Letter from Alison Des Forges to David Rawson

The letter itself is not the main focus of this document. Attached to the letter is a memo detailing new United States policy for Rwanda, following Paul Kagame establishing a new government in Rwanda.https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/rawson_rwanda/1098/thumbnail.jp

‘Buying a path’: rethinking resistance in Rwanda

In this essay, I tell the story of Jean-Baptiste, the president of a motorcycle taxi drivers’ co-operative, and his struggle against the machinations of certain high officials in Kigali City Council. Crucial to this story is the way in which Jean-Baptiste’s attempts to retain his position in the face of powerful opposition pit certain agencies of Rwanda’s party state against others. I use this ethnographic narrative to question the way in which much scholarship on popular resistance in Rwanda, drawing on Scott’s simplified opposition between the powerful and the powerless, opposes ‘ordinary Rwandans’ to ‘the state’ as monolithic entities with opposed interests. Theorising Jean-Baptiste’s story in terms of Rwandan idioms of relative power and influence, I suggest that such a Manichean view of power and resistance in Rwanda oversimplifies social realities. I propose instead a model of power and resistance that sees the state as a field of capacities and possible relationships that it presents for certain people, where ‘paths’ to influence and security may by ‘bought’ – especially, but not exclusively, by those who are ‘strong’ and ‘high’

Veto Players in Post-Conflict DDR Programs: Evidence from Nepal and the DRC

Under what conditions are Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) programs successfully implemented following intrastate conflict? Previous research is dominated by under-theorized case studies that lack the ability to detect the precise factors and mechanisms that lead to successful DDR. In this article, we draw on game theory and ask how the number of veto players, their policy distance, and their internal cohesion impact DDR implementation. Using empirical evidence from Nepal and the Democratic Republic of Congo, we show that the number of veto players, rather than their distance and cohesion, explains the (lack of) implementation of DDR

The Ideology of Genocide

Mobilizing thousands of Rwandans to slaughter tens of thousands of others required effective organization. Far from the “Failed State” syndrome that appears to plague some parts of Africa, Rwanda was too successful as a state. Extremists used its administrative apparatus, its military, and its party organizations to carry out a “cottage-industry” genocide that reached out to all levels of the population and produced between five hundred thousand and one million victims. Those with state power used their authority to force action from those reluctant to kill. They also offered attractive incentives to people who are very poor, giving license to loot and promising them the land and businesses of the victims. In some cases, local officials even decided ahead of time the disposition of the most attractive items of movable property. Everyone knew who had a refrigerator, a plush sofa, a radio, and assailants were guaranteed their rewards before attacking. But even with the powerful levers of threat and bribe, officials could not have succeeded so well had people not been prepared to hate and fear the Tutsi.</jats:p