Counting the Rwandan Victims of War and Genocide: Concluding Reflections

1 United Nations, Final Report of the Commission of Experts Established Pursuant to Security Council Resolution 935, 9 December 1994, New York, S/1994/1405, 14.

2 “Since 6 April 1994, an estimated 500,000 unarmed civilians have been murdered in Rwanda.” In United Nations, Report of the Secretary-General on the situation in Rwanda, 3 August 1994, New York, 3.

3 United Nations, The Human Rights Situation in Rwanda, 13 October 1994, New York, S/1994/1157, 7.

4 The table summarizes the data gathered by the contributors to this paper. More broadly, it presents the data in comparison to previous counts.

5 ADS paper, footnote 15.

6 The accuracy of this percentage is a true “methodological” feat due to the inherent vagaries of ethnic censuses and the frequent complexity of unravelling genealogical histories, particularly in the case of families that have been entirely decimated.

7 This figure was then confirmed by MINALOC, Dénombrement des victimes du genocide: Rapport final, version révisée, Kigali, Avril 2004.

8 With its vague profile and changing numbers, this second group consisted of former, recent and potential Rwandan nationals, including descendants of migrant labour in Belgian and British territories during colonial times, expatriates during various periods, and Kinyarwanda speakers of various backgrounds (i.e. Ugandan, Zairian [Congolese], etc.). This is a particularly broad definition of those eligible for settlement in the new Rwanda, encompassing all “Rwandan” nationals from the “demographic borders resulting from colonization,” according to the term demanded by then-Rwandan President Pasteur Bizimungu during the International Conference on Rwanda in The Hague of 16–18 September 1994.

9 The 2002 census listed 537,985 recent migrants, not all of them returnees. Ninety per cent of them came from four neighbouring countries. Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning. Third RGPH [census], 2002. Analysis of Results, Migrations, February 2005, Kigali, 76.

10 Extreme caution is thus necessary concerning survivor numbers, particularly when “Hutu widows” are included in the total. (see table: OMD, 278,000–309,000).

11 The survivor populations, however, felt abandoned by the new authorities and boycotted their efforts (see MINALOC, Dénombrement des victimes du genocide, 20). There were strong disagreements between donors and the minister of Rehabilitation, War Displaced and Demobilization, Jacques Bihozagara, who was accused of favouritism in the distribution of aid funds, giving priority to the regime’s new dignitaries and to supporters of beneficiary returnees under various and changing laws.

12 Also see Cléa Koff, La Mémoire des os (Paris: Héloïse d’Ormesson, 2005), 30 sqs.

13 This outstanding issue has deeply divided the country, particularly academics and churches, ever since the commemorations began taking place in 1995: “commemoration of all war and genocide victims” versus “commemoration of victims of the war and the RPF victory,” based on the schism that divided members of the government until the forced resignation of opposition ministers on 28 August 1995.

14 One year before, on 6 March, the préfet and professor Pierre-Claver Rwangabo, who tried to protest, was killed by soldiers belonging to his own security detail after returning from Kigali, following a meeting with the Interior minister about these atrocities.

15 Officials at all of the region’s universities and beyond decided to create the International documentation Network in September 1994, just after the war ended, during a “Humanitarian workshop on the Great Lakes region (Burundi, Rwanda, Zaire, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania),” held in Kenya by the United Nations, the OECD and Switzerland. The participants had made freedom of information and speech central to the rebuilding of “socially responsible and pluralistic university communities independent of government.” See https://umr-developpement-societes.univ-paris1.fr/index.php?id=538876

16 See MINALOC, Dénombrement des victimes du genocide, 17.

17 During numerous investigations carried out by the ICTR in the various prefectures, the local population showed investigators and researchers other mass graves of Hutu victims killed by RPA members, but none of the witnesses wanted there to be any mention of them, preferring that this “evidence be preserved” in the same condition until the day “justice could be served … ” This was an allusion to the Rwandan courts, which were only prosecuting alleged genocide perpetrators.

18 “To set up an impartial body to investigate serious violations of human rights and humanitarian law, including genocide,” United Nations, Final Report of the Commission of Experts,.10.

19 “95. The Commission of Experts has concluded that there exist substantial grounds to conclude that mass murders, summary executions, breaches of international humanitarian law and crimes against humanity were also perpetrated by Tutsi elements against Hutu individuals and that allegations concerning these acts should be investigated further.” United Nations, ibid., 21.

20 Ibid., 1.

21 See ICTR, Summary of UNHCR Presentation before Commission of Experts, 10 October 1994, R0002905-R0002920, Arusha.

22 According to the report, “In addition to the large number of mass graves attributable to the militias and Rwandan Armed Forces are those attributable to the RPA, leading to a situation in which it is currently difficult to distinguish one from the other.” UN-ECOSOC, Commission on Human Rights, E/CN.4/1995/70, p. 9.

23 See ICTR, General Report on the Special Investigations Concerning the Crimes Committed by the Rwandan Patriotic Army During 1994, 1 October 2003, Arusha, 30 p.???

24 “44. The Commission of Experts has also received from UNHCR information concerning massacres alleged to have been perpetrated by members of the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF) army on a systematic basis against a number of Hutus. In all alleged cases, the victims included not only men, but also women and children. Most of the massacres do not seem to have been provoked by individuals suspected of participation in the massacres of Tutsis carried out in April 1994. Bodies that drifted down the Kagera river at an average rate of five per day in the last week of September, many of which had their feet and hands tied - indicating that the victims had been summarily executed – were being recovered.” (United Nations, Letter from the Secretary General to the President of the Security Council, S/1994/1405, 9 December 1994, 20). See also, Amnesty International, Rwanda: Killings and abductions by the RPA, London, 14 October 1994, 4.

25 See http://www.rfi.fr/afrique/20150217-morts-lac-rweru-burundi-rwanda-enquete-pietine-ua-commission-africaine-/

26 Service national des juridictions Gacaca, Rapport final, 18 Juin 2012, Kigali.

27 Indeed, Articles 47 and 48 of the organic law of 19 June 2004 setting up the gacaca jurisdictions stipulate that the cases investigated by the public prosecutor and the military courts be forwarded to the cells, but to do so it would have been necessary for there to be files, for the jurisdictions to be willing to forward them, for the plaintiff to be able to and take the risk of reporting the guilty party, and for the authorities to tolerate it.

28 Victoria Sanford, “Anthropological Methods for Documenting Human Rights Violations and Genocide”, (ANR “Sortir des violences” seminar, EHESS, Paris, France, 7 May 2019).

29 These restrictions were already cited in 2008 as being among the reasons that led the UN courts to refuse to transfer the ICTR’s archives from Arusha to Rwanda: “4. Questions, problems relating to the security and confidentiality of archives: […] Similarly, a deeply rooted democratic tradition and a lasting internal and external political stability appear to be decisive criteria in the choice of the host country. 5. Public access to the Archives: […] In principle, political restrictions targeting a number of intellectuals, journalists, NGO representatives, and domestic and foreign academics and researchers and banning them from entering the country are incompatible with selecting Rwanda” (Expert report, The Advisory Committee on the Archives of the UN ad hoc International Criminal Tribunal, Arusha, December 2007). Similarly, lists of “enemies of Rwanda” are regularly published. See for example: https://mobile.igihe.com/amakuru/u-rwanda/article/bamwe-mu-banyamahanga-cnlg-itunga-agatoki-kuba-ku-isonga-y-abahakana-jenoside. Among others, alongside Carla del Ponte, the former prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal, are also concerned the main expert witnesses from her Office banned from Rwanda immediately after informing the Rwandan authorities that they would also participate in the RPA’s war crimes investigations.

30 Supported by major works by Rwandan and foreign authors. See the exhaustive, annual bibliography published since 1994 by François Lagarde (University of Texas at Austin): https://umr-developpement-societes.univ-paris1.fr/index.php?id=538486.

31 See UMR Développement & Sociétés, Bibliographies sur le Rwanda - F. Lagarde, https://umr-developpement-societes.univ-paris1.fr/index.php?id=538486

32 Damien de Walque, Philip Verwimp, “The Demographic and Socio-Economic Distribution of Excess Mortality during the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda” (Policy Research Working Paper, Washington, DC: The World Bank, March 2009).