The papers are all talking about whether or not Paul Kagame assassinated the Rwandan president just before the genocide in 1994. It's generally believed that the assassination triggered the genocide, which strikes me as a little strange. The genocide literally started hours after the assassination. The president of Rwanda, who should have taken power after the prime minister was killed, was assassinated by government soldiers. The ten Belgian soldiers who were protecting the president were tortured and killed. The same UN Belgian peacekeeping force was the one attempting to protect Tutsis from Hutus during the first few weeks of the genocide (with only very limited success).
People have accepted that the genocide involved many months of preparation, and the UN saw evidence of these preparations three months in advance. In this context is it reasonable to say that the assassination "triggered" the genocide of 800,000 people? It seems to me that the genocide was going to happen regardless unless someone from outside had tried to stop it.
I don't know what Paul Kagame is like, although he has killed a lot of Hutus since he came to power. I'm not sure what circumstances that was done in, but it's hard to imagine an orderly blood-free transition after a genocide on that sort of scale. It's possible that there are all sorts of conspiracies involved and Paul Kagame is a cynical despot. But overseeing the relative calm of the last 10 years, after events like those has to count for a lot.
The French are the ones who have reignited the issue, and they obviously don't like him. They helped block the UN from becoming more involved before and during the genocide. A Belgian UN officer claimed that the French were supplying the Rwandan government with ammunition days before the genocide started, although the French deny it. I don't think the Tutsis have a particularly friendly history either, but it's difficult to argue they've done a bad job recently.
Maybe Paul Kagame orchestrated the entire genocide just so he could come to power as the glorious leader who ended the bloodshed. But you build a feasible character assassination of anyone who gains power because they deal effectively with the circumstances around them. People have argued that Xanana Gusmão is only interested in helping himself at the expense of East Timor. Presumably the 20 years of resistance and fighting, and the virtual withdrawal from politics after the election were masterfully orchestrated by him to boost his own popularity and power. Sure, it's possible. But given how unbelievably unlikely it is, I think the burden of proof is on the folk who believe it.
Let’s say the genocide is the firing of a gun.
It takes a period of deliberate action to produce a gun, and it is produced with the intent to be fired at some point — but a person on the outisde cannot say for certain when that is, even though one can be reasonably certain the gun will be fired.
Some event may occur that triggers the use of the gun.
So perhaps the “triggering” of the genocide may have been the sudden use of the gun that was already purchased months in advance. A final straw; the drop that overflowed the bucket, the final lighting the fuse of an old bomb.
Wil / 10:47pm / 29 November 2006
Assuming it wasn’t done by the people who perpetrated the genocide (and I’m inclined to think it was), I “triggered” might be a reasonable sort of word. But I wonder if it’s a bit misleading. It depends on how inevitable you think it was. If you think it’s 100% likely the gun will fire on its own anyway, then there might be better words to describe causing it to be fired early. “Triggered” implies there was a stable state which has been disturbed.
But I suppose that isn’t my main issue anyway. I just think a lot of what seems to be a concerted effort to undermine Kagame strikes me as a bit doubtful. Though it could easily be true as well.
Ryan / 10:00am / 30 November 2006