specific instructions, transforming ordinary citizens into participants in mass killing. An another example in order to illustre this propaganda was ‘’The Ten Hutu Commandments’’ published in Kangura (1990) who also normalized exclusion and the hatred. For example, it was said that‘any Hutu who marries a Tutsi woman is a traitor (Hintjens, 1999).  Scheffer (2004) underlines that such propaganda, combined with state organization, that was a key factor who transformed prejudice into extermination. Also under Habyaimana, some « etchic quotas » of only 9% of places to Tutsi, were imposed in the education and the public sectors job. Thoses quotas really reinforced the systematic exclusion that led to the genocide.

An another factors of the manipulation of ethnicity was the deep socio-economic issues of the country. Rwanda is one of the most densely populated countries in the Africa continent, and by the early 1990s, land scarcity and poverty were major challenges. According to Uvin (1998), all the competition for scarce resources benefit the extremist elites who portrayed the Tutsi as the scapegoat. By 1993, for example most rural families had less than 0.7 hectares of land, and with falling coffee prices and rising inequality, peasants were desperate. A lot of Hutu were told they could seize land or cattle from the Tutsis, which linked material incentives to participation in violence. This shows that the genocide was not only cause by political issue but also renforced by socio-economic problems. All of theses causes additionaly to the assassination of the president Habyarimana were the reasons of the muss murder, within hours, lists of targeted people,  already set up, were used, revealing that the genocide had been planned in advance.

This first part show that the Rwandan genocide was not caused by “ancient ethnic hatred” but by historical, political, and economic factors. Toses conditions shows us why rebuilding required more than punishment, it also demanded rebuilding social trust.

Justice / Memory

After 1994, Rwanda confronted a importante and complex task of restoring trust in a society destroyed by genocide. The traditional justice system was full: with over 100,000 suspected in jail by 1998, that then make the ordinary trials impossible. Rwanda picked two approaches : the first was the international trials for high-level perpetrators ; the second one was the community-based justice for the rest.

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) was one of the most important forms of justice, established in 1994, by the United Nations. The ICTR judged the top leaders responsible for organizing the genocide. This first form of justice in Rwanda was important  because it provided international recognition to the crime of genocide and established legal precedents for future tribunals. However, as Clark (2010) said, the ICTR were really  slow, expensive, and far aways, it was based in Arusha, Tanzania, far from Rwanda. Many Rwandans felt excluded from the juridical process because  it was diriged  in English and French, languages many did not speak.

In order to remedy to this, in 2002 Rwanda created the Gacaca courts, reintroducing traditional community-based justice systems. The term “Gacaca,” meaning “grass” in Kinyarwanda, who refers to the local practice of resolving disputes while sitting together in a public space. These courts were not only in order to punish but also to promote truth-telling, confession, and reintegration. Between 2002 and 2012, about 12,000 Gacaca courts judged nearly two million cases (Corey & Joireman, 2004). For example, Olive Musetsamfura, a survivor, said: “Forgiving my uncle, involved in my family’s murder, helped me find peace” (The Guardian). Her story reflects the conflex and the importance of the personnal reconciliation in such an trauma. An another example of important case in the genocide, is the Akayesu case, where the ICTR recognized for the first time in international law,  rape as an act of genocide. After this judgement a lot of survivors talk about systematic sexual vioelnce during the genocide.

However, Gacaca courts also faced criticism. Scholars like Thomson (2011) argue that it lacked legal guarantees, risked retraumatizing survivors, and excluded crimes committed by the RPF, leading some to accuse it of “victor’s justice.” The Gacaca courts were mainly under the responsability of the victims of the genocide, so at the end the judgement wasn’t always neutral. According to Brehm (2019), one third of Gacaca judges resigned or were replaces because of the accusations of corruption or persecution. This tension between justice and political control illustrates that transitional justice is not neutral, and it is reinforced and shaped by the politic and the power relations. But despite its limits, the Gacaca represented a new attempt to combine justice with social healing. An important example that illutrate the importance of the Gacaca court is that Rwanda abolished the death penalty in 2007 partly to allow extradiction of suspects of the genocide from Europe to Rwanda. This is why the Rwandan case is so unique, because it is the only genocide case where the state rebuilt itselft afterward without really international aid. Others countries should use this case in order to take example on it.

Finally, transitional justice in Rwanda went beyond punishment. It was created in order to reconstruct relationships and rebuild a moral community fractured by violence.  

Another central aspect of Rwanda’s reconstruction was the politics of memory. National memorials, such as the Kigali Genocide Memorial, were established as permanent reminders of the gencoide. At Murambi Memorial, bodies of some victims are preserved with lime and displayed in the classrooms. This pratique raised a lot of ethnical debates about the trauma and this historical truth. Some annual commemorations were also created for the remembrance and also use in order to spread the message of “Never again.” For example, every April, a week of commemoration was established, with survivors sharing testimonies in schools. The country also faced some educational reform, the class of history were used in order to avoid ethnic labels and emphasize unity in the society.  The religion also played an important role in this reconciliation, for example in some regions, churches help separate « Christian Gacaca » mettings focused on confession and forgiveness.

These policies of memory had several positive effects. They promoted a shared national narrative, honored victims, and reduced the risk of denial. They also helped create a moral framework for post-genocide identity. However, scholars such as King (2010) and Reyntjens (2013) criticize these policies for being selective: the government often emphasizes Tutsi victimhood while don’t talk about Hutu suffering or RPF abuses. This selective remembrance can silence alternative voices and raise questions about whose trauma is officially recognized. For example, some Hutu who lost relatives in revenge killings feel excluded from the official narrative. The rwandan genocide had such an important impact on the international sphere, that international theatre groups perfomed plays like « Rwanda 94 » in order to create transnational memory. These perfomances really give voice to survivors outside of the official state ceremonies.

Finally, memory in Rwanda is both as a tool for healing and an instrument of political control. Some survivors accept the official narrative because it prevents denial, but others see it as a state directive or control. Compared to Germany after the Holocaust or South Africa after Apartheid, Rwanda’s approach stands out for the intensity of his state involvement and the speed of implementation. In Germany, memory evolved gradually, in Rwanda, it was institutionalized almost immediately as a pillar of national identity.

This last part shows us that Rwanda’s reconstruction was not only legal or economic, it was also symbolic and emotional for the nation. Memory policies helped rebuild trust but also shaped who was allowed to speak and remember due to the state power on it. Since the end of the genocide in 1994, Rwanda has been governed primarily by the Rwandan Partriotic Front, a political party led by Paul Kagame a Tutsi. Today’ Rwanda, ethnic identities between Hutu and Tutsi are officially not recognized, as a government promotes a policy of « national unity ».

Conclusion

The Rwandan genocide was the mix of deep historical, political, and economic problems. The  recovery of the country, however, shows that rebuilding after mass violence requires more than punishment, it requires recreate the nation through memory and transitional justice, in order to create a new collective identity.

However, this process can also reinforce the power in place. The controlled memory risks excluding some groups and shaping history to serve political interest. The challenge for Rwanda today is to balance unity with pluralism.