Helen Hintjens

Explaining the 1994 genocide in Rwanda

Any adequate account of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda must acknowledge manipulation by external forces, domestic pressures and psychological factors. Even so, the nature of the Rwandan state must be seen as absolutely central. The genocide took place under the aegis of the state, and Rwandans were the main actors involved. Both precolonial legacies and colonial policies contributed to the formation of this state, whose increasingly autocratic and unpopular government was, by the early 1990s, facing serious threats to its hold on state power, for which genocide represented a last-ditch attempt at survival. Many of the mechanisms through which genocide was prepared, implemented and justi®ed in Rwanda bore striking resemblances to those used during the twentieth centurys other major genocide, the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews.

When Identity Becomes a Knife Reflecting on the Genocide in Rwanda

The term ‘identity’ tends to have positive connotations. This article presents an example of a lethal form of identity politics, where self-expression was not possible for victims or victimizers. At the time, killings in Rwanda in 1994 were presented by (and to) the international media as the outcome of deep-seated ‘ethnic’ or ‘tribal’ hatred, between Tutsi and Hutu Rwandans. However, research on the period, oral testimonies from all sides, video evidence and court cases at the UN Tribunal in Arusha established since the genocide, have all confirmed that this was not the case. It has become clear that the killings were systematic, planned and enforced bureaucratically. The rural and urban Hutu population were persuaded to kill neighbours, friends, family members and strangers, and such killings were planned on a national scale and meticulously monitored. Genocide of the Tutsi was organized by a beleaguered inner core of state functionaries, principally comprising top military officers who came mainly from north-western Rwanda and who refused to implement the terms of the Arusha peace Accords (1991–4). Rwandas genocide of Tutsi in 1994 is the most dramatic example of ‘race science’ in action since the Holocaust, with which some parallels are drawn in this article. In both cases, the genocide option was arrived at during a time of economic and political crisis, and a mix of terror and bribery was used to gain popular compliance. To make the genocide thinkable, myths of origin were reinvented and differential forms of citizenship enforced. Identity politics became a means of legitimizing collective violence and scapegoating, and a knife in the back of the civilian population as a whole, victims and victimizers alike.

Governance options in Europe's Caribbean dependencies

The remaining Caribbean dependencies of Britain, France and the Netherlands are constitutionally diverse. Yet in none of the territories is there evidence of significant support for independence. Dissatisfaction exists with central control, but this does not produce separatist pressures. On the contrary, there is the general expectation that continued close ties with the metropolitan government can act as a hedge against the unpredictable fortunes of the contemporary world. Using the notion of ‘governance’ as a way into the complex relations between these dependencies and their metropolitan states, this article reviews recent constitutional and political developments in the French and Dutch Caribbean and draws some parallels and contrasts with the situation in the British Caribbean dependencies. It now appears quite unlikely that any of the three metropolitan powers would be able, or willing, to force their remaining dependencies into independence in the near future. Partly for this reason, during the 199...

Conflict and resources in post‐genocide Rwanda and the Great Lakes region

The legacy of the genocide of 1994 has spread from Rwanda to the wider Great Lakes region, and its most damaging effects have been felt in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), former Zaire. Here an economy based on pillage and force of arms has been organized by local elites, and the Rwandan state, ensuring also on behalf of the West that it is not excluded from the scramble to extract rare mineral deposits, obtain forest products and otherwise exploit the resources of the DRC. The most noticeable after‐effect of the genocide has been mass refugee movements and internal displacement. The damage to environments throughout the region has been dramatic, and has been exacerbated by patterns of growing social inequality. In addition, social institutions that might be able to both manage resource use and resolve conflicts, have all but collapsed under the weight of a violent form of ethnic politics. The main hope for the future lies in reviving some of these community‐level institutions in ways that can overcome some of the more poisonous effects of racial identity politics throughout the Great Lakes region. The necessity for political solutions to environmental and resource problems is very clear; what is less clear is how such solutions can be formulated and implemented.

‘Like leaves in the wind’: desperately seeking asylum in the UK

In June 2005, the author interviewed five Sudanese men. All but one had been failed by UK asylum procedures. Their stories are related to other examples of similarly desperate asylum seekers throughout the UK and the effects of policies of forced destitution, detention and deportation are described.

Appreciating the Movement of the Movements

This review essay surveys the theoretical insights emerging from within the Global Justice and Solidarity Movement, also known as the Anti-Globalisation Movement, or the Movement of the Movements, and also reviews the literature focused on this phenomenon by those closely involved, as well as other observers. The central concern is to understand the nature and significance of the Movement of the Movements as it operates across local, national, and global boundaries, and to consider its capacity to represent and mobilise the many millions worldwide who stand to gain little or nothing, but may lose a great deal, from neo-liberal globalisation.

Pro-asylum Advocacy in the EU: Challenging the State of Exception

This chapter explores examples of how pro-asylum advocates challenge the harsh measures used to punish those who try to enter or reside in the EU illegally, taking examples from The Netherlands and the UK. We explore organized resistance to the ‘3-Ds’, which are so typical of EU-wide migration policies: destitution, detention and deportation. Together these are the backbone of policies of deterrence. Sections 2 and 3 explore how ‘global apartheid’ and the ‘state of exception’ within the EU connect. Giorgio Agamben (2005) first theorized the “state of exception” and Kohler, “global apartheid” (1978). The state of exception is the regional context for pro-asylum advocacy work, and global apartheid is the global context within which the EU-wide state of exception can be understood (Webber 2000; Migreurop 2009)3. In section 4, the ‘shared injustice frames’, or common worldviews, of pro-asylum advocacy networks in the EU, are briefly explored.

Nowhere to run: Iraqi asylum seekers in the UK:

This article, covering the period 2003–2010, is concerned with those Iraqis whose asylum claims in the UK have been rejected in recent years and who have found ‘nowhere to run’. A deterrence-based UK immigration regime has undermined many of their basic rights since the start of the war. And despite wide public knowledge about the dangers of return to Iraq, failed Iraqi asylum seekers are being made destitute, detained and even forcibly deported back to Iraq. From 2007 onwards, deportations on commercial and military flights increased, with deportees facing torture, disappearance and threats of violence upon their return. ‘Deterrence’ claims casualties in the UK, too, with Iraqis dying from homelessness, suicide, medical neglect and despair. Iraqi refugee organisations, the UNHCR and the European Court all call for an end to deportations to Iraq, yet the UK government refuses to listen.

Global Social Justice in a Cold Climate

As entire swathes of humanity are left to rot, the global economic system increasingly gears around military spending, fueled by the war on terror, and the promotion of consumption for its own sake. In this context, the emergence of a huge and mostly peaceful global social justice movement is a welcome surprise.

The creation of the ICTR

This chapter tries to place the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) back into the context of the period in which it was created, in the immediate aftermath of a major genocide, a genocide which the Western powers, the United Nations (UN) and the international community ignored until it was too late. This allowed the gruesome ‘work’ of killing to be done, so that most of the Tutsi population – and some of their Hutu and Twa defenders – were eliminated. As Uvin and Mironko put it, creating the ICTR: ‘was necessary in the light of the total inaction of [the international] [...] community during the genocide, which was widely perceived as shameful’.4 The need to create the ICTR reflected the absence post-Nuremberg and post-Tokyo of any permanent international court able to hold individuals accountable for crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. According to Hassan B. Jallow, Chief Prosecutor of the ICTR from 2003: ‘While Nuremberg