Applying the Tools of Conflict Analysis to the Rwanda Genocide

"Normal people do not know that anything is possible" - David Rousset.

Researching the dynamics of the Rwanda genocide at the University of Kent, Canterbury for the PO572 Module (Conflict Analysis and Resolution).

by Kudakwashe Kanhutu

Map and analyse a conflict of your choice drawing on relevant literature and theory. The first section should identify primary and secondary parties, positions, interests, needs and the strategic environment. The second section should apply one or more of the theories to analyse the conflict. The third section should analyse (using appropriate literature and theories) how it ended and whether the conflict termination has been short term or long term.

Introduction:

Rwanda became the byword for genocide after an estimated 800 000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were massacred there over a 100 day period between 6 April 1994 and 18 July 1994 (Melvern, 2000). The killings were organized by Hutu extremists who feared losing their political and economic power to the Tutsi minority after the Rwanda Patriotic Army (RPA) – the military wing of the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) – invaded from its bases in Uganda (Melvern, 2000). While the actual genocide captured the most headlines, my paper is more focused on the conditions prior to the genocide.

It is difficult to discuss the Rwanda conflict without ultimately engaging with the genocide. I have, therefore, chosen the period between 1 October 1990 and 18 July 1994 as the period of the conflict I will talk about. The actual genocide is evidently a failure in the attempts to find a workable solution to the conflictual relations between Tutsis and Hutus ever since the colonially sanctioned Tutsi domination of Hutus ended in 1959 (Scrogie, 2004: 67). Paradoxically, the most significant failure is the Arusha Accords which – at face value – held great promise for a new democratic dispensation in Rwanda.

My paper will be arranged in this manner: in the first section of my paper, I will identify the primary and secondary parties in the conflict and their relationships. In the second section, I will turn to the theories of conflict to analyse the causal mechanisms in the Rwanda civil war. No single theory can capture the complexity of conflict, hence I will rely on theories such as, colonial legacy theory, collective fears for the future and horizontal inequalities. In the third section I will discuss the resolution. I will do this by focusing on the Arusha Accords and how failure in their implementation led to the genocide (Scrogie, 2004). The explanation that captures the essence of this failure is Barbara Walter’s critical barrier to civil war settlement theory.

Section I

Primary and Secondary Parties to the Conflict

A Brief History of the Conflict:

Ami R Mpungwe, the Tanzanian diplomat who was entrusted to mediate the Rwanda conflict on behalf of his president, records that the Rwanda conflict was one which was “deep-rooted, in both its historical and prevailing dynamics” (Mpungwe, 1999). He differentiates it from disputes over authenticity of elections results in Lesotho, and therefore suggests that the issues were genuinely intractable (Mpungwe, 1999). He intimates that, “these conflicts by their very nature and character, are extremely tenacious because they revolve around the fundamentals of human life: land, safety, security, identity, recognition, esteem and unhindered opportunities for human development as a whole” (Mpungwe, 1999). The conflict has its roots in the widespread colonial practice of ‘divide and rule’ which in Rwanda eventually meant Tutsis and Hutus being pitted against each other in a deadly adversarial relationship. Access to the human needs, listed above by Mpungwe, became dependent on which group you belonged to.

Most accounts of how the colonial powers had a hand in creating the above problem, agree that the colonial powers gave the Tutsi and Hutu classifications, the ethnic and racial superiority connotations which they originally did not have (Hintjens, 1999: 247). This began with Germany and was maintained when Belgium became the next colonial power (Hintjens, 1999). For now, it is sufficient to just highlight that the colonial powers had a hand in the problems which have beset Rwanda since its independence. The significance of that will become clearer in the second section of my paper when I talk about colonial legacy as a cause of the Rwanda conflict. The main point at this stage is to record that at independence there was violence as the Tutsis who had been favoured throughout the colonial period were ousted by the Hutu majority: the violence at that time claimed 10 000 Tutsi lives (Hintjens, 1999). Indeed, there is a history of cyclical pogroms against Tutsis by Hutus (1959, 1963, 1972 and 1994), as a result of the hate fostered when they (Tutsi) were made overlords by colonial powers while the Hutus were marginalised (Mpungwe, 1999). The root cause of the 1990 – 1994 conflict can be traced to these pogroms which led the Tutsis leave Rwanda and become stateless persons in neighbouring Uganda. When the Tutsis became persecuted in Uganda’s government (1982), a return to their homeland became an urgent imperative (Mpungwe, 1999). Before seeking to return home however, the Tutsis fought alongside Yoweri Museveni when he formed a rebellion which finally deposed Obote in 1986 (Melvern, 2000). With Museveni now in power in Uganda, the Tutsis now had an ally. As it is not within the scope of this paper to give a detailed history, I will now turn to the main parties to the conflict and what their grievances were.

Hutus vs Tutsis?

Fig. 1 Conflict Map

The Arusha Accords of 1993 are the best source for who the parties in the Rwanda civil war were and what they were fighting for. The main parties were the Government of Rwanda (GoR), which was a Hutu government, and their opponents were the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a group of exiles from Uganda seeking to return to their homeland (Scrogie, 2004: 67). As the RPF fighters were based in Uganda, there is a suspicion that units of the Ugandan People’s Defence Forces were fighting alongside the RPF, although this is always difficult to prove. What is more difficult to deny, is that Uganda gave bases to – and armed – the RPF (Melvern, 2000). My conflict map (Fig. 1) shows these relationships: where the primary paries are the GoR pitted against the RPF; and the secondary parties who supported the GoR in the civil war are France, Zaire, Egypt and Kenya, while the RPF was supported by Uganda (Prunier, 2010). I have chosen to focus more on showing alliances with primary actors, as direct clashes between the French and Ugandans would have been very minimal. A deviation is the conflict relationship between Uganda and Rwanda that is shown in Fig. 1, this is because of the level of dependency of the RPF on Uganda. Overall, my map tries to show which primary party the secondary parties put their support behind. Tanzania, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and the United Nations (UN) are also shown on the map but in the mediator’s role. Tanzania genuinely played an honest broker role and the OAU and UN were largely behind Tanzania’s lead in the mediation (Wage and Loigh, 2004).

Fig. 2 Rwanda Conflict Alliances

Although the GoR was a Hutu government, the character of the conflict was not strictly Hutu vs Tutsi. It has been said that if the Tutsi had not invaded on 1 October 1990, the Rwanda civil war would still have happened, but between Northern Hutus and Southern Hutus (Newbury and Newbury, 1995). A pertinent point is that the GoR was not a unitary actor having been, at the time, strong armed by the international community to end the one party state (Newbury and Newbury, 1995). It was thus a coalition of opponents. So, apart from the secondary parties, my map also shows the GoR’s alliances with various political parties and other non-state actors such as militias, it is thus difficult to pin down the GoR’s positions and interests. Fig. 2 shows more details of the non-state actors involved. The claim that there was a likelihood of war between Northern and Southern Hutus, prior to the RPF invasion, is based on the fact that there was discrimination and exclusion among the Hutus themselves on the two geographical locations. My map (Fig. 1) shows Coalition pour la Defence de la Republic (CDR) as an ally of the GoR, the CDR is an example of a Northern Hutu grouping that had its own agenda in the conflict: they were the hardliners (Newbury and Newbury, 1995). The other main political parties are represented on the map as the opposition for, although they were in a coalition with the GoR, they had their own agendas too which, on the most part, coincided with the RPF position (Newbury and Newbury, 1995). It was this coalition, with their disparate goals, that negotiated at Arusha.

Positions, Interests and Needs: Primary Actors

Fig. 3 Onion Analysis Rwanda

The consensus in the literature is that the RPF negotiated better at Arusha and so were able to articulate their positions and interests and got the most concessions, while the GoR, owing to its disparate power centres, fared very badly (Scrogie, 2004: 68). My onion analysis (Fig. 3) reflects this situation. I have been forced to award the GoR general human needs and not their clearly stated positions and interests for, it was that convoluted: the CDR was not interested in any settlement, the Mouvement Revolutionaire National Pour le Development (MRND) was ambiguous, while the other coalition partners may have wanted a settlement. The RPF on the other hand knew what they wanted and insisted on it. RPF positions and interests are listed on the right hand column of Fig. 3.

Other Interests and the Strategic Environment:

After the invasion by the RPF, France, Zaire, Egypt and Kenya came to the aid of Rwanda. Egypt allowed weapons sales to Rwanda, while Zaire, France and Kenya sent troops to defend the GoR (Prunier, 2010). France’s interest was defending a Francophone country against the perceived encroachment by the Anglo – Saxons, while Kenya and Zaire may have been interested in sovereign state under attack (Prunier, 2010). Despite Uganda denying any involvement, its interests can be seen as supporting allies and solving its Tutsi refugee problem. The conflict was framed differently too by different actors at its outbreak. The OAU framed it as an attempt by refugees to return home, while France and the GoR framed it as neighbouring state (Uganda) aggression (Melvern, 2000). To this end, Kenya and Zaire could legitimately come to the aid of Rwanda. The general strategic environment was whereby the principle of non-intervention in the domestic affairs of sovereign states had not yet begun to be seriously questioned. This would only come as a response to the shock of the genocide.

Section II

Analysing the Conflict:

The 1994 Rwanda genocide was used by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan as a spur for the need to change the state sovereignty rules that have been in existence since the Peace of Westphalia (ICISS, 2001). It was his view that the failures of the international community in Rwanda were due to a deference to sovereignty over the protection of human rights. If it was not for that reason, the assumption is that the international community would have no fetters in using force to stop the violence there. I raise this point to try and discuss the situation in the context of the limits placed on the actors by the prevailing situation in 1994, mindful that African states are very vocal against any erosion to state sovereignty rules. This is important as my approach to discussing the causal mechanisms imposes upon me to mention the Arusha Accords and the failure of their implementation. Their implementation failed because there was no commitment to enforce them, perhaps owing to a defence to the sovereignty of the GoR. In any case, that failure has insights for my first theory below.

As I have stated above, this conflict cannot be explained by a single theory, the most significant theory for my conflict is the one proposed by David A. Lake and Donald Rothchild. This is the theory which proposes that collective fears for the future are a potent cause of conflict. The theory holds that “as groups begin to fear for their safety, dangerous and difficult to resolve dilemmas arise that contain within them the potential for tremendous violence” (Lake and Rothchild, 1996: 41). These dilemmas are information failures, problems of credible commitment and the security dilemma (Lake and Rothchild, 1996: 41). The theme that runs through these dilemmas is a high level of diffidence towards each other on the part of the groups in a conflictual relationship. Ethnic activists and political entrepreneurs then play on these fears to incite violence, especially if there is a history of violence between the groups (Lake and Rothchild, 1996: 41). This was certainly the case in the lead up to, and during the genocide. To capture this dynamic, Lake and Rothchild (1996: 43) use Vesna Pesic’s quote that “ethnic conflict is caused by the ‘fear of the future,’ lived through the past.” Memories of violence in the past endure. With the adversarial relationship, due to colonialism, between the Hutus and Tutsis I posited in Section I of this paper, this theory is very apt for the conflict under discussion. In terms of elite mobilization for violence, the CDR can be seen as the group that played this role in Rwanda. Within the CDR was the group called the Akazu (little house or inner circle) which was the group that feared losing power to the RPF the most. This group then used the Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines (RTLMC) to mobilise ordinary Hutus in the politics of fear. The result was the genocide. Furthermore, the fact that the Arusha Accords failed is a testimony to the credible commitment dilemma this theory postulates. This is when absent enforcement action from a powerful outsider, ethnic groups fear the other will renege on agreements therefore they all seek to pre-emptively strike each other (Lake and Rothchild, 1996).

Regardless of the above insights, colonial legacy theory can also add something to the discussion of the Rwanda conflict. Colonial legacy theory argues that the ill effects of colonialism can still be the source of conflict even so long after colonialism ended. Bernard et. al. (2004: 229) posit that colonialism “creates patterns of development that leave countries highly dependent on exports from monocrop agriculture or resource extractive industries… which leaves many post-colonial economies vulnerable to volatile prices for primary goods on the world market.” This is one general part of the theory, the other part, which is more pertinent to my conflict, is the enmity such as the deadly rivalry created by the divide and rule tactic in Rwanda under colonialism. The Stanford Prison Experiment shows the susceptibility of human nature to such in-group/out-group constructs. Put together then, these two aspects of the colonial legacy mean that any economic pressures will create ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ as the two competing groups exclude each other on the basis of the perceived ethnic differences. In Rwanda, the Hutus were initially marginalized and they in turn marginalized the Tutsis on the basis of ethnicity. This dynamic has an overlap with Gudrun Ostby’s theory of horizontal inequalities. Ostby (2008: 143) posits that inequalities will lead to conflict if they are horizontal (between groups) rather than vertical (between individuals). 

The above theories (colonial legacy and horizontal inequalities) are salient because of the fact that Rwanda in the 1990s was experiencing severe economic problems and was on an International Monetary Fund (IMF) structural adjustment programme (SAP) which coincided with the world wide crash of coffee prices – Rwanda’s monocrop (Clark, 2011). These pressures are said to have made the Hutu extremists hatch a plan for survival that depended on the elimination of Tutsi.

Section III

Conflict Resolution

The negotiations to end the Rwanda conflict seem to be the perfect antithesis to Roger Fisher and William Ury’s theory of principled negotiation. In principled negotiation, the focus is on these four points: “separate the people from the problem; focus on interests, not positions; generate a variety of possibilities before deciding what to do; and insist that the result be based on some objective standard” (Fisher and Ury, 1991: 10). The logic behind these postulates being that you will get a resolution that can actually be implemented, as no party would feel to have been tricked or coerced into settling – a genuine compromise. The negotiating tactics of the RPF at Arusha were that of hard bargaining and, as predicted by Fisher and Ury (1991), they produced a lop-sided agreement. Granted, it was not the RPF’s fault that the GoR was incoherent and that the ‘hurting stalemate’ was bearable for the RPF, still, the resultant genocide reverses all the gains the RPF thought it made at the Arusha negotiations. Strength, thus, becomes a weakness. The two main failures of Arusha were (1) the exclusion of the hardliners (who then became spoilers) owing to the RPF’s hard bargaining having won the day and, (2) the international community’s lack of will in underwriting the agreement (Scrogie, 2004). In the literature, the involvement of the international community, especially the UN and the OAU gives Arusha a Track One classification and, also since, the potential level of violence was very high given the history (Crocker et. al., 1999). What was lacking, as prescribed by the literature, was a willingness to use force to ensure the implementation of the Arusha Accords. I have pointed out that this may be down to either a respect for state sovereignty rules or, meddling by powerful players such as France (a permanent Security Council member) that had an interest in the conflict. The result is that the one mechanism which was supposed to ensure compliance; the UN peacekeeping force – United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR I) – was undermined, under-equipped and did not arrive in place on the scheduled time, which allowed the spoilers the time and space to carry out their genocidal plans (Scrogie, 2004). This is what Walter (1997) called the critical barrier to civil war settlement; in her conception, “most internal wars end with the extermination, expulsion or capitulation of the losing side.” She says negotiations fail because combatants are asked to disarm when there is no legitimate institution to guarantee their security (Walter, 1997). The way to overcome this barrier, which was missed at Arusha, is to have a robust force in place to implement and enforce sanctions against any breaches of the settlement. The international community, for whatever reasons, failed to underwrite Arusha. The conflict, as predicted by Walter, was then settled on the battlefield when the RPF captured Kigali from the GoR on 18 July 1994, putting an end to the genocide.

Conclusions:

My paper has attempted to show the three main steps to analysing conflicts those working in conflict resolution have to be conversant with. The first step is mapping the conflict so as to clearly understand the issues, parties and relationships involved. The second step is applying theories so as to better understand the causes of the conflict and, the third step is choosing the best conflict resolution tools having understood the nature of the conflict through steps 1 and 2. I have chosen the Rwanda conflict and discussed it in those three steps. The Rwanda conflict was steeped in the problems that arise from colonial legacies but it can be discussed in the same terms of the in-group/out-group dynamics that apply to all human conflicts. My paper highlighted the need for conflict resolution based on genuine compromises as lop-sided agreements are just a foundation for the next permutation of the conflict. The solution that finally ended the genocide in Rwanda was a military victory by the RPF, followed by the expulsion of the Hutus into the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Whether this is a permanent or short term solution, remains to be seen, as it is not infeasible that one day the Hutus will be the invasion force demanding the right of return as the RPF did on 1 October 1990.

"Normal people do not know that anything is possible" - David Rousset

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