In essence, Rwandans are one people throughout history. Colonialists created divisions among them as a strategy to achieve their devious goals. In the last piece of this serialised narrative, we saw how the notions of crimes against humanity and genocide tend to be used in a confused manner. The main difference between these crimes lies in the motive behind each of them. If the perpetrator is willing to exterminate, totally or partially, a national, racial, ethnic, or religious group, such an act constitutes genocide. ALSO READ: Genocide Timeline April 7, 1994: The day Rwanda plunged into Genocide It follows from the definitions mentioned earlier that the qualitative aspect takes precedence over the quantitative one in understanding genocide. The basic element of the definition is not the number of victims or the means used to kill them, but proof of the willingness or intention of a State, or underlying structures, to plan the elimination of a human entity perceived as a threat to the objectives or ambitions of that State. Although the intention to eliminate a national group as such is not easy to prove before a court of law—because it is not always supported by written material—concrete elements can nevertheless permit its demonstration. ALSO READ: Did Rwanda really gain independence on July 1, 1962? The similarity in time and space of massacres orchestrated against a designated population offers firsthand proof of a State’s intention to commit genocide. Underlying structures designed to achieve the complete disappearance of a population from the territory and sphere of influence of that State provide additional evidence. The concept of genocide is not easy to define. The extensions made to it and the stakes linked to its definition further complicate the issue. Among the stakes associated with the abusive use of this term are those that seek to give value to the identity of a particular category of the population. In this perspective, genocide is used to recognise and confirm the massacre suffered by that category of population in the past. There are also humanitarian issues, mainly advanced by some non-governmental organisations. The use of the term genocide is often connected with strategies aimed at arousing emotions and provoking shock in people’s minds in order to obtain recognition for international intervention. The use of the word “genocide” is therefore inscribed within issues of memory and identity. Some of these issues surface in the understanding of the Genocide against the Tutsi. One case to remember concerns certain publications which, after describing how one part of the Rwandan population turned against another in a fit of excessive anger with the intention of exterminating it, conclude that responsibility for the crime lies with those who allegedly provoked that anger. This illustrates how the definition and explanation of the Genocide against the Tutsi are not always motivated solely by a pursuit of knowledge. However, according to Raphael Lemkin and the 1948 Convention, remarkable progress has been made, with broad consensus, regarding which acts constitute genocide. These acts are defined not by the number of victims but by the intention to exterminate a human entity, together with planned and concerted efforts to carry out that extermination. Studies of genocides in the twentieth century show that every genocide was invariably preceded by long ideological and technical preparations, carried out with the assistance of the bureaucratic machinery of the State. In this text, the term “Genocide perpetrated against the Tutsi” is used on several occasions. Its preference over the term “Rwandan Genocide” is based on two constitutive elements of genocidal logic. First, the victims were identified as an ethnic group, and the elimination of that group was comprehensive. Second, the killers, perceived and identified as Hutu, targeted their victims because they belonged to a group perceived as Tutsi.
