Changing Patterns of Acceptance. International Criminal Justice after the Rwandan Genocide

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On 7 April 1994, after an attack on an aircraft carrying the then President of Rwanda Juvénal Habyarimana, a killing machine moved into action in an attempt to extinguish all Tutsi in the Central African country, Rwanda. In just 100 days, about 800,000 Tutsi, as well as a number of Hutu political opponents, were murdered by Hutu militias, government troops and Hutu community members. In many ways, the Rwandan genocide remains an unprecedented example of violence and terror at the end of the 20th century.

Although tragic, the Rwandan genocide did not happen in a vacuum, but in the midst of a democratisation process following a four-year insurgency by the Tutsi-led Rwanda Patriotic Front/Army (RPF/A) of General Paul Kagame, now President of Rwanda. Sparked by the insurgency and the subsequent pressure of the international community to share power and to allow democratic multi-party elections, Habyarimana’s people incited nation-wide violence and hate through spreading fear of a Tutsi victory and the ensuing suppression of all Hutu. Given the history of the country in which violence against the Tutsi had occurred before, these hate discourses fell on fertile ground, leading even family members to turn against each other.