Comment & analysis
The problem with polarising the debate on genocide
Oliver Kearns
2010-07-08, Issue 489
http://pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/65782
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Gerald Caplan is right to outline various deficiencies of Edward Herman and David Peterson’s chapter on Rwanda in their new book ‘The Politics of Genocide’. In important ways, however, Caplan’s review piece actually contributes to the very phenomenon he is trying to attack. Caplan’s framing of the debate over the violence in Rwanda in 1994 arguably encourages a further polarisation of that debate, making it easier for genocide deniers to make their case.
The problem with Caplan’s framing is its characterisation of both ‘sides’ of the debate. On one side are ‘the overwhelming number of those who have ever written about the genocide’. Caplan portrays this overwhelming number as holding a more unified view of the 1994 killings than actually exists. For instance, Caplan rejects Herman and Peterson’s contention that the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) ‘were perceived as serving US interests’, arguing that ‘[n]o other historian of the genocide of whom I’m aware makes this claim and no evidence for it exists’. In fact much has been written of the diplomatic support given to the RPF by the United States. Barrie Collins has documented the role of the US in pressuring President Habyarimana throughout the 1990s, often with the threat of withdrawal of international funds, to treat the RPF as a legitimate opposition movement and to concede to its demands. As Collins notes, the fact that the invasion of Rwanda by the RPF was not condemned by the ‘international community’ did indeed lead to a perception in the Rwandan government that ‘the RPF enjoyed discreet American approval’.[1]
Arguably more problematic in terms of furthering our understanding of the 1994 violence is Caplan’s characterisation of the other side of the debate. Caplan labels a number of scholars, lawyers and journalists as genocide deniers, who back up their arguments by ‘gleefully drink[ing] each other’s putrid bath water’. Included within this grouping are Allan Stam and Christian Davenport, the latter a professor of Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Davenport and Stam have compiled data on killings from April-June 1994 from a wide range of sources, including Rwandan ministries, survivors associations and human rights organisations. They estimate that while around 890,000 killings occurred in areas under the jurisdiction of the FAR (Rwandan Armed Forces), there were also 77,000 killings in areas under RPF jurisdiction. Caplan is right to note the controversy that this research has ignited – members of the research team in question have been interrogated and threatened by the Rwandan government. To brand Davenport and Stam genocide deniers, however, is quite inaccurate. To quote their research paper: ‘[c]learly evidence of genocide is evident within this analysis but it is also clear that a variety of other activities exist as well, which merit discussion and consideration within journalistic, scholarly, legal and political circles’.[2] As the two have noted elsewhere, ‘we have never denied that a genocide took place; we just noted that genocide was only one among several forms of violence that occurred at the time’.[3]
Caplan’s more specific source of outrage at Davenport and Stam is their ‘sensational estimate’ that ‘the majority of victims [were] likely Hutu and not Tutsi’. Caplan says the methodology used to arrive at this ‘Orwellian assertion’ has been ‘totally discredited’. Unfortunately Caplan does not provide any source to back this up. It is true that one could level criticisms at aspects of their Davenport and Stam’s methodology. Their claim that the majority of victims were likely Hutu is derived from subtracting the estimated number of Tutsi survivors from 1991 census data on the number of Tutsi in Rwanda. It is likely, however, that in the 1991 census the number of Tutsi was under-reported by both the Habyarimana regime and by Tutsi themselves, perhaps by as much as 40 per cent.[4] Nevertheless, in light of the fact that previous scholarly estimates have estimated the numbers of Hutu and Tutsi deaths to be much more even than the current Rwandan government’s estimate, Caplan’s name-calling with regards to Davenport and Stam and their ‘Orwellian’ estimates has arguably little merit.
We surely owe it to the victims of the violence of 1994 to develop as accurate and nuanced a picture as possible of what exactly took place during those terrible months. Gerald Caplan’s arguments make this harder to achieve. By downplaying the diversity of opinion among those who accept a genocide was carried out aimed at the Tutsi population, and by denouncing those who draw attention to the diversity of modes of violence that existed in Rwanda throughout 1994, Caplan encourages a polarisation of discussion over Rwanda, as readers accept the parameters of the debate that he presents. This will only make it easier for those who do actually deny a genocide took place to characterise those who disagree as RPF or American imperialist stooges. Such a polarisation could also have damaging consequences for the viability of holding President Kagame and members of the RPF to account for their actions over the last two decades, both in Rwanda and in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Kagame’s government is only too happy to see the debate polarised, since this makes it much more difficult to ensure that all forms of violence – and, crucially, its perpetrators – are documented.
* Oliver Kearns is a fourth year undergraduate in international relations & philosophy at the University of St Andrews.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News.
NOTES
[1] Barrie Collins, “New Wars and Old Wars? The Lessons of Rwanda” in
David Chandler (ed.), Rethinking Human Rights: Critical Approaches to
International Politics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003): 157-175, 163.
[2] Christian Davenport & Allan Stam, “Rwandan Political Violence in
Space and Time” Discussion paper, 2009,
http://web.mac.com/christiandavenport/iWeb/Site%2040/Publications_files/rwanda031708c.pdf:
36.
[3] Christian Davenport & Allan Stam, “What Really Happened in Rwanda?”
Miller-McCune Research Essay, 6 October 2009,
http://www.miller-mccune.com/politics/what-really-happened-in-rwanda-3432
[4] Marijke Verpoorten, “The death toll of the Rwandan genocide: a
detailed analysis for Gilkongoro Province” Population 60(4), 2005:
331-368.
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