The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide
by Gérard Prunier
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Book Summary Information
Author: Gérard PrunierEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1997-04-15
ISBN: 023110409X
Number of pages: 389
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Book Reviews of The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide
Book Review: 800,000 Killed? Is there any factual basis for this number?
Summary: 3 Stars
According to Gérard Prunier, "Because of the chaotic nature of the genocide, the total number of people killed has never been systematically assessed, but most experts believe the total was around 800,000 people.
-- I'm sorry, but if the total number was never systematically assesed, then just what did these "experts" base their estimates on?
This includes about 750,000 Tutsis and approximately 50,000 politically moderate Hutus who did not support the genocide. ... Only about 130,000 Tutsis survived the massacres." Some, though, have taken issue with Prunier's (and others') estimates, alleging that the number of Tutsis in Rwanda was lower at the outbreak of the genocide than is generally believed. By these measures, "an estimated 500,000 Rwandan Tutsi were killed, or more than three-quarters of their population. ... The number of Hutu killed during the genocide and civil war is even less certain, with estimates ranging from 10,000 to well over 100,000." (Alan J. Kuperman, "Genocide in Rwanda and the Limits of Humanitarian Military Intervention," unpublished paper, 2000; see also Kuperman, "Rwanda in Retrospect," Foreign Affairs, January/February 2000.)
-- Basically, we're being asked to believe that farmers and peasents and a disorganized, soon-to-be defeated Rwandan military was able to kill almost a million people in a few months, with machetes no less, and then dispose of their bodies in such a way that nothing even close to this number of mass grave burials has been found. This is sheer nonsense, perpetuated by Paul Kagame and gulliable white-guilt westerners who have never asked themselves why no verifiable evidence supporting this hyper-inflated number has ever been discovered. This book, and any number of others simply accept the figure of 500k-1mil without serious question. They have to--Paul Kagame's government will not allow inspection of these imaginary mass graves. Not even for the purposes of prosecuting the ringleaders on trial in Tanzania.
When the Nazis perpetrated their Holocaust in Europe, the victims had names, there were lists, there was a vast amount of clear physical evidence. Where is this evidence in Rwanda? In a tiny church in Nyumbe where thousands of people met their deaths in a building that wouldn't have held more than a few hundred at most? 800,000 victims should have left massive piles of bodies near any settlements of any size. There were no such piles of bodies. 450 people found in a mass grave becomes 40,000. Thousands of political murders (many carried out by PDF) in Kigali become 250,000 deaths. Who are these people, where did they come from, where did they live, why aren't lists of the missing available?
People who don't believe me, feel free to post your proof. Just make sure you include some kind of cite which doesn't rely on simply parroting the 800,000 number and attributing it to unnamed "experts." The Rwanda Genocide was in fact a wave of political killings carried out by paramilitary groups, many of whom traced their loyalties not to "Hutu Power" but to men who are now in positions of great prominence in Rwandan society, both Hutu and Tutsi. Men who owe their prominence to supporting the side which ultimately won: Paul Kagame's PDF, an organization which would later go on to launch *another* invasion, this time into the Congo, and spark wars which have now claimed millions of lives. And unlike the genocide, these lives can be documented, and the mass graves being found in the Congo were filled by PDF (now PDA) military, not machete-wielding farmers.
RstJ
Salem, OR
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