The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide [Hardcover]

Gérard Prunier (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0231104081 | ISBN-13: 978-0231104081 | Publication Date: December 28, 1995

In the spring of 1994 the tiny African nation of Rwanda exploded onto the international media stage, as internal strife reached genocidal proportions. But the horror that unfolded before our eyes had been building steadily for years before it captured the attention of the world.

In The Rwanda Crisis, journalist and Africa scholar Gérard Prunier provides a historical perspective that Western readers need to understand how and why the brutal massacres of 800,000 Rwandese came to pass. Prunier shows how the events in Rwanda were part of a deadly logic, a plan that served central political and economic interests, rather than a result of ancient tribal hatreds -- a notion often invoked by the media to dramatize the fighting.

The Rwanda Crisis makes great strides in dispelling the racist cultural myths surrounding the people of Rwanda, views propogated by European colonialists in the nineteenth century and carved into "history" by Western influence. Prunier demonstrates how the struggle for cultural dominance and subjugation among the Hutu and Tutsi -- the central players in the recent massacres -- was exploited by racially obsessed Europeans. He shows how Western colonialists helped to construct a Tutsi identity as a superior racial type because of their distinctly "non-Negro" features in order to facilitate greater control over the Rwandese.

Expertly leading readers on a journey through the troubled history of the country and its surroundings, Prunier moves from the pre-colonial Kingdom of Rwanda, though German and Belgian colonial regimes, to the 1973 coup. The book chronicles the developing refugee crisis in Rwanda and neighboring Uganda in the 1970s and 1980s and offers the most comprehensive account available of the manipulations of popular sentiment that led to the genocide and the events that have followed.

In the aftermath of this devastating tragedy, The Rwanda Crisis is the first clear-eyed analysis available to American readers. From the massacres to the subsequent cholera epidemic and emerging refugee crisis, Prunier details the horrifying events of recent years and considers propsects for the future of Rwanda.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Although it occurred only in 1994, the civil war in the tiny central African nation of Rwanda has already slipped from memory. In that country, writes Belgian historian Gérard Prunier, Tutsi and Hutu fell to slaughtering each other at the end of a long history of Belgian, German, and French colonialism that deliberately played on ethnic tensions. The final "historical product" was the murder of perhaps a million people and the displacement another two million, nearly half of the country's population all told. Prunier traces a course through the complex history of unrest and hatred that washed over Rwanda, and he looks deeply into the question of why this horror could have happened in an era of international peacekeeping. His conclusion is disturbing: "Genocides are a modern phenomenon--they require organization--and they are likely to become more frequent." --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

From Library Journal

One of the absolute and mystifying horrors of the late 20th century has been the carnage taking place in the small central African nation of Rwanda. It is also probably safe to say that it has been the least understood. The author, a senior researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris, has written the first comprehensive account in English that examines the causes and events of this genocidal civil war. Whereas most in the West have been given to believe it was merely a "tribal" conflict (Hutu vs. Tutsi), Prunier points out, correctly, the substantive underlying causes: a colonial legacy that disrupted precolonial ethnic relations, political chaos and repression, economic dislocation, Western bungling and neglect, the role of the church, and overpopulation?to name a few. His well-written and important study belongs in all but the smallest collections dealing with Africa or current events. Another comparable title is Alain Destexhe's Rwanda and Genocide in the Twentieth Century (LJ 10/1/95).?Paul H. Thomas, Hoover Inst. Lib., Stanford, Cal.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 389 pages
• Publisher: Columbia University Press (December 28, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0231104081
• ISBN-13: 978-0231104081
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #703,605 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #94 in Books > History > Africa > Rwanda

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A horrifying report on how we humans behave, February 7, 2005

By 

Jill Malter ([e-mail]) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide (Paperback)

This book has plenty of information about Rwanda and the 1994 genocide there. Yes, the book may appear anti-Hutu. But that is because so many of the Hutus were guilty of genocide. The fact that not all Tutsis have always been angels does not change that.

Rwanda is a country of a little over 10,000 square miles, with several million people. At the beginning of 1994, about ten percent of its people were Tutsis and almost all of the rest were Hutus. There were about 900,000 Tutsis. In the space of a few weeks, 800,000 of the Tutsis were brutally murdered, many of them by their neighbors, who generally used machetes to slaughter them. This was a carefully planned extermination. There was a long period of incitement. And even the word "inyenzi" (literally, "cockroaches") used by Hutu extremists to describe Tutsis started as a reference to violent armed men who tended to move at night. It was not merely a term of derision, but also one which helped produce a reaction of fear that encouraged the massacres.

The author explains that had it not been for the success of a Tutsi army in eventually (but too late) taking the capital city, the leaders of the genocide probably would have gotten away with it completely. There might have been a brief and partial UN boycott, with France discreetly violating it, followed by a restoration of international ties with the government.

The differences between Tutsis and Hutus had made a big impression on European colonialists a century earlier. The Tutsis were usually considerably taller and thinner than the Hutus. The Tutsis typically had narrower noses and lighter skins as well. Europeans had put Tutsis in control of the land in spite of the fact that the Hutus were a big majority. However, when Rwanda obtained independence, the Hutus gained control and the Tutsis were almost entirely unrepresented in the government or military leadership.

Although most of the Tutsis in Rwanda were killed, several hundred thousand Tutsis who lived outside Rwanda moved into that country when the Tutsi army gained control of it. And well over a million Hutus fled Rwanda.

Prunier makes many interesting points. One is that although many people claimed that the Tutsis were much richer than the Hutus, the average incomes of Tutsis and Hutus were about the same. Another is about the role of France in supporting the Hutus. There is a revealing quote of a French minister who was asked about this and gave a very unconvincing denial: "Me! Accuse me of having got people to train death squads! Let's be serious! In all these crises some people always find a way to attack France."

When some French troops finally showed up in the area, the Hutus applauded them in a big way. Radio announcements told Hutu girls to "wash yourselves and put on a good dress for our French allies. The Tutsi girls are all dead so you have your chance."

These sorts of things, along with some amazing official French comments about the Hutus and Tutsis killing each other, as though there were simply victims and no criminals, make it appear that France was a big part of the problem. The United Nations forces, with their instructions not to stop any of the atrocities, were worse than useless.

I learned quite a bit from this book. It is a sobering look at our species.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Eclipsed, but important, November 15, 2002

By 

Andrew Bruske "Andrew Bruske" (Seoul, Korea) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide (Paperback)

From an ex-Peace Corps Volunteer, Rwanda.
This book seems to have been eclipsed by Gourevitch's journalistic account. Prunier was there and writing at the time that this happened. This book is basically a compilation of his observations of the genocide in Rwanda as it was occuring. It is, perhaps, less passionate than other accounts, but that only makes it more chilling. It traces the origins of the Rwanda genocide, the horrors of preparation and execution. This is an important book.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An amazing book, March 31, 2005

By 

P. Pyott (Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide (Hardcover)

I have read no other book that so dispassionately, logically, and compellingly (and yes, perhaps coldly) simply gives the reader the facts. Not an easy read, as sometimes I had to read the pages twice to fully grasp the meaning, but a great experience. Probably the best book I've ever read.