2nd International Conference on Genocide Lecturer Abstracts

Genocide: A Social Work Response
Nick Alenkin, California State University, Los Angeles; Doctoral Student, Social Policy/Social Research, Loma Linda University . Email: nalenkin@yahoo.com

This paper will explore the constructs of Genocide as a result of an "uncivil" society and the intersects of the profession of social work and its response to Genocide. The issues explored below will allow the participants to develop constructs of civil and uncivil society, social work and its ethical response, and development of a paradigm for social workers in response to the issue of Genocide.

I. Explore the idea of "civil society". What are the characteristics of "civil society"?
II. Extract an example of genocide (Rwanda, Bosnia,etc..) as an example of uncivil society and what may have gone wrong, prevented, etc..
III. Why would/should social work as a "global" profession be concerned with this decline? (e.g., It is in our value/ethics base to provide assistance. We have responded before to examples such as world poverty, international aid and social service delivery, etc..)
IV. Response to genocide by social workers and what that entails. We can say that the response is typically two pronged: 1) direct social services provision, 2) creating, revitalizing that civil society with its ethics, etc..

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"Translated Experiences of Genocide: Memory, Language and Silence"

Sima Aprahamian, Ph.D.
Simone de Beauvoir Institute and
Sociology-Anthropology
Concordia University
1455 de Maisonneuve W.
Montreal (Quebec)
H3G 1M8
E-mail: aprhsma@alcor.concordia.ca

In this interdisciplinary session, scholars engage in discussions of memory, language,
silence and healing in the context of the Armenian genocide and the Shoah.
The panel will also discuss the role memory plays in undoing silences and promoting
healing. The session brings together papers that discuss issues of bearing witness and translation, (1)through analysis of passages from authors of Holocaust testimonies who
have been compelled to deliver their witness in a language different from their mother tongue, (2) through looking into the researcher of genocide (in the Armenian case) as "bearing witness"; (3) through the researcher as bearing witness to the silenced voices of marginalized populations [the underprivileged] (class/ poverty). The papers will examine
silence, and denial as well as alienation and unbearablity of memory.

After the presentation of the papers panelists will discuss questions suc as whether
healing is ever possible in the face of denial by perpetrator nations and whether these nations need to go through a healing process as well. Would they be healing from
guilt (and shame) in contrast to healing from trauma? The panel will attempt to
understand how healing is possible and does one heal; how do generations
of victims, perpetrators, and collaborators differ and compare between genocides
acknowledged (e.g. the Shoah) and genocides denied (e.g. the Armenian genocide). What role does recognition and reparation, and retribution play in the healing process?

"Silences, denials: Studying the Armenian Genocide as being in itsel Bearing Witness"
Sima Aprahamian
Concordia University
E-mail: aprhsma@alcor.concordia.ca
The proposed paper will examine issues of silence, and denial as well as
alienation and unbearablity of memory in the context of discussions and studies of the Armenian Genocide. The approach followed is personal and self-reflexive. It starts
through my own identity/self/ locale (in A. Rich's sense) as an Armenian woman who has not experienced the 1915-1923 genocide and has learned about it through narratives of the grandmother who survided the genocide and through other sites of memory. Documents and literary and artistic responses to the Catastrophe.
The paper will examine how through the need to re-member and study the genocide which is being denied transforms one into a witness.

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"From abandon to abandon: before, during and after the genocide of Tutsi."
by Philippe Basabose, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada.

Ten years have already elapsed since over a million of Tutsi were chopped down by their Hutu-countrymen in the total indifference of the world. While survivors, with their wounds still widely open, watch, shockingly disappointed, the ruthless world around them, their voices calling for rescue get lost in the calls for reconciliation and shouts of denial. Justice, just as it had terribly lacked through out the thirty-five years that laid foundation to the 1994 holocaust, sets free those responsible for the despicable massacres either because they admit to committing what they committed in broad daylight or because the whims of the raison d'état inspire that. In such a situation, hope fades away, life becomes an unfair sentence and surviving an atrocious fate, words like human rights, international community lose their meaning.
As a genocide survivor and eye witness, I intend, by this presentation, to shed some light on the three moments (before, during and after the 1994 genocide) that define the horror the Tutsi underwent as a plaything of Hutu-led regimes and is undergoing as a rejected survivor. This presentation has a two-fold objective: raising awareness about the shameful fate imposed on Tutsi and, by so doing, honoring the memory of relatives, friends and all who lost their lives in the 1994 Tutsi genocide. The objective entails a two-direction methodology: testimony-like facts and their analysis, depending on the specificity of each, using existing critical theory tools.
Philippe Basabose
The University of Western Ontario
Department of French, London, ON
N6A 3K7
E-mail: pbasabos@uwo.ca

Traditional cultures and languages, enriching to some, threatening toothers: Berber Culture, A Case Study. Katie Benouar and Hamed Benouar

The paper will present an overview of the traditional culture and languages of the Berber people of North Africa from ancient to current times. Berber
culture and languages are still alive in North Africa, but the manifestation of Berber culture varies for historical reasons. The Berbers and the colons had different motives for keeping the Berber identity alive.
The various levels of existence of Berber culture and languages today is the result of official influence in different geographical parts of North Africa as well as of the burgeoning influence of the Berbers themselves
seeking to preserve their traditions and enrich national culture.

Hamed Benouar,
Executive Director
ccit
UC Berkeley, California.

Katie Benouar
Senior Transportation Planner
Office of Regional and Interagency Planning
Caltrans Division of Transportation Planning

1120 N Street, fifth floor (MS 32)
Sacramento, CA 95814

Mailing: P.O. 942874 (MS 32), Sacramento, CA 94274-0001

Phone: (916) 653-3758
Calnet: 8-453-3758
Fax: (916) 653-1447

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HOW TO TELL A TRUE TRAIN STORY
Naomi Benaron
skarcoyote@earthlink.net

I will be reading a short story entitled "HOW TO TELL A TRUE TRAIN STORY."
This is the fictional account of a young woman whose father was taken froma Polish ghetto to Auschwitz. The father tells the story of the train trip
to Auschwitz to his daughter as they sit at her kitchen table. He is eighty-four, and she is forty-two. He has never before spoken of his experiences during WWII. It is through this conversation that the daughter
comes to understand the profound influence of the holocaust on her father.
She learns also how this experience in some sense took her father away from her even before she was born. HOW TO TELL A TRUE TRAIN STORY speaks to the effects of the holocaust on the children of the victims. Genocide and
holocaust create an environment of anguish that perpetuates itself long after the perpetrators of the crimes have passed on.

Remembering Justice in Rwanda: Reflections on Gender and the Judicial Construction of Memory

Matthew J. Burnett
Seattle University School of Law
burnetm@seattleu.edu

This presentation is part of a paper that will be published with the Seattle Journal of Social Justice (http://law.seattleu.edu/sjsj <http://law.seattleu.edu/sjsj> ) -- it was chosen to be published as part of a writing competition. The paper will be published after the conference, however.

In short, the paper looks at how gender is constructed/remembered through the various judicial responses to the Rwandan Genocide, including the ICTR, Rwandan National Courts, and the gacaca system. It frames these courts as "technologies of memory" (borrowing from Foucault), and investigates how judicial responses to the genocide treat gender and violence against women, or how these crimes are remembered through each juridical narrative.
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In the Belly of the Beast : International Revisionism Visits Sacramento
Nick Burnet, California State University, Sacramento.

This essay is a reflexion about the attempt of the International Revision Association to hold conference at the California State university at Sacramento campus in April of this year 2004.
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The Birthing of an Enemy: A Story of Demons and Saints
California State University, Sacramento
by Barbara Bush
helvetia22@hotmail.com
This study reflects an analysis of pre-genocide rhetoric as a crucial component to understanding how authors of genocide build momentum needed for gaining public complicity in murdering, or attempting to murder, some specific community in its entirety. In analyzing the types of discourse prevalent in the pre-genocide mode it is possible to observe the construction of identity necessary for agitating an emotive response crucial to implementing genocide. The case study used to investigate the construction of identity through pre-genocide rhetoric will primarily be drawn from the 1994 genocide in Rwanda; however illustrative examples will also be drawn from the Holocaust in Germany and the genocide in Cambodia. While there are many different types of discourse available to study, the types studied in this work will be institutional rhetoric and popular rhetoric. Institutional rhetoric is defined as that which includes discourse occurring from within the political establishment or educational institutions, such as speeches, history lessons, and identity cards. Popular rhetoric, on the other hand, includes songs, films, and radio broadcasts. This analysis, drawing on philosophical, theoretical, critical and intercultural underpinnings, may shed light on how we can detect mass homicidal tendencies before they occur. Additionally, as post-genocide reconciliation work moves forward, as it does in Rwanda, massive efforts are underway in de-constructing identities that have been polarized and essentialzed. This kind of work requires an understanding of the underpinnings I am calling, pre-genocidal rhetoric.

THE ETHNIC CLEANSING OF CALIFORNIA : The Native American Experience by Edwald D. Castillo, Sonoma State

No other Native American population in the United States suffered the gut wrenching population decline both in sized and rapidity than the California Indian peoples. Religious persecution, wholesale sexual slavery and violent organized paramilitary wars aimed at the mass slaughter of the California's first peoples is little known by the United States citizens let alone the world population.
This presentation will explore the pre-contact California Indian population its size, social organization and tribal territories. Following this survey I will describe and discuss the colonial laws, practices and racial attitudes of the Spanish, Mexican and United States colonizers and their impact on the indigenous population. Special attention will be focused upon the impact of introduced diseases. Of special interests new data concerning the impact of introduced stock animals on the native flora and fauna. This in turn drastically affected the natural food resources and hence accounted for widespread famine and death.

Professor Edward D. Castillo
Member of the Cahuilla and Luiseno Tribes of California
Chairman of Native American Studies
Sonoma State University
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The interplay of multiple identities across multiple domains and different social settings in Sri Lankans
by Malathi Dissanayake, University of Pennsylvania, Phildadelphia.
Currently, in Sri Lanka, there is an ethnic tension happening between the Sinhalese and Tamils ethnic groups. To understand this conflict it may be important to understand how these groups perceive themselves. The current study explores multiple identities of Sri Lankans and their importance of those identities as well as their interplay across multiple domains and different social settings. Particularly, it focused on the role of major social identities in Sinhalese (the majority) as well as Tamils (the minority) in Sri Lanka, and North America. Participants were asked to complete seven self-statements (who am I), and closed ended questions regarding six major identities: South Asian identity, Canadian/American identity, nationality, religion, ethnicity, and caste. Explanations of the self-statements were analyzed by using a fourfold coding scheme. Tamils indicated more social attributes as well as more social identities than Sinhalese in their self-statement tests. Religion is the most common social attribute in self-interpretations of Sri Lankan Sinahalese and nationality (Sri Lankan) is the most common social attribute of Sinhalese in the United States. Sri Lankan Tamils indicated that occupation is the most common social attribute whereas ethnicity became the most common in Tamils in the Diaspora community. Participants also rated the importance to them of five major social identities: nationality, ethnicity, religion, caste and occupation. The results illustrate that Sinhalese rated religious identity as the most important social identity to them whereas Tamils rated ethnic identity as the most important social identity. The role of each social identity is different when it associates with different social domains and different social settings, depending on how individuals value their social identities in particular social relations. What the study found is that Tamils, because of their minority status, identify by their ethnicity, while the Sinhalese identify more with religious identity. Thus findings may help us with understanding other conflicts that arise out of self-concepts and may help prevent future issues.

Understanding the Characteristics of Genocide in the Teaching of the Shoah

Submitted by Dr. Carol Edelman, Associate Dean Behavioral and Social Sciences, CSU,
Chico and Co-director of the State of California Center of Excellence
for the Study of Holocaust, Genocide, Human Rights and Tolerance and Dr.
Samuel Edelman, California State University, Chico and Director, State
of California Center of Excellence for the Study of Holocaust, Genocide,
Human Rights and Tolerance

This proposed paper will focus on how the identification of genocidal characteristics may be used to both structure and give greater comprehension to our ability to teach the Shoah. This approach will also aid in teaching courses or units which may be comparative in nature. The paper will go though thirteen characteristics of genocide
identified in the Shoah and explore how each characteristic can be utilized to structure a unit on teaching either the Shoah or genocide in general for students in a fashion that is non-linear.

Exploration into characteristics gives a level of understanding that permits students to go beyond historicity to begin to see the implications of Shoah study to other global events or to a host of moral and values based lessons.

Some of the characteristics relate to criminality, expropriation, enslavement, rescue and resistance as well as the impact of journalism and bystanders on what happened during various genocides. This has been an exceptional tool for teaching that we have used for more than 20 years in our college courses as well as in workshops sponsored by our
Center.

Mini-CVs
Professor Carol Edelman has been on the academic staff of CSU, Chico since 1981. She is currently the Associate Dean of the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences and a Professor of Sociology. She has been the Director of the Honors Program at CSU, Chico. For the last 21 years she has actively been involved in scholarship, research and creative work on the general topic of the Jewish response to the Holocaust. Her research work includes investigation into the Jewish social structure before and during the Holocaust in Eastern Europe; research into cultural responses to the genocide of the Jews;
interviewing and collecting materials on social issues from survivors.
She with Professor Sam Edelman is the recipient of numerous grants for her work as well as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting Award for Outstanding Documentaries in the Humanities for her documentary on cultural response to Genocide. Professor Carol Edelman currently is completing a book on the Holocaust entitled, Underground Without
Bullets.

Dr. Samuel M. Edelman is a professor of Jewish and Holocaust Studies as well as rhetoric and Communication Studies. He is the founder of the program in Modern Jewish and Israel Studies at the California State University Chico in Northern California and its current director. Edelman is also the coordinator of the California State University
Statewide Modern Jewish Studies BA Degree. He recently was Scholar-in-Residence at Haifa University in Jewish Education. Edelman has just been appointed Director of the California State Center of Excellence in Holocaust, Genocide, Human Rights and Tolerance Education and chief liaison to the State Taskforce on Holocaust, Genocide, Human Rights and Tolerance Education.

"Raphael Lemkin and the origins of the word genocide"
Jim Fussell, preventgenocide organization, jimfussell@preventgenocide.org

Jim Fussell will discuss the life of the Polish-Jewish legal scholar Raphael Lemkin (1900-1959), focusing on his research and activities during the Second World
War and his authorship of the book, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, published on November 15, 1944. In 1940 in Stockholm, Sweden Lemkin began collecting
copies of publicly available German occupation laws and decrees which he analyzed in an effort t understand the pattern of the policies being implemented in Hitler's 'New Order' in Europe. From these documents Lemkin concluded that alongside the
traditional war of armies, Germany was engaged in a war against peoples. To Lemkin the occupation decrees represented criminality in the guise of lawmaking revealing a Nazi policy aimed at a demographic restructuring of the European population by promoting the increase of 'Aryan' population groups and tdecline and death by attrition of Jewish, Gyps (Rromani), Polish and other groups. While working in Washington, D.C. from June 1942 for the U.S. Board of Economic Warfare, Lemkin made at least three attempts between October 1942 and May 1943 to warn U.S. leaders of the full nature Germany's
policies. Lemkin met in October 1942 with VicePresident Henry Wallace and later wrote a memorandum to the White House based upon his analysis. When these
efforts failed to yield results, he coined the new word "genocide" which he introduced in Axis Rule in Occupied Europe.

Jim Fussell is the Director of Prevent Genocide International (www.preventgenocide.org). On June 10, 2003 he will convene the panel "Recent Scholarship of Raphael Lemkin" at the Fifth Biennial Conference of
the International Association of Genocide Scholars, at the Irish Human Rights Centre, Galway, Ireland. In March 11, 2003 he presented "Lemkin's War: origins
of the word 'genocide' ", to the Committee on Conscience of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC. In 2002 he was a delegate to the Aegis-FCO Genocide Prevention Conference sponsored by the Aegis Genocide Prevention Initiative and the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Mr. Fussell presented "Group Classification on National ID Cards as a Factor in Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing" to the
Fourth International Association of Genocide Scholars Conference in June 2001 and to the Seminar Series of the Genocide Studies Program at Yale University in
November 2001.

"The Role of Mass Media in Genocide, Justice and Reconciliation in Rwanda"

Tim Gallimore, Ph.D.
United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
Gallimore@un.org or 1editor@verizon.net

and Straton Musonera
United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
musonera@un.org

Despite decades of ambiguous findings from academic research into the presumed powerful effect of communication, many scholars and the general public still continue to hold the view that communication is a necessary and sufficient variable to dramatic change in, or at least significant influence on human behavior. There is little doubt that the mass media have some effect on individuals and groups in society. Some researchers argue that mass media are powerful tools for persuasion because they provide a perspective which situates and contextualizes rather than directly affecting the audience.

However, the role that the media played in the 1994 Rwandan genocide went far beyond providing a perspective and context for political discourse in the society. Rwandan media were used to spread the ideology of genocide, to encourage and incite the general population to join in the government's orchestrated killing campaign and to identify individuals targeted to be killed. As a result, the pre-genocide communication environment in Rwanda has come to be characterized by communications researchers and legal scholars as an ear of "hate media."

Most notorious among the Rwandan "hate media" were Radio Television Libre de Mille Collines (RTLM) and the Kangura newspaper. The founders and operators of these two media organizations were indicted for committing crimes against humanity, along with others who were responsible for planning and carrying out the genocide in Rwanda. This study analyzes the "Media Case" in which the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (UNICTR) convicted these media founders and journalists in December 2003 for using the media to organize, coordinate and marshal the forces to commit genocide and other crimes against humanity by inciting the Rwandan general population to murder.

In analyzing the UNICTR legal decision in the "Media Case", we will place the finding of the Tribunal in the context of communication theory to assess the presumed powerful effects of the Rwandan media and their role in the 1994 genocide. The analysis will be based on the text of the Tribunal's decision, on interviews with Tribunal personnel who participated in the case, on interviews with genocide survivors who were exposed to the "hate media" content and on excerpts from tapes of RTML broadcasts and content published in Kangura.

The study will trace the historical development of the Rwandan mass media and present an analysis of the prospects for enhancing freedom of expression in Rwanda given the nation's present legal context, including the precedent set in the UNICTR Media Case. We will examine the need to restructure and nurture the national media in order to re-establish public trust in media as an institution for civic education and societal progress.

Based on the analysis of the Media Case, the study will present a framework for harnessing the potential of the mass media to assist in the process of justice related to the 1994 genocide. We will also present a framework for mass media communication as a critical component in the on-going national reconciliation efforts in Rwanda.
Straton Musonera
Resource Mobilization and Outreach programme Officer
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
email: musonera@un.org
Tel: + 1 212 963 2850 or + 255 27 2504207-11
Mobile: (+255) (0) 748 39 7777
fax: + 1 212 963 2848-49

Tim Gallimore, Ph.D.
Information Officer
External Relations and Strategic Planning Section
U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
P.O. Box 6016, Arusha, Tanzania
Phone: 255-27-256-5953 or 212-963-2850 Ext. 5953
FAX: 255-27-250-4373 or 212-963-2848/2849
Gallimore@un.org; Website: http://www.ictr.org

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Off the Record: Talking about Class and Women in Shoah Representations
Marion Gerlind <mgerlind@umn.edu>

The stigma of poverty has been largely overlooked in historical
reconstructions of the Shoah (Holocaust). Stereotypes of European
Jews as mostly upper-class, literate, and intellectual men persist,
marginalizing those who do not fit this representational framework.
Despite a growing body of work investigating the complex aspects of
the Nazi genocide, few scholars have scrutinized the connections
between class and gender vis--vis death and survival. I argue that
rural and working-class Jewish women grew up with a heightened
awareness of antisemitism; however, lack of financial resources and
connections decreased their chances of escape and survival and they
were more likely to be murdered. It is their testimonies that are
missing in critical analyses. Very little is known about their
everyday lives because their struggles have been disregarded in
historical accounts. Without their voices, an assessment of the Shoah
remains incomplete.

Recent publications underscore the significance of linking
antisemitism and gender (Ofer and Weitzman, Baer and Goldenberg);
however, they fail to emphasize that class was a pivotal factor in
survival. The majority of German-Jewish women whose memoirs are
published and archived came from middle-class backgrounds, as Lorenz
has pointed out. Through oral history interviews I introduce voices
of working-class and rural survivors from Germany and Poland, who did
not have the time or means to write their autobiographies. Their
compelling narratives reveal complex biographies, providing glimpses
into millions of lost lives and untold stories. As agents and makers
of history, ordinary women recount narratives of deprivation, trauma,
and survival, reconstructing more heterogeneous testimonies of the
past.

I examine how socioeconomic status, geographic origin, and temporal
frameworks played crucial roles in Jewish women's lives and survival,
and contribute to an evolving interdisciplinary discourse of class
and its significance for the understanding of history. By documenting
and interpreting survivors' stories that are at risk of being lost, I
emphasize and de-stigmatize a discourse on poverty, challenge the
dominant narrative and suggest that (German) Shoah studies
acknowledge voices from the margins as an essential part of Jewish
cultures' rich diversity.

Marion Gerlind, Ph.D. Candidate
University of Minnesota, Department of German, Scandinavian, and Dutch
205 Folwell Hall, 9 Pleasant St. SE
Minneapolis, MN 55455-0124
e-mail: mgerlind@umn.edu

Home address:
2128 108th Avenue,
Oakland, CA 94603-4011
Telephone: (510) 430-2673

Prison Guard Behavior in Genocide and Holocaust

Panel led by Albert Globus, M. D.
American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology
1990 3rd St., Suite 600
Sacramento, Ca 95814
Phone 916 4472240
Fax 916 4475025
Cell Phone 530 2199474

This panel discusses the prion guards' behavior during the Holocaust and the Japanese relocation camps in Calofornia during World War II. Panelists include Dr. Albert Globus, Amarican Board of Psychiatry and neurology, Dr. Craig Harney who is an expert on Prison Staff issues and who was a researcher on the famous study out of Stanford, labeled the ZIMBARTO Study, which formed the basis of the movie Das Experiment and Professor John Steiener, a Holocaust concentration survivor and the founder of the Holocaust and Genocide Center at Sonoma State.

"Translating the untranslatable: on the language(s) of Holocaust testimony"
Dorota Glowacka
Contemporary Studies Programme
University of King's College
E-mail: Dorota Glowacka <dglowacka@eastlink.ca>

I write about the Holocaust because it doesn't have a language.
Imre Kertsz

In his book The Differend, Jean-Franois Lyotard defines the differend as
the conflict that cannot be resolved because there exists no common
language or set of discursive practices in which the two (or more) parties
could express their arguments. In this paper, I would like to address what
I have called, paraphrasing Lyotard, the translation differend in the
context of Holocaust testimony, and argue that such testimony presents a
case par excellence of the untranslatable. As evidenced, for instance, in
the tension permeating the interminable translation sequences in
Lanzmann's Shoah, something momentous happens during the encounter between
languages, yet this intense sensation cannot in turn be translated into
one of the languages involved and therefore persists affectively, as a
feeling of loss and failure to communicate. In the instance of delivering
testimony about traumatic past, this feeling is intensified because the
performance of language is propelled by the ethical imperative to bear
witness.

In Survival in Auschwitz and The Drowned and the Saved, Primo Levi
re-imagines the death camp as the modernity's version of the Tower of
Babel. For Levi, the impossibility to communicate - to understand the
orders or to obtain life-saving information from other inmates - is the
true force of extermination, more menacing than hunger or physical
coercion. Levi presents the collapse of the fundamental ethical and
epistemological systems in the camps in terms of a post-Babelian condition
of language; in these terms, survival depends on one's translatory
abilities and linguistic talents, the link emphasized in a number of other
testimonies (Kertesz, Semprun) and rendered figuratively by Levi in his
account of the pivotal experience of translating Dante in Auschwitz.

To address the relation between bearing witness and translation, I will
analyze several telling passages from authors of Holocaust testimonies who
have been compelled to deliver their witness in a language different from
their mother tongue (such as Elie Wiesel or Isabella Leitner), as if the
distance afforded by a foreign tongue were a condition of the possibility
of speech. Yet, Polish Holocaust scholar Barbara Engelking, drawing on her
experience of interviewing the survivors, maintains that true testimony
can only be delivered in the same language in which the traumatic
experiences occurred. What is the nature of that truth in writers such as
Paul Celan or Jean Amry, who chose to write in German yet who continuously
underscored their profound and irreparable displacement from their mother
tongue, of which the changing of their German-sounding names was but a
symptom? I will consider therefore also these instances of being lost in
translation, to draw on Eva Hoffman's phrase, when the impossibility of
translation inheres in what appears to be the same language.

The discussion will draw on some of the key texts of the philosophical
reflection on translation, by thinkers such as Walter Benjamin, George
Steiner and Jacques Derrida, meditations on the condition of language
after Auschwitz by Theodor Adorno and Giorgio Agamben, and Emil
Fackenheim's theological project of overcoming the shattering of language
as the condition of tikkun olam .
dglowacka@Admin.UKings.NS.Ca

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The Myth of Identity in Rwanda
Judd Hardy
Department of Africana Studies, New York University

In the past decade, researchers and historians alike have begun to contextualize the 1994 genocide in Rwanda in terms of current politics, isolated reprisals and similar tragedies throughout the world. The danger in contextualization is that it requires the researcher to frame his subject, to create an identity for the subject that fits within the paradigm of research. This identity is often a distorted version of reality, where truth has been twisted, altered, or in many cases omitted entirely. Nowhere is this truer than in Rwanda, where identity has played such a crucial role in shaping the country's history.
The Myth of Identity in Rwanda seeks to highlight the disparity between perceived identity and true identity, that is, an identity that is fixed and immovable, founded on a denial of historical complexity, over-simplification and disinformation, and an identity that reflects the multi-layered intricacies of its subject. It demonstrates that the danger in identification comes when a perceived identity is accepted as the true identity. For example, a Hutu may not have killed a single person in the 1994 genocide, yet he is perceived as implicitly guilty today because of his identity.
Rwanda is a country whose national identity has been reconstructed over and over again: during colonialism, independence and ultimately genocide and the aftermath. It changes as the political and social agenda changes. Yet, as the historian Helen Hintjens explains "a redefinition of national identity along exclusively racial or ethnic lines…became a prelude for later implementation of genocide." Thus the cycle was never truly been broken; a true reinvention did not occur. Beginning with pre-colonialism and tracing Rwanda's history up to the present, I seek to demonstrate first how identity was shaped within Rwanda, emphasizing not only the questionable origins, but also its fluid nature and the way in which this identity was transformed into 'ethnicity' with the coming of colonialism, while at the same time becoming immovable and polarized. I argue that the revolution of 1962 was not a redefinition of national identities, but rather the solidification of old, archaic identities constructed during colonial rule: Tutsi were still 'superior' and Hutu 'inferior' along ethnic lines because the rhetoric of the Hamitic Hypothesis was still accepted as reality. The difference lay in the power shift from Tutsi to Hutu. Yet because of this fundamental inability to transcend perceived identity, the genocide in 1994, tragic as it was, was still an assertion by the 'inferior' race of their legitimacy.
Modern-day Rwandans face the greatest challenge of all: how to push forward through the stigma of genocide and 'ethnicized' identity and invent a new national identity. This cannot be done as long as the old rhetoric of 'ethnic' identity persists. Yet to deny its existence is to deny Rwandans the fundamental building blocks of their history. By highlighting pivotal turning points in the reconstruction of Rwandan identity, I demonstrate that conflict centers in the disparity between the perceived and the real, and that only when the perceived identity mirrors the true identity can there be an authentic recreation. It is only by fearlessly embracing the complex realities that shape Rwanda's identity that a true reinvention of that identity can occur.

From Silence to Education
Ilka Hartmann, Sonoma State university.

Holocaust awareness and responsibility for the past in present day Germany.

Most children of the Nazi generations - born during or soon after World War Two - grew up not hearing much or anything about the persecution of the Jews, Sinti and Roma, Communists, gays, disabled and other groups during the National Socialist era. What they heard and saw was how devastating the effects of the war had been on Germany. The majority of the adult males were dead or injured and many cities destroyed from bombing. There were millions of refugees from the east, and life was hard with severe housing-, food- and fuel-shortages.

What they did hear was that the war had swept over the country like an enormous deadly hurricane. There was no mention of responsibility.
About 13 years later, this changed. The schools started to teach about the persecutions, and Fischer Pocket Books published National Socialist documents with a small photo of dead human beings stacked up like pieces of wood.

Questioned by their teenage children, many of the parents and grandparents replied:

"We didn't know, and if we did know, what could we have done about it?"

The German Jewish writer Ralph Giordano calls this answer "The Second Guilt", the first one was the actual murder of millions of innocent human beings, the second the denial of any participation or knowledge of their suffering.

In the 1970s, the American television series, "Holocaust" was shown in West Germany. The streets were empty during the nights of the program. West Germans were looking at their past and now, the Nazi crime of killing innocent members of German society had been given a name : The Holocaust.

In 1968, the young generation in West Germany, many of those who were now university students, began to vocally protest. They questioned the older generation about "what they had done" during the Nazi era and exposed that numerous judges who had been National Socialists now were comfortably employed in the sucessful Federal Republic of Germany. Students exposed authoritarianism in the German culture and studied fascism, most also studied communism and became intellectual communists for several years.

As they entered the educational system as teachers and young professors, they tried to transform West German society from an obedience oriented to an anti-authoritarian, informed and independently thinking society by educating the next generations.

In the course of their working life, the curriculum in the schools was changed to contain Holocaust education as a major part. Field trips to concentration camps and even death camps became common among school children and youth groups.

The cities and villages changed too. Where there was no indication of what had happened in one's home town earlier, there were now signs, markers and memorials. Books, films and exhibits followed. The most famous exhibit is the "Wehrmachts Ausstellung", the documentation about the knowledge and participation of the Geman army in the atrocities on three fronts.

The children of the Nazi generations were taught that the German army (most of them draftees) had been honorable, it was those who were specifically National Socialist - the SS and card carrying members of the Nazi party - who had to be held responsible.

There were demonstrations by right wingers as the exhibit traveled across the country, and it was prevented from being shown in the Bundestag (national parliament).

Nevertheless, the army exhibit prompted a public debate in the parliament of Germany where delegates from all parties openly talked about their fathers', their uncles', their older brothers' participation in the Nazi era. It was aired on the radio and published word by word in the weekly "Die Zeit".

Over the years, the "collective guilt" which connected most members of the children's generations in sadness and anger , even though they were not responsible, has given way to a heritage of responsibility, an understanding that this new generation is responsible for standing up for human rights wherever they are being violated.

The large "Gesellschaft für Bedrohte Völker" ("Society for Threatened Peoples"), a volunteer organization, has brought to public attention - along with many other topics - the plight of the Sinti and Roma (formerly called "the Gypsies" ) during the Nazi regime and in present day Europe.

The "Gesellschaft für Bedrohte Völker" actively works on behalf of threatened peoples and speaks out against injustices inside unified Germany and throughout the world.

Today, the majority of Germans born during or since the National Socialist era are aware that knowledge of their country's past has given them the responsibility to not ever let the past be repeated. Unfortunately, there are still roots of racism, and prejudice and xenophobia have to be continuously fought.

Ilka Hartmann has been teaching Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Sonoma State University in California for more than 10 years. Born in Hamburg, Germany, she studied at universities in Berlin and Hamburg and later at the University of California, Berkeley.

For thirty years she has been a photographer concentrating on human rights issues with an emphasis on Native Americans.

Her father, a young medical doctor, was drafted to the Eastern Front in the last months of World War Two to treat wounded German soldiers. He has been missing in action since 1945. Her great uncle died in the siege of Stalingrad and her grandfather, mayor of a town in northern Germany, was ousted by the Nazis as part of their successful destruction of the Weimar Republic.

Starvation and Genocide : The case of Khmer Rouge Cambodia in comparative perspective.
Steve Heder, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. sh32@soas.ac.uk

This paper examines starvation as an aspect of the mass death of Cambodians under the rule of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (the Khmer Rouge), doing so in a comparative perspective that situates the Cambodian case in literature on starvation of minorities in the Soviet Union under Stalin, of Han Chinese and others during the Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward in China and of Jews, Romani, Poles, Russians and during the Nazi Third Reich. The paper relies on the author's 25 years of interviews of Cambodian victims and witnesses of starvation and on recently-opened Khmer Rouge archives to delineate the extent to which Khmer Rouge policies aimed at the elimination of various population groups via discriminatory food deprivation. It argues that although extermination of these groups via starvation was not the regime's initial goal, it stuck to policies that produced mass starvation even as evidence of widespread famine accumulated, doing so regardless of the human cost and despite opposition wiithin its own ranks to pursuit of a course causing such catastrophic suffering and loss of human life. After comparing the Cambodian case with the Soviet, Nazi and Chinese ones, it discusses the implications of all the moral, legal and historical responsibility of regime leaders and officials at various levels for the starvation deaths that occurred under them.

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The Strategy of Schindler's List : Mietek Pemper's Story
Viktoria Hertling, Professor and Director, Center for Holocaust, Genocide and Peace Studies, University of Nevada, Reno. hertling@unr.nevada. edu

Until 10 years ago, the Plazlow camp (1943-1945) was considered a relatively obscure camp that became better known to the general public primarily as a result of the 1993 award-winning motion picture Schindler's List. The camp was operated by the German Gestapo and later by SS and was located on the outskirts of Krakow, Poland. Its commandant Amon L. Göth was an insatiable hedonist, a corrupt war profiteer, and a pathological sadist. He took it upon himself to mistreat and even hundreds of Jewish and Polish prisoners. One of the camp's inmates, Mietek Pemper, became Göth's handpicked secretary. In spite of this precarious position, Pemper was able to advise, over time, a secret strategy that would eventually save the lives of hundreds of his fellow inmates. Without this strategy, the subsequent phenomenon of " Oskar Schindler " -- as described in the novel by Thomas Keneally and the motion picture by Steve Spielberg - would not have been possible.

The proposed paper The Strategy : Mietek Pemper's Story traces the various secret avenues pursued by Mietek Pemper, a Jewish camp inmate that resulted in one of most improbable acts of rescue during the Holocaust. Until now, Mietek Pemper has maintained strict silence about his courageous act . Now he wants to speak. Official papers and documents still back Mietek Pemper's extraordinary testimony. This paper is of extraordinary importance. it will correct and revise entrenched assumptions about lack of resistance and rescue during the Holocaust. It will delineate the details how one Jewish inmate was able to outmaneuver his Nazi captors and how he provided a strategy that saved the lives of hundreds of his fellow inmates.

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The Gujarat Case: a Riot or Genocide or…?

Neeti Jain, Law School, University of India.

The events of February 2002 in Gujarat, India are subject to two opinions. Owing to the communal history of the state, many believe that the communal violence in Gujarat was a natural outcome of the killings of 57 Hindus in the Sabarmati Express at Godhra (a town in Gujarat) on February 26th, 2002. A large group of Kar Sevaks were on their way to Ayodhya where the infamous Ram Temple is to be built on the same spot where the Babri Masjid (a Muslim Mosque) stood and was destroyed by the RSS as part of an annual ritual, when there was some unrest and Muslim mobs burned down a coach of the train killing about 57 Hindus, primarily women and children.
What followed was a barbaric assault on Muslims by RSS members where the Hindus came in mobs and set Muslim houses on fire, raped, looted, killed, burned Muslims. Official figures vary, but about 2000 Muslims were killed and many others injured and many thousands rendered homeless. Even today, they have no place to go and with the state sponsored relief camps shutting down, their future is unknown.
What has sparked off the debate on genocide is the fact that the events were planned, evidence to that effect is a plenty, as only Muslim homes were targeted, whereas Hindu homes adjoining were left unscathed, there were lists made of Muslim homes and businesses, there are testimonies to show that Hindus had been conducting surveys of Muslims for a year and that the violence lacked spontaneity. Moreover, there was clear state support as the authorities looked the other way as Gujarat burned. Police was instructed not to react to calls for help and in many cases the Police actually participated in the attacks. Narendra Modi's Government at the State has a clear policy of Hindutva (Hindu Fundamentalist Ideology that believes India is a Hindu nation in which Minorities can live only if they subrogate themselves to the majority) It was clearly no riot. Many not-for-profit groups have reported on this and most groups conclude that this is clearly a manifestation of Nazi-like ideology. What makes it genocide is that there is an identifiable group, discriminated against on the basis of religion, the crimes are implicitly supported by the state and there is pre-meditation and an intention to destroy the group in whole or in part or create such conditions that makes their survival difficult. The victims have been rendered homeless, with no jobs, no savings, nothing.
The question is, is this really genocide? When we speak of genocide, do we not need a certain magnitude for a crime to be genocide? In a country like India where Hindus and Muslims have been killing each other for decades, is it not farcical to say that this particular instance is genocide? If this is genocide, were not the others genocide too, since 1947? Has all that been a mutual genocide? Is it an internal armed conflict? If it is, then is not the nature of the Gujarat incident different from genocide?
To fully understand the nature of the communal outbreak in February 2002, we need an answer to the question, why Gujarat? Why has this state consistently remained the cauldron of communal strife? There are economic, ideological and political arguments to this. Why did the Modi led government (BJP) come back to power in the State elections that took place after the Gujarat carnage? Do Hindus support this ideology? Perhaps the answer is somewhere in the fact that the BJP did not come to power at the Centre.
The paper seeks to study, firstly the definitions of genocide and to see if Gujarat fits in with the elements of genocide as laid down by the Genocide Convention and as upheld by scores of cases in the ICTY and ICTR and as described in the Rome Statute. The purpose is to see what constitutes genocide and whether magnitude, number of people killed, time span (prolonged violence vs. short lived attack) are elements to be considered when deeming something to be genocide. Moreover, what is the history behind the violence? Can February 2002 be looked at in isolation from the communal history of India and Gujarat? Has it always been a pogrom against the Muslims, and has it always been state sponsored? Can we conclude that this one incident constituted genocide?
Another important factor is the role the fourth estate has played in christening this as genocide. Both the media and the intelligentsia have termed this as genocide. Nobody calls it a riot. Could it be that it is neither? The paper will seek a way to define the violence and to answer the questions related to genocide in light of prevailing, as well as developing, notions and perspectives of international law.
The paper seeks to identify the psyche of the majority, the Hindus, to see what has made Hindutva an acceptable ideology to a large section of Hindus when the country has a secular Constitution. It is important to see the role played by politics and power and economic interests. Why is it that the Hindu middle class, considered the defenders of rationality and secular values, has crossed over is support of a Hindu nation? How is an openly fascist organization like the RSS able to influence the minds of the educated class?
What the paper will contain:
It will begin with a communal history (timeline) of India and specifically Gujarat right up to the events of February 2002 and even after.
Then, a brief discussion on the economic situation of Gujarat and what has possibly made Gujarat different from the rest of India, economically, politically and communally.
Next, will come an overview of the role of the Sangh Parivar (as the RSS and its affiliates are often called) in India and more specifically, in Gujarat.
Then, there will be a discussion on state responsibility and the lack of accountability in this specific context and how the Narendra Modi Government openly supported the violence.
The questions:
Whether the elements of genocide are met.
Whether magnitude, time period, etc, are important determinants of genocide even though not explicitly mentioned in the convention, in light of the current international instances of genocide.
If it is proved to be genocide then what are the consequences, for the Indian state, the Gujarat Government and the international community and conscience, if any? Is there an international responsibility?
If it is not genocide, then what is it? What is the impact on the international community, if any?
If it is not genocide, then why is it being called so? Is it a mere matter of opinion or are there political motivations behind that idea?

"The Holocaust - a survivor's experience"
Lillian Judd

Lillian Judd was born in Czechoslovakia where she led the normal life of a young Jewish girl surrounded by her mother and father, brother and sisters. In 1938, when she was 14, her life changed. The Nazis began their anti-Semitic attacks on Czech Jews. Eventually, all of the family, but her brother who had left for America, were deported to a makeshift camp where they had to build their own shelter from wood scraps and cardboard. Later, they were put into a cattle car and endured the horrible trip to Auschwitz where Lillian's father, mother and little sisters were all killed as soon as they arrived. Lillian and her teenage sister became slave laborers for the Nazis. They both survived Auschwitz, and after the war ended, Lillian emigrated to the United States. Here she raised a family, and ran a successful business with her husband.

Last year, on her 80th birthday, Lillian celebrated her Bat Mitzvah, the Jewish ceremony of becoming an adult. For years, Lillian Judd has been speaking to high school and college students about her experience during the Holocaust. This spring she was honored by Santa Rosa Junior College with an award for teaching the younger generations about genocide.

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GENOCIDE AND HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS.
Liboire Kagabo. Ph.D.
Associate Professor, University of Burundi. E-mail address : kagabo@cbinf.com

It is said that, while at the beginning of the twentieth century, only 10% of war victims were civilians, now at the beginning of the twenty-first century, they are between 80 and 90%. It is well known also that the twentieth century was that of genocide : at least 4 main genocides have been recognized : against Armenians, the Holocaust of the Jews, the cambodian genocide and ten years ago the genocide of the Tutsi of Rwanda.

1. Genocide is recognized as the most horrible crime, a crime of crimes.
" Genocide is the ugliest of all human crimes. Those who have witnessed it have difficulty in finding the words to express its horror. It is tempting to sa that a crime of such magnitude is beyond human capacity for explanation ". So begins the first document of African Rights published just after the Rwanda genocide in september 1994 : " Death, Despair and Defiance ".
All what is around genocide testifies of this : mass killing, blooded-cool preparation, sadism of methods, humiliations such as rape, mutilations, disrespect of mortal remains… genocide is a crime which doesn't only dehumanize the victims but also the killers and even humankind…Most of all, genocide is functionning with a total extermination imaginary : final solution, " zero option ", etc.
How is it that human consciousness can bear this horror ?

2. It is difficult to fight genocide. Why ?

In spite of all this, it seems to be difficult and even impossible to fight genocide successfully and to eradicate it. Why ? Two main reasons. First the strong and systematic organization of any genocide. Second a very efficient system of denial, which always accompanies the organization, being one of the steps, but which has its own life and strength, because it does continue long ago after genocide.

3. How to fight succesfully genocide ?

For all these reasons, it is necessary to find the best ways of fighting genocide.
The way I would like to explore is how to create a positive " passion " stronger than that of genocide itself, but against it.
It seems that the first thing is to show how the responsibility of such a crime must be shared by any human being ; anyone is concerned and has to do something to fight it, even if there is scales of responsibility.
Second, it is necessary to create what we could call a " moral front " on the international level. This moral front should rest first of all on what an author calls " vigilant resistance ". It should be vigilant while trying to keep memory of genocide, because it has to fight against two kinds of " memory " : a repressed one, which is not active but does nothing but being waiting that genocide stops by itself ; a revenge one, which has the risk to fall into the trap of genocide.
This " moral front " could also give a special place to all those who resisted to genocide. We only write the history of " genociders ", but not that of those who fought it, which is a history of courage.

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Recovery of Historical Facts by the Method of Convergence
of Different Orders of Evidence

Hrayr S. Karagueuzian

The issue of the 1915 Armenian Genocide and the subsequent seizure of all Armenian assets by the Young Turks did not find expression in any of the historical junctures, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Genocide Convention. This historical aberrancy codified in Genocide, Theft and Denial: The Armenian Case
impunity and fostered denial.

Using declassified U.S. State Department archival documents this study defines for the first time, how the Young Turks illegally seized the equivalent of a five million Turkish pounds (gold) from the deported victims' bank deposits in Turkey. This illegally appropriated capital by the Young Turks' regime, recognized as a "terrorist regime" by the Sevres Treaty, asserts that the intent of the deportations was not relocation, as claimed by the deniers of the Genocide, but extermination (tehjir ve taktil). Using the method of convergence of different orders of evidence (official, institutional, private, and material), the planners of the Genocide (the triumvirate), seized the individual bank assets of their victims and deposited them in their personal accounts in Berlin Banks under assumed names, the documents show. A total of five million gold pounds was deposited in 1916 in Berlin's Reichsbank which according to two former British Prime Ministers, Baldwin and Asquith, the deposit was "in part, perhaps wholly Armenian money." Post-war Turkish lawmakers and the investigations carried out by the US High Commissioner in Constantinople, Rear Adm. Bristol, point out that the "1916 five million gold pounds deposit in Berlin represented the seizure of individual bank deposits of the deported Armenians." The assertions made by the post-war Turkish Foreign Minister, Damad Ferid Pasha that "the three very guilty criminals, Talaat, Enver and Djemal [the triumvirate] have deposited considerable sums of money in Berlin banks produced by their exaction and embezzlement," provides further corroborating evidence on the origin of the 1916 gold deposit in Berlin. These assertions are in line with the declaration made by none other than Talaat himself that was recorded by the US Ambassador to Turkey, Henry Morgenthau Sr., during one of his private meetings with the architect of the Genocide: "We know that the entire bank deposits of the Armenians do not exceed five million gold pounds." After the 1918-19 Turkish Military Tribunals in Constantinople and the 1921 assassination of Talaat in Berlin, the Turkish official newspaper, Takvimi Vekaye, and the New York Times respectively reported that the triumvirate "was convicted to death in absentia," on charges of "massacres and illegal personal profiteering ("taktil ve ihtikar") and that Talaat had "more that 10 million marks in Berlin Banks deposited under the assumed name of Said Ali Bey."

Today, the fate of the five million Turkish gold pound deposits in Berlin remains unaccounted for. In light of German Government's policy to correct past errors, this paper suggests that the present German Government, consistent with its declared policy of rectifying past errors, ought to trace, locate and assess the present value of the Genocide money and return it to the surviving heirs of the victims.

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LEON MUGESERA AND THE PERVERSION OF ETHICS. DIALOGUE WITH KANT. By Jean-Pierre Sadi Karegeye, UC Berkeley. karegeye@berkeley.edu

Kant opens his meditation on "the indwelling of the evil principle alongside the good" by quoting Horace: "the world lieth in evil". He presents, on one hand, general opinions estimating that the world moves from the good principle to evil and, on the other, its antithesis from some philosophers arguing that the world goes from bad to better. This does not rely on experience and history, comments Kant. Is there any moral frontier between the past (good or wrong) and the present (evil or better) according to the two perspectives? From experience and history, certain events recycle and repeat themselves. The past unfolds into the present and determines the future. Our "morality" and "rationality" helped to determine the birth of genocides. Some political decisions, moral and religious convictions, and scientific disciplines generated surroundings that gave way to various kinds of violence. The dawn of the nineteenth century has shown the moral decadence of a certain subversion of moral languages coupled with violence. Evaluation of the twentieth century indicates a world in the abyss: two World Wars, and foremost, at least three genocides. Armenians erased from maps, Jewish people choked in gas-chambers, and Tutsi massacred by machetes. What remains from the century of "Enlightenment" in the Kantian sense? When some intellectuals (mis)use their knowledge to justify evil, what does it mean then that moral principles lie a priori on our reason? Does an act which is morally wrong operate as an epochè of/on intelligence?

Ethics is found in the dynamics of philosophical and religious convictions, regarding what is "right/good", or to use Kant concept, evil like genocide no longer moves us, or is being considered as what is right in terms of self-defense, duty and struggle for freedom. It is difficult to make a moral system work in such extraordinary circumstances. There is no way that utilitarianism is going to work here, because you cannot tell the greatest good for the greatest number. The versions of the categorical imperative involving means and end, and kingdom of ends seem to offer some helps.

In Rwanda, the perpetrators, using a moral language, portrayed their victims as evil by using various religious and moral metaphors. My paper is not going to revisit the historical causes of genocide or the role of political ideology. I will be trying to understand the conditions of possibility of genocide in human nature in analyzing Professor Leon Mugesera's discourse to justify killings through moral and religious languages in dialogue with Kant. Genocide would not have taken place without moral justification. One thing we must certainly ask is why moral argumentation works in some cases and does not on others. I think this is part of the reason why Kant insists that we have a basic moral law such as the categorical imperative. Acts of genocide go back to the power of moral illusion. The use of Christian and moral symbols by Leon Mugesera to incite and to justify genocide obliges moral and religious discourse to rehabilitate itself as discourses related to what is right. Kantian ethics allows one to "de-construct" the caricature of morality by Mugesera. The kingdom of ends might replace the patterns of evil in educating people to respect human life as in a way to prevent future genocides. The "other" is an end and not a means. Dialogue with Kantian ethics thus gives a possibility to promote moral behavior. Genocide certainly violates the means/end version because people are being used for the means of racial grammar. It also violates the notion of a kingdom of ends in the sense that a true kingdom of ends version is that it is specifically communitarian in nature. Consequently, there is never an excuse for marginalizing or destroying a group of people within a society.

Surviving as a woman
The reality of war and genocide by Chantal Kayitesi

I will talk about the experience of women during the war and genocide.
Their fight for survival, their attempt to escape their fate
The impossible task of hiding and being invisible
The rape, torture and the humiliation
The sacrifices of women to protect and save children
The responsibility and courage of women to care for children at any cost

The aftermath of the genocide or the reality of surviving

I will discuss the losses and the wounds, both loss of families and social support.
The loss of belonging and of social status
The new roles and responsibilities in the society
The impossible justice and challenging reconciliation
The HIV/AIDS epidemic and the future of women and children
Hope, the ultimate condition for survival

Biography

Chantal Kayitesi, BSc, MPH
Genocide survivor
Co-founder and former chair of Avega, the association of genocide widows
Co-organizer of the 10th Anniversary of the genocide in New England

Education

Boston University School of Public Health: MPH, Health Services Concentration.
Graduation date: May 2002.
National University of Rwanda, BA in Public Health in 1995.
Nursing School of Kabgayi, Diploma of Nursing 1986.

Experience

1996-1999: program coordinator of AVEGA, Association of Genocide Widows in Rwanda, Central Africa.
-Organization's founder member. Played key role in the organization leadership first as vice-president then as president.
-Developed and organized new programs, strategic and operational plan.
-Negotiated funds with important partners such as the government, national and international organizations and UN agencies.
-Implemented new and reliable administrative and managerial procedures.

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GENOCIDE IN THE NAME OF THE REVOLUTION
Alexandre Kimenyi, California State Univerisity at Sacramento, kimenyi@kimenyi.com

The 1994 Tutsi genocide in Rwanda was not only " the final solution " but also the completion of the " Hutu Revolution ". The 1990's political, social and economical crisis, according to Rwandan officials, was blamed on the " non-completion of the Hutu Revolution " as reported in the 1990 September's edition of the Belgian newspaper, La Libre Belgique.

The Tutsi genocide started in 1959 when Rwanda was still a Belgian colony. It was blessed by the Catholic church led by archibishop André Perraudin who in his 1959 pastoral letter called them a different race and " assisted " by the Belgian authorities as Jean-Paul HARROY then governor of Rwanda, boasts in his memoirs, Rwanda : De la féodalité à la démocratie.
From 1959 to 1980, there were cyclical massacres of innocent Tutsi civilians (women, children, old people, priests, nuns, students, etc). The church, diplomats, civil rigths organizations, … stationed in Kigali didn't do anything to denounce these killings or assist the victims because this was a revolution!

The example of the Tutsi genocide forces us to revist the world history and condemn all revolutions whose victims are always innocent members of specific targeted groups. Some revolutions are euphemisms for genocide.

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Women Communicating in Post Genocide Rwanda: The hills and valleys traversed, what holds for the future Culture of Peace.
By Eddah Mutua Kombo, Ph.D
Department of Communication Studies
California State University Sacramento
edamutua@hotmail.com

"Peace is not only the absence of violence, but requires a positive dynamic participatory process where dialogue is encouraged and conflicts are resolved in a spirit of co-operation and understanding."
United Nations 1999

The paper will discuss women's groups efforts to communicate a culture of peace in post genocide Rwanda. Using recent data collected from Rwanda the paper will assess factors that induce women to organize, and how this common goal has changed their lives and communities around them. The Jurgen Habermas theory of communicative action will be used to analyze women's common shared agenda and subsequent actions and how these have impacted their resolve to talk peace, and most of all, to pool resources and form networks to build a culture of peace.
Finally, suggestions on what holds for the future of women in Rwanda and indeed elsewhere in Africa in their struggles for a seat at the peace table will be offered.

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The lesson of Rwanda,
a genocide that could have been prevented.

Project submitted by Dr Joël KOTEK,
Professor at the Free University of Brussels and Director of formation at the Holocaust Memorial of Paris.

We can lament the role of the UN in the case of Rwanda and in peacekeeping and peacemaking in general. Founded at the end of World War II, the United Nations developed two major aims: putting an end to colonialism and preventing direct confrontation between the superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union. In carrying out these two aims, the UN was remarkably successful.

Since its foundation, sovereignty has been a key and inviolable concept for the UN, while deliberation was its institutional hall
mark. The UN has acted most effectively in slowing down the actions of member states, preventing precipitous deterioration of crisis. Today, however, even in the eyes of UN officials, territorial and political integrity are not any more the impediment to action they used to be.

Indeed, today the UN finds itself primarily engaged in disputes within countries. This shift in the conceptual framework reflects new demands on this institution and requires some technical, legal and ethical adjustments,

So far, the post-Cold War UN has not been equipped to make or implement rapid decisions requiring the establishing of a physical presence on the ground during a crisis. The political machinery and the logistical and financial structure necessary to make things happen quickly do not exist In fact, the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations can not even begin contingency planning for a deteriorating situation without Security Council approval. Genocidal processes however require rapid decision, allowing the commander the latitude to increase or decrease the use of force to contain violence. Rules of engagement of UN troops should be flexible and should allow the intervening force to respond instantly or pre-empt violent acts. According to Romeo Dallaire, the commander of the UN mission in Rwanda "rather than really using deadly force, the most important point is to be able to do it,"
The UN should be flexible enough to allow the Force Commander the leeway to adapt to changing circumstances on the ground .

The Rwanda genocide represented not only a political and military failure for the UN and Belgian, French and American administrations but also an ethical one. In 1948, the U.S. had signed the Convention against Genocide. A triumph of international humanitarian law, this Convention obliges contracting parties to prevent and punish the crime of genocide. In previous post-World War II cases-such as Cambodia under Pol Pot, the U.S. could pretend that it did not know about the genocide while it was being perpetrated. It could then fudge the issue of punishing those responsible, ostensibly in the name of seeking a peaceful political settlement. In Rwanda, no one could claim ignorance. But the U.S. did not want to act and its failure to condemn and take action to prevent genocide endorsed a more horrific precedent: flaunting an international law designed to never again allow a holocaust to happen while the world stood by.
Let us think of Lt. Gen. Dallaire's dilemma. As officer in charge of the U.N. peacekeeping force in Rwanda he warned in early 1994 of plans to carry out a systematic killing. However U.N. officials consistently refused his calls for reinforcements and intervention to stop the killings.

Lt. Gen. Dallaire repeatedly warned the UN that a Genocide was being planned weeks before the killing started. "Give me the means and I can do more!" General Dallaire wrote to the UN. He sought authorization from the UN headquarters to use force to disarm the plotters, but was informed that he had neither the mandate nor the means to use force. One cable sent to the UN headquarters on April 17, 10 days after the killings began, said: "The ethnic cleansing continues and may in fact be accelerating... Bodies litter the streets and pose a significant health hazard." It said the government-controlled radio station was broadcasting, "inflammatory speeches and songs exhorting the population to destroy all Tutsis..." Dallaire's cable, headed "most immediate" begged for more troops, saying: "The force simply cannot continue to sit on the fence in the face of all of these morally legitimate demands for assistance." It was received in New York three days before the UN Security Council met to consider the situation in Rwanda, but its content was never forwarded given to the Security Council. Furthermore, on April 20, 1994, the Security Council voted to withdraw all but 270 of its 2,500 troops in Rwanda. By then, an estimated 100,000 to 140,000 civilians were dead. With the withdrawal of the UN, the genocide accelerated. Literally minutes after the UN troops abandoned their base at a former school, which had become refuge for several thousand Rwandese Tutsis and opposition Hutu, the interahamwe militia and the Presidential Guard stormed the compound and began to massacre those who had taken shelter there. Another cable, sent on April 21, said UN troops were "exhausted, confused, concerned and questioning the responsibility of their superiors as to what they are doing." The United Nations, stung by the intervention in Somalia, fearful of another mission of ambiguous intent, participation, and support, and hampered by the sovereignty issues raised by member states, did not take decisive action to intervene. Individual member states in a position to act also delayed unilateral measures.
As a result of the refusal by the international community to act, 800.000 innocent Rwandans lost their lives in the fastest, and perhaps most preventable Genocide in human history.

The UN denied that it had any legal responsibility in the 1994 killings, despite being severely criticised by independent inquiries. Fred Eckhard, the spokesman for the UN Secretary-General stated that the organisation would exercise its immunity if the matter went to court. He added that the UN soldiers in Rwanda were never given a Security Council mandate to become involved in the fighting : "We were not there to stop a war. We were there to facilitate a peace process. We do not feel responsible for what happened, and we do not believe we should have to answer for anything in a court."

The UN responsibility nevertheless obvious. Dallaire said that if he had had the mandate, the massacres would have ceased. Giving Dallaire the authority and the troops that he requested "could have stopped the whole thing," said Morton Halperin, a National Security Council staff member in 1994,
But what about Dallaire? On one side, he was forced not to intervene, on the other side his obedience was… criminal. If his behaviour was lawful , one should nonetheless question its legitimacy.

1) Despite the fact that he had no mandate, shouldn't we question Dallaire's own responsibility in the killings? Dallaire could have saved life had he broken UN directive if he would have break UN law. In Rwanda, a window of opportunity for the employment of such a force extended roughly from about April 7 to April 21, 1994, when the political leaders responsible fir the violence were still susceptible to international influence. The rapid introduction of robust combat forces could have changed the political calculations of the participants. The opportunity existed to prevent the killing, to interpose a force between the conventional combatants and re-establish peace, and to put the negotiations back on track. But Dallaire followed orders. He stuck with the orders. He did not disobey his superiors at the UN. He witnesses the genocide.
Human rights strategies to put an end to the use of "extreme violence" should focus on the entire "chain of responsibility": from the legal responsibility of the criminal State to the moral responsibility of the international community and troops on the grounds. Is he not guilty for non assistance in person-in-danger?

2) Let us imagine what would have happened if Lt. Gen. Dallaire would have disobey his superiors and therefore, most probably, prevent the genocide . In this case, he would have faced major troubles with his hierarchy, like those who decided to save Jews during WWII despite orders (i.e. Swiss, Japanese, Portuguese civil servants & diplomats, etc.).
At this stage, it seems necessary to recall that the infringements to the rules of the right of the conflicts, if they are established, are penalized by the national courts and/or the international instances. A subordinate that refuses to execute an order of his superior overtly contrary to the right of the conflicts can defend himself through court of justice. Shouldn't we go more forward and think about protecting the soldier, confronted to an "extreme violence" situation, that decide to disobey orders to prevent killings of innocent people ? Shouldn't this "Right of military interference become one of the lessons of Rwanda and Srebrenica ? Human rights strategies to put an end to the use of genocide must be at every link in the causal chain, focusing on those actors/ parties that have legal responsibility and/or real power.

We plead for an ethical move in International law, towards a right/duty of military interference, in case of genocide. Six years after the Rwanda genocide, Dallaire is still tortured by the memories of what he saw and what he could not do.
The genocide in Rwanda should be sufficient to act as a catalyst for a swift and determined response from the international community in danger of physical elimination.

Joël KOTEK
88, avenue Général Eisenhower
1030 Brussels, Belgium
Address in Paris will change soon
(33)1.56.24.38.63 (Paris)
(32) 496/ 21.90.12 (GSM Bxl)
joel.kotek@memorial-cdjc.org
Joel Kotek teaches at the Free University of Brussels (ULB), the IEP Paris and at the Ecole supérieure de Journalisme of Lille (ESJ).He is Director of the Formation at the Memorial de la Shoah in Paris.

After completing research at St. Antony's College at Oxford, and one semester of teaching a course in Europe's Political Systems at the University of Ottawa, he successfully defended his doctoral thesis at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (IEP). The thesis was published in French as La jeune garde by Le Seuil in 1998 and a short English version, titled Students and The Cold War was published by Macmillan/St. Martin Press in 1996.

He published, last May "L'Image des Juifs et d'Israël depuis la dernière intifada, Brussels, 2003. In October 2000, by Jean Claude Lattes, Paris, Le Siècle des camps (A century of camps. Imprisonment, Detention and Extermination - 100 years of Radical Evil). This book received le Grand Prix d'histoire Chateaubriand and published into Italian, German, Spanish, Russian, Rumanian and soon into English,

Dr Kotek has authored a number of additional publications, including L'Affaire Lyssenko ou l'histoire réelle d'une science prolétarienne en Occident (Complexe, Bruxelles, 1987), Il y a cinquante ans, l'insurrection du ghetto de Varsovie (Complexe, Bruxelles, 1994),Brussels and Jerusalem, from Conflict to Resolution, presented to a colloquium in Jerusalem in December 1994, co-edited with Simone Susskind and Steven Kaplan, Jerusalem, 1996, "La Belgique survivra-t-elle à l'an 2002 " ( in Limes, Gallimard, Paris, July 1997), "Minorité- majoritaire, majorité-minoritaire : le cas de la Belgique " (in Relations Internationales, n°89, printemps 1997, Genève), and "De l'Europe comme projet à l'Europe comme espace" (in Revue Suisse de Sciences Politiques, Schweizerische Zeitschrift fur Politische Wissenschaft, volume 4, issue 4, Winter 1998). He did also translated into French 'Martin Gilbert' Atlas of the Holocaust.

M. Kotek is since 1993 secretary general of the CEESAG, Centre Européen d'Etudes sur la Shoah de l'Antisémitisme et du Génocide, based in Brussels.

Long time effects of the Baathist genocide against Kurds
by Dr. Faruk H. Harj Kurda, Director of Haradje Center, Sulaimenia University, Iraq.

This presentation is an eyewitness account about the attempt of the Baathist regime to exterminate the Kurdish population using both the biological and chemical weapons.

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"A Legal Perspective of the United Nations' Persecution of War Crimes at the ICTR and the United States' Policy on Interventionism"
Michael C. Lee, Esq.
Shearman & Sterling LLP

As part of Shearman & Sterling's pro bono program, Mr. Lee traveled to Arusha, Tanzania and Kigali, Rwanda in the summer of 2003 to assist in the prosecution of Rwandan war criminals at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda ("ICTR"). Mr. Lee has since lectured on the Rwandan genocide and United States interventionism policies to various legal and social outreach groups.
First, Mr. Lee will discuss the ICTR's prosecution of Sylvestre Gacumbitsi, a former mayor in the eastern Rwandan commune of Rusomo. Over a three-day period in April 1994, Gacumbitsi supervised the rape and killing of thousands of Tutsi civilians amassed at Nyarubuye Parish. Mr. Lee will highlight the unique evidentiary role of Fergal Keane, a BBC correspondent who traveled to Nyarubuye Parish immediately following the genocide and who interviewed several key ICTR prosecution witnesses as well as Gacumbitsi himself. Mr. Lee will also analyze the legal claims of genocide, rape, extermination, and murder asserted against Gacumbitsi and the resulting jurisprudence culminating in Gacumbitsi's conviction in June 2004. Second, Mr. Lee will discuss the United States' legal obligations as a signatory to the United Nations Convention on Genocide. Third, Mr. Lee will explore the United States government's legal and political stance on the 1994 Rwandan genocide through declassified documents detailing the government's contemporaneous knowledge of the genocide and its decision not to intervene.

Toward a Culture of Denial: Japan's Official and Societal Responses to Charges of Historical Atrocities. Ivy Lee, Emeritus Professor CSUS.

This paper examines Japan's official responses to the charge of WWII atrocities. They run the gamut of Stanley Cohen's typology, from literal to implicatory denials. These responses either exist side-by-side or are offered serially in spite of their logical inconsistencies. From the Nanjing Daitusha (Rape of Nanking) to the Comfort Women, the government and/or government officials deny such atrocities ever took place. Or when faced with incontrovertible evidence they retreat to what they perceive as the more tenable position of having discharged all legal obligations as required by the San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1951. Such denials would not flourish without collusion, to a greater or lesser extent, by the good people of Japan. This paper explores a variety of these "bystander" responses in contemporary Japan, from the claim that public does not know, a saturation reaction that such factual accounts are no longer shocking, to a "fatigue" effect that brings about the antithetical effect of what a redress movement and human rights advocates hope to achieve. In fact the government together with the public are now close to being successful in burying a most egregious chapter of WWII atrocities and generating a culture of denial. Finally this paper addresses the question of why it is urgent to confront squarely such historical denials and setting the record straight before a culture of denial takes root in the next generation.

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The Nanjing Massacre of 1937:
Guilt, Denial and Injustice

Peter Li, Professor Emeritus
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Abstract

As Auschwitz has become a symbol of the Jewish Holocaust and Nazi atrocities in World War II, the Nanjing Massacre of 1937 has become a symbol of the Japanese military's monstrous and savage cruelty in the Asia Pacific War from 1931-1945. But in comparison with the Jewish Holocaust, relatively little has been written about the atrocities perpetrated by the Japanese in China, Korea, the Philippines, Singapore, and Malaysia, where close to 50 million people died at the hands of Japanese. In China alone an estimated 20-30 million people lost their lives. In Nanjing the Japanese killed approximately 300,000 innocent victims. The world has waited long enough for Japan to come to the realization that it must acknowledge its own wrongdoing during WWII, apologize to its victims and pay appropriate reparations. To the aged victims of these atrocities, time is of the essence: justice delayed is justice denied.

It has been over half a century since the end of WWII. Whereas in Europe, Germany and Italy have long ago renounced their fascist-militarist regimes, in Asia, Japan's rightwing militarist factions have continued to actively seek political dominance. Whereas Germany has continually sought forgiveness and made reparations for the damages inflicted on the victims of the Holocaust and their families, thereby making it possible for the formation of the European Union, Japan has continued to this day to deny it's aggressions in Asia and responsibilities for wartime atrocities. In recent years, Prime Minister Koizumi's repeated visits to the Yasukuni Shrine has further encouraged the revival of militarism in Japan and heightened the tension between Japan and its Asian neighbors.

The paper will trace the path of Japan's repeated denials, historical amnesia, and lack of repentance and remorse in the course of this long and uneasy relationship between Japan and China who are, at the same time, economically, culturally and historically linked together.

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Politics in post-genocide Rwanda
by Philippe Leloup, political scientist specializing in East and Central Africa
Brussels, Belgium.

For a long time, a number of academics, journalists and NGOs have expressed grave concern over events in Rwanda. They have good reason to be worried: the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF), the all-powerful party of Major General Paul Kagame whose tenure of office will soon clock ten years, constantly stifles any opposition within the country.
It is important to highlight the flagrant contradiction between preaching democratisation and national reconciliation on one hand, and engaging in actions which intimidate and effectively eliminate all opposition on the other. The Government of Rwanda has stifled all criticism and strictly controls its population.
Since RPFs ascension to power after the genocide of the Tutsi in 1994, the regime has not ceased to harden, particularly during the last few years. Repression has reached great heights, as political instability has increased across the country and within the army. Political parties in Rwanda assure the regime a democratic facade, while the RPF is concentrating power at all levels. All journalists who dare step out of the bounds permitted by the regime are constantly harassed, and live in a daily climate of fear and repression. The political opposition is confined to exile or clandestine activities. Dozens of people suspected of having a link with the opposition, have been forced to keep quiet or are simply killed or reported missing.
Since the resignation of Pasteur Bizimungu as Head of State in March 2000, Major General Paul Kagame, by taking his place, has accepted to be the direct target of detractors of his regime. Furthermore, he is even contested within his own army, the RPF and Tutsi community in general - the divorce from genocide survivors has been complete for quite some time, while the former diaspora not originally from Uganda are feeling increasingly uncomfortable. An ever increasing number of desertions, including within the " Ugandan clan ", threatens his political survival.
The regime has sent some positive signals. Last year, the contact between Igihango and the Embassy of Rwanda in Brussels was a good sign. In October 2002, the withdrawal of troops from Congo, even though it was incomplete, was another positive signal. But, these actions do not reflect a real willingness on the part of the regime to open-up political space. Rather, they point to the fact that currently, the only counter-balance to the power in Rwanda is that of the international community.
On the geopolitical level, the isolation of Rwanda is obvious. Rwanda has alienated itself from a good number of its neighbours. It is at war with the Democratic Republic of Congo. Relations with Burundi and Tanzania are marked by mutual suspicion. Its relations with Uganda are even more critical: both countries have been in confrontation on several occasions on Congolese soil, and one cannot exclude the possibility of them battling directly at the level of their common border. Notwithstanding their denials, antagonism between Kagame and Museveni is still very much alive. The fact remains that British mediation and processes inside Rwanda and Uganda have, until now, prevented the worst from happening.
The regional dynamics indicate a progressive displacement of the main axis of the East-West conflict, whose battlefield was located in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, towards a centre of North-South tension focused on the Rwandan-Ugandan borders and that of Kivu. Given the fragile alliances of convenience in a region where the opposing parties reason according to the logic "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", one should not treat the re-composition of coalitions lightly. The risk that such realignment would be to the detriment of Rwanda seems a real threat, which does not augur well of any gestures Kagame may make in the future.

The Evolution of a Genocidal Mentality in Bosnia and Rwanda: A Preliminary Comparison"
Proposed by Prof Dr Eric Markusen, Senior Researcher, Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS), Copenhagen, with Matthias Bjørnlund and Rafiki Ubaldo. Research Assistants, DIIS
In the last decade of the 20th century, genocide erupted in two very different places and under very different circumstances. The genocide in Bosnia differed in many respects from the genocide in Rwanda--notably the pace and scale of the mass killing and the percentage of the targeted group destroyed before the genocide was stopped--but neither would have occurred had not members of the ruling elites and also sufficient numbers of ordinary citizens become persuaded that destroying a group within their society was an acceptable and even necessary policy and practice. In other words, the formation and disemmination of a genocidal mentality was required.
This paper will describe the concept of "genocidal mentality" derived from the work of Robert Jay Lifton, Eric Markusen, and others and then explore how such a mentality emerged in such dissimilar cases as Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. It will utilize such primary sources as interviews, documents, and photographs obtained by Markusen in the course of more than a dozen research visits to all sides in Former Yugoslavia during and after the wars, and by Ubaldo, a survivor of the Rwanda genocide who became an investigative journalist. We will also rely on jurisprudence of the International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, including testimony by the accused and by witnesses. Secondary sources will include the few available attempts to look at Bosnia and Rwanda in comparative perspective, and analyses written by area specialists and genocide scholars on each case.
Among the aspects of genocide to be addressed in this paper are the justification and planning of genocide, propaganda machines, the role of the media, and contributions by members of academic and religious organizations.
Eric Markusen, Professor, Ph.D.
Senior Researcher
Danish Institute for International Studies
Department for Holocaust and Genocide Studies
Strandgade 56
1401 Copenhagen K
Denmark

Tel: 45 32 69 89 30
Fax: 45 32 69 88 00
E-mail: eka@diis.dk
http://www.diis.dk/
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Genocide in Darfur
by Eric Markusen

In July and August 2004, the US government sent a team of
researchers to the Chad-Sudan border to interview refugees from the
Darfur region of Sudan. The purpose of the mission was to collect
evidence to enable the US government make a determination about whether
the atrocities being committed in Darfur constitute genocide. On 9
September 2004, US Secretary of State Colin Powell, in testimony before
the Senate Foreign Relations Committed, stated that genocide is
occurring in Sudan and invoked the UN Genocide Convention, calling on
the UN and the international community to respond appropriately

This presentation will discuss possible US motives for deciding to
undertake the genocide investigation, the methodology employed, and the
potential implications from both the study and the US determination that
genocide is occurring in Dafur. The presenters was one of 24
interviewers involved in the investigation.

Eric Markusen
Professor, Ph.D.
Senior Researcher
Danish Institute for International Studies
Department for Holocaust and Genocide Studies
Strandgade 56
1401 Copenhagen K
Denmark

Tel: 45 32 69 89 30
Fax: 45 32 69 88 00

The RTLM Role in Genocide
Jean-Luc MBARUSHIMANA, Kigali, Rwanda.

In Rwanda from July 1993 to July 1994 , an year full of width as for the emissions of Radio -RTLM and apparitions of newspaper with dividing and ethnic tendency in which Kangura .Those medias played a significant role before and during genocide in diffusing narratives inciting to hate and calling Hutus to exterminate all Tutsis .

Radio-RTLM and other medias engaged in the same cause , through propaganda they diffused , have accented the genocide ideology . Since its creation in 1990 , RTLM didn't cease to intoxicate the mass through its emissions , to support the realization of the genocide of 1994, without ignore the role of Kangura . That period was marked by assassinations and massacres in many regions of the country, all that was a important point commented every day . Till to the eve of the genocide , the insecurity was attributed to RPF and to its would-be privies (the Tutsis) , targeting them the RTLM justified its call for Hutus to hate their Tutsis compatriots .
Reminding that in its emission of 30th Marc 1994 ,it was said that when a Hutu die ,there are about other thousand of Hutus mourning him and for that cause there must be some enemies to accompany him ,meaning that when a Hutu die ,some Tutsis must be killed.
During that period , from April to July 1994 ,and even a little before , the RTLM accompanied the execution of the genocide plan with long and multiple commentaries inciting to the ethnic hate , mostly in reminding Hutus to search where their Tutsis enemies were hidden and kill them . The genocide was considered as a way to hunt down the enemy.
Even before the beginning of the genocide , dividing publications told about an apocalypse to come .

RTLM served as an arm among others or as a information's service base to denounce where was hidden the enemy to kill ! (All mututsi) .
Kangura newspaper ,right hand of RTLM ,confirmed that the creation of RTLM is for Hutu a sign of collaboration , mostly ,it gather them in unifying their force , then the radio will help the Kangura newspaper to incite people putting into practice the famous manifest of Hutus especially in its call to fight in keeping the sovereignty of the republic , saying
" you who accept the republic ,let RTLM and Kangura speak to you , may this radio be for you a collaboration sing of the majority people , the way to awake and protect that majority people" (Kangura of July 1993 , N° 46 ) .
It is understand that such remarks couldn't appear in the statutes texts , but it was one of the non avowed cause for what RTLM served mostly . That involved its non respect of rule and law, ignoring the duties of the journalist and other press organ ,as it is recommended in the universal declaration of the human right .

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Genocide: Not just a term, a reality in Rwanda

Alison McLaughlin, CSUS

There is increasing interest in the topic of Genocide. For many, the Holocaust is the only reference for this topic. However, the 10th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide in April of this year brought the interest of many outsiders to the idea of genocide in Africa. But sadly, genocide has been occurring in Rwanda and other African nations for decades.

This study was performed in July of this year and its focus was to obtain insight into the word genocide from surviving subjects who were living in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide, all of whom lost many family members. It was important to obtain biographical data as well as personal views on varying issues related to genocide.

The five subjects were both male and female Tutsi and ranged in age from 22-43 years of age. While I had hoped to interview Hutu perpetrators and possibly Hutu sympathizers, it was never realized.

It was discovered that the term genocide or any word with similar meaning did not exist in Rwanda's national language of Kinyarwanda prior to the 1994 genocide. Furthermore, the less educated only learned of the term and its definition in mid-April, during the genocide via the government run radio after the subjects personally experienced acts of genocide. The educated were more likely to understand the concept of genocide and give national historic references, including the 1959 Revolution, as their first introduction to the term genocide. This was done well before 1994.

The majority viewed then President Habyarimana and his regime as responsible for the genocide, but added that France and other international parties were also involved. As for the United States role, many felt the US did not do enough to stop the genocide once it started.

The Gacaca was viewed as, in theory, of being helpful to victims because their stories could be told. In addition, information could be obtained leading to the whereabouts of missing family members remains. Those, along with perpetrators properly being punished was in the subjects' opinion justice. However, it was revealed that many felt there were not enough Gacacas being conducted and after 10 years were still waiting for justice.

Discussion on Hutu prisoners being released from prison raised anger and sadness in the subjects. They did not understand why prisoners were set free and allowed to go back and live in the same villages where they committed murder. More importantly, the subjects were horrified that many of these ex-convicts went on to murder the victims who testified against them. Yet, the convicted perpetrators continue to be released.

Finally, there were varying views on the subjects' dreams and hopes for themselves and their county. Many spoke of reconciliation and peace. Not just for each other, but for their country.

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The Interaction of Human Capital and Resource Scarcity on the Rwandan Genocide
Dr. Robert M. McNab (Contact Author) Major Abdul Latif Mohamed
DRMI Code 64 Mb Royal Malaysian Airforce
Naval Postgraduate School Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
1522 Cunningham Road E: abuafifah@hotmail.com
Monterey, CA 93933
WP: 831-656-3132
HP: 831-455-9842
F: 831-656-2139
E: rmmcnab@nps.edu

In this paper, we examine the role of human capital accumulation and resource scarcity on the formation and execution of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. We argue that resource scarcity created the potential, human capital formation determined the shape, and social cohesion patterns facilitated the effectiveness of the genocide campaign. We further argue that the impact of these variables on conflict creation are not limited to Rwanda, but are applicable in other developing and transitional countries.
We first argue that the Rwandan genocide displayed how discriminatory policies with respect to the accumulation of human capital can serve as an impetus for the fragmentation of society and how existing institutions can threaten social stability in newly independent nations. In Rwanda, the colonial powers discrimination in terms of education, employment, and other economic opportunities created resentment; resentment that increased when previously discriminated groups were granted access to the education system. Indirect rule appeared to create and exacerbate conflict.

Second, we posit that the Rwandan genocide displays the impact of scarce resources on a conflict-prone society. As one of the most densely populated countries on the African continent, each square kilometer of arable land had to support an average of over four hundred people in 1991. Land pressure and landlessness were prevalent; exacerbated by institutional discrimination in the colonial and post-colonial period. Combined with commodity-price volatility; constraints on public expenditure resulting from the entrance into a Structural Adjustment Program; and continued immigration pressures from refugees, resource scarcity increased significant in the decade prior to the genocide. Standard macroeconomic adjustment tools may have, we argue, increased genocide pressures through incre