"Every year in the first week of April Western media venues are flooded with stories that begin with statements about the anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, “where at least 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus died at the hands of Hutu extremists.”
Such stories recount the official narrative about the ‘Genocide in Rwanda’, a narrative that has five or six key elements that have been almost canonized and are repeated robotically by Western English-speaking news consumers from all walks of life, economic classes, and political leanings.
1. At least 800,000 people killed;
2. Mostly ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus;
3. Slaughtered with machetes (and picks, hoes, adzes, other crude tools);
4. It was meaningless tribal savagery;
5. Committed by Hutu extremists;
6. In 100 days of genocide;
7. We (Westerners) were ‘bystanders’ and did nothing.
These jingoistic phrases have been systematically cemented into the minds of Westerners through more than 20 years of insidious Western media propaganda, including the printed word, radio programs, still photographs, video and film, and they are generally reproduced ad nauseum by emergent ‘social’ media.
There is little truth to the official narrative.
‘Tutsis as victims, Hutus as oppressors?’
Twenty years after the pivotal events of 1994, it is time that Western media ‘news’ consumers – scholars, peace workers, academics, clergy, politicians, humanitarian aid workers, everyone – took responsibility for their own participation in the ‘Rwanda Genocide’ hysteria or, as it is, industry.
Let’s set the stage for the so-called ‘100 days of Genocide’ that purportedly began April 6, 1994, and purportedly ended July 15, 1994, in Rwanda. We can offer some critical facts that anyone who wants to mourn and sob about life and death in Rwanda ought to understand before they open their mouths and display sheer ignorance.
To begin with, ‘Hutu’ and ‘Tutsi’ are socio-economic and socio-political categories: these are not ‘tribes’. Most of the ‘Rwanda Genocide’ narrative is mythology relying on simplifications, stereotypes and reductionisms about Hutus and Tutsis as tribal savages. This stuff is right out of Tarzan movies.
Prior to the imperial occupation that began after 1890, ‘Tutsi’ kings ruled Ruanda-Urundi. ‘Tutsi’ cattle herders comprised some 20 percent of the population, ruling over the 80 percent ‘Hutu’ majority with egregious violence. First the Germans (to 1916) then the Belgians (to 1960) ruled ‘their’ colony by nurturing a ‘Tutsi’ power structure to exploit the ‘Hutu’ masses. The ‘Tutsi’ comprador class served the colonial occupation, where brutality, slavery and terrorism were used to keep the ‘Hutu’ masses in the fields. A ‘Tutsi’ could lose all his cattle and descend into the ranks of the peasant ‘Hutu’ agriculturalists and, though far less likely, a ‘Hutu’ could gain cattle and join the Tutsi elites. The colonial fathers issued ID cards, measured noses and cranial dimensions, and duly clarified who be ‘Hutu’ and who be ‘Tutsi’. There was, of course, much money to be made.
A Rwandan woman carries a Swiss family's baby 09 April 1994 at Butare on the Rwanda-Burundi border where numerous foreigners were fleeing the civil clashes in Rwanda. (AFP Photo / Pascal Guyot)
Witnessing the global ‘Third World’ independence (sic) movements of the 1950s, and supported by the Belgian Catholic priests, the ‘Hutus’ in Rwanda overthrew the ‘Tutsi’ monarchy in the ‘revolution’ of 1959-1960. Some people died, some people fled, some people stayed, and the next 30 years saw majority ‘Hutu’ rule, with Rwanda under constant attack by elite ‘Tutsi’ guerrillas.
Noting the winds of change, Belgium quickly swapped their support to the Hutu majority, established a comprador class of ‘Hutu’ elites, and protected their interests. There was, of course, much money to be made. Thousands of elite ‘Tutsis’ connected to the former power structure fled to Uganda, Tanzania, Europe and North America.
At the height of the Cold War, the elite ‘Tutsi’ refugees (sic) influenced the Non-Aligned Movement – newly-independent (sic) states like Brazil, India, Malaysia, etc. – screaming bloody murder and “We are the victims of imperial aggression!” all the while. This is the falsified history of ‘Tutsis’ as ‘victims’ inculcated by the arrogant elite ‘Tutsi’ rulers. These facts are key to the official narrative: Tutsis as victims, Hutus as oppressors.
Like any monarchy, the ‘Tutsi’ elites believe(d) they are God’s Chosen People, the Jews of Africa, the natural-born rulers over millions of Hutu (and Tutsi) peasants.
Adopted by the Non-Aligned Movement – funded, armed, trained outside Rwanda – the elite ‘Tutsi’ guerrillas attacked Rwanda throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, sowing the most egregious terrorism, usually under cover of night. Every time the ‘Tutsi’ guerrillas attacked Rwanda – whether from outside during the 1960s or from inside during the 1990s – the in-country French-speaking ‘Tutsis’ suffered reprisals. The ‘Tutsis as victims’ narrative continued to expand, and while the Hutus were blamed for atrocities, usually retaliatory, the ‘Tutsi’ were coddled and protected.
Guerrilla incursions involved bombings of cafes, nightclubs, bars, restaurants and buses. The very real suffering of the French-speaking ‘Tutsi’ people inside Rwanda – those who ‘stayed behind’ – was written off by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF, a ‘Tutsi’ political party created in 1987 by the Tutsi refugee diaspora in Uganda, now the ruling party in Rwanda) as collateral damage. The English-speaking Ugandans, the elite ‘Tutsi’ refugees (sic), who had Ugandan citizenship and high posts in the Ugandan military, defined them as Hutu collaborators. The RPF didn’t care whether they lived or died.
The foreign element
Enter, by coup d’etat, the Hutu President Juvenal Habyarimana, who ruled Rwanda from 1973 to April 6, 1994, backed by France. Historically, France was to Africa what the United States was to Latin America. Britain and Portugal controlled a few protectorates, Belgium plundered the Congo and Ruanda-Urundi, but Francophone power in Africa was vast, deeply entrenched and militarily brutal.
Habyarimana ran a one-party dictatorship, but French-speaking Tutsis who stayed behind were able to achieve some economic status, though they were kept in check, given their small numbers. Of course, this wasn’t good enough for the elite ‘Tutsis’ outside Rwanda. The United States, Canada, Britain and Israel wanted more of the African pie, and Paul Kagame was the man to get it for them."
Full article at:
http://rt.com/op-edge/real-genocide-rwanda-hutu-extremist-848/
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