Talk:Rwandan genocide/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Burundi Genocide

Is it fair to disregard the 1972 Burundi genocide of Hutus by the Tutsi army in the Background? Andrarias (talk) 19:19, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

The Rwandan genocide began when the President of Rwanda while returning home from a peacekeeping meeting was in his plane and shot down by a Tutsi. This flared the Hutu militia and they ended the peace keeping agreement and began a civil war resulting in the mass murder of the Tutsi race. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.234.255.75 (talk) 21:46, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

• Andrarias, it's fine to mention to the extent that it influenced events in Rwanda, and the extent to which events in Rwanda fed into conflict in neighboring countries. But just to be clear, Burundi is a very different context and what happened there had its own set of actors and stakes. - Lemurbaby (talk) 02:24, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

American Role

The article says:

In January 1994 NSC member Richard Clark developed formal US peacekeeping doctrine, Presidential Decision Directive 25 (PDD-25).

How is this relevant? What did it do in this particular conflict. Should at least have a link. Ileanadu (talk) 18:09, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

PDD 25 is important for several reasons. It established reasons NOT to assist in Rwanda instead of reason TO assist. It also was used by the ambassador to UN (Madeleine Albright) to persuade other countries NOT to interfere in an "internal power struggle". It would also be worth noting that Madeleine Albright is hailed for where she came from (WW2 Poland) A child of the Holocaust was arguing pulling out the entire UNAMIR contingent and allowing the genocide to continue. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.90.136.29 (talk) 08:17, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Anon IP, Albright is a CZECH, not a Pole. HammerFilmFan (talk) 09:08, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

(NOT A PART OF THE ARTICLE ABOVE, BUT IT IS AN INTERESTING FACT OF THE AMERICAN ROLE: "In a press conference, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in the Cliton administration claimed uncertainty that the number 800,000 deaths in Rwanda as being a number large enough to be an actual "genocide." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.132.124.49 (talk) 22:50, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

ID cards

The article states, as part of preparation for the genocide, "Both Hutus and Tutsis were given ID cards which specified an ethnic group. These cards served as symbols in which the Interhamwe could check via the threat of force.(citation needed)". This was not something done in the immediate preparation of the genocide. Rwandans had such ID cards from at least the 1980s, and probably from the days of the Kayibanda regime of the 1960s. Certainly they were present and required in the 1980s when I lived there for 5 years. And they always specified the ethnic group. In part this was because the Habyarimana regime, at least during the 1980s, tried to keep a lid on ethnic tensions by using a quota system for places in school, university, government jobs, etc. At the time of the genocide, the nationwide organization of the interahamwe etc was such that these cards were not needed - everyone in a given locality knew who were Hutu and who were Tutsi. Ptilinopus (talk) 13:50, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

The ID card system was instituted by the Belgians in 1935, prior to independence. Interesting tidbit: Due to the extent of intermarriage, the only criterion used to distinguish “Hutu” from “Tutsi” at the outset of the system was wealth. Regardless of lineage, anyone with more than ten cows became a Tutsi, and anyone with fewer became a Hutu. (See http://gov.rw/page.php?id_article=56.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Reyerfekaj (talk • contribs) 05:18, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

From the article: US President Bill Clinton claimed to have not fully understood the severity of the situation. Scholars have suggested that President Clinton could not have known about the genocide until around April 20, 1994, when it became popularized in the media. SOURCE? Which scholar? When? This is not a credible statement. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.119.104.137 (talk) 02:53, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Responsibility

The Politics of Genocide by Edward S. Herman and David Peterson has some interesting views on American imperialism and its relationship to the massacres http://allafrica.com/stories/201007080969.html have these views been taken into account in the article? Keith-264 (talk) 10:19, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Ed Herman and David Peterson are persistent deniers of the facts of what happened in Bosnia 1992-1995. It is hard to credit they would have much reliable to say about Rwanda 1994. Opbeith (talk) 15:41, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Too much weight to source #35 in 'War Rape' Section

I looked at source 35, which asserts the following text in the 'War Rape' section:

"Compared to other conflicts, the sexual violence in Rwanda stands out in three ways: the organized nature of the propaganda that contributed to fueling sexual violence against Tutsi women; the public nature of the rapes; and the level of brutality toward the women.[35]"

I viewed the section in the book on the Rwandan genocide. It repeats the above, but it seems too much weight in the section is being given to this particular author's assertion. Not very fitting for an encyclopedia article. Should this be in the article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Spikywiki (talk • contribs) 08:12, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

I see your point. I found two scholarly articles that could contribute to this section. (Article 1) (Article 2). I think collecting relevant information from the two articles will help to improve the section. I plan to edit this section as part of a project for a class. Also, would changing the title of this section, "War Rape," to "Gender Targeted Crimes Against Humanity" be better in explaining the subject? I feel that the title is too broad in relation to the Rwandan Genocide. The term "war rape," as the word "war" suggests, refers to such crimes during war. War and genocide are not the same, and so, I think that the title should be changed. MinjKim (talk) 08:08, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Tabel of contents

Something's wrong with the TOC. All sections below section 3 (Genocid) are subsections thereof, which is clearly not intended. When I wanted to fix this problem, I saw that the formatting was down correctly. There must be a technical issue that it does not render the way it is intended. Perhaps, someone else can solve it. Tomeasy _{T C} 22:18, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Fixed. Rivertorch (talk) 04:18, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from 131.111.1.66, 23 May 2011

131.111.1.66 (talk) 15:04, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Please remove, "GO SIDIRTHA!" from the overview of the page. It is innappropriate.

Already done three days ago. You must be looking at an old version of the page. Rivertorch (talk) 16:00, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Deleted Postgraduate Thesis information in Turkish

"Ruanda’da gerçekleştirilen soykırım konusunda en fazla suçlanan ülke Fransa olmuştur. O dönemde Fransa, soykırımı gerçekleştiren Hutu hükümetinin en yakın dostu ve destekçisidir."

translation: "France is the most accused country for the genocide in Ruanda. At that time, France was the closest ally and the supporter of the Hutu government."

Don't delete objective university referance please. Dr.tolga (talk) 23:22, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

First of all, please be careful not to engage in edit warring. The burden is on you to demonstrate that the content is appropriate, and it is important to engage in discussion here on the talk page first—not after (or concurrently with) reinsertion of the content.

About the content, several points:

1. A "university referance"[sic] isn't necessarily "objective". The phrase actually is vague to the point of meaninglessness. Whatever it means in this case, its reliability hasn't been established.
2. What it seems to mean, based on the edit summary of your latest reinsertion of the content, is a "postgraduate thesis". That's also a vague term, I'm afraid, but I think it's fair to say that most postgraduate theses don't qualify as reliable sources for our purposes.
3. The wording you've reinserted in the article doesn't match the translation you've provided above. The former accuses France of supporting not just the government but the genocide.
4. Such an accusation constitutes an exceptional claim and therefore must be verifiable using impeccable secondary sources that any English-speaking editor can evaluate. If the best source you can find is a postgrad thesis in Turkish, then I'm afraid you're out of luck.
5. Both the article wording and your translation above are written in nonstandard English. I normally just fix that sort of thing, but in this case it would be like putting lipstick on a pig. I'm going to ask for outside input. Rivertorch (talk) 07:40, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

• It is not a reliable source, and even if it was it would violate WP:UNDUE. I have never read of France being complicit in the genocide, ever in any way shape or form. Darkness Shines (talk) 08:14, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

There are numerous reports that France was deeply involved in the conflict. See for example the book "A Thousand Hills" by NYT journalist Stephen Kinzer, which explains how France provided Rwandan genocidaires with arms, trained them and even fought with them side by side. The author notes "Nowhere does the cloud of guilt hang more heavily than over France. Others failed or refused to see that genocide was raging in Rwanda. President Mitterand and his government armed that Hutu regime; sent soldiers to defend it; supported resolutely as it carried out the genocide; helped many of its leaders escape when the war ended, granted asylum in France to some of the most bloodthirsty among them, including Madame Habyarimana; and then helped the defeated genocidal army launch a brutal insurgency in a vain effort to retake power". Here are few more quotes from the book:

• "Bagosora, popularly known as 'the colonel of death', was among the young officers who directed the first wave of anti-Tutsi massacres from 1959 to 1963. ... he was the first Rwandan to have graduated from the most prestigious French military academy, the Ecole de Guerre"
• Former UN general secretary Boutros-Ghali, while serving as Egypt's deputy foreign minister in the early 1990s helped Mitterand brokering "a deal that brought Rwandan government $6 million in weaponry, including seventy mortars, two thousand land mines, and three million rounds of ammunition." Altogether "France sold the Rwandan regime more than $20 million worth of weaponry and helped it buy five times that amount from arms dealers in Egypt and South Africa. When Egyptian financiers hesitated to extend credit to Rwanda, France's government-owned bank, Credit Lyonnais, stepped in as guarantor. That allowed Rwanda to buy not just small arms but helicopters, tanks, rockets, and heavy mortars. It turned one of the world's smallest and poorest countries into the third-largest arms importer in Africa".
• "French soldiers directed artillery attacks, maintained and flew helicopters, advised Rwandan commanders on field tactics, gave the army a modern radio communication network, manned roadblocks around Kigali, and even helped interrogate prisoners accused of collaborating with the insurgents".
• Kinzer also quotes UN general Dallaire, who directly "accused French troops of training the murderous Presidential Guard and for seizing a planeload of weapons that France had sent to Rwanda in violation of the Arusha accords".

Well if you need even more proof of French involvement in the genocide than consider the reaction of Rwandan genocidaires to the UN decision to approve the sixty-day French mission Opération Turquoise.

• Following the announcement, Rwandan "radio announcers reported jubilantly that French soldiers were coming to save the nation from the dreaded inkotanyi. French flags went up on many buildings in Kigali. People ran ecstatically through the streets, shouting, 'Vive la France!'"

--spitzl (talk) 16:07, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't think anyone has argued that France had squeaky-clean hands in the affair. Few Western powers, and certainly none that had colonial holdings, are blameless for the various atrocities committed in various postcolonial nations. The question that sparked this thread involved the unreliability of a source used to support a sentence suggesting that France supported the genocide (not supported those who carried out the genocide). It was an obvious question, but I asked it and it has been answered. Rivertorch (talk) 19:17, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

rivertorch, you wanted to see an english source and you are disregarding a turkish university source just because it is not written in english .now there is a very well written and explained source in english but some how you do not appreciate it so much . like it or not france is fully reponsible for the Rwandan Genocide. stop deleting sources and posts . --- — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.179.223.183 (talk) 14:26, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Thesis papers are not Reliable Sources per the rules of Wikipedia. It doesn't matter what language they are written in, nor their origin. HammerFilmFan (talk) 08:59, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Given your misrepresentation of my view, you clearly didn't read what I said above. Please read it, and then I'll welcome your informed comment. Rivertorch (talk) 18:22, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Edit request (dead link in reference)

In section "Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) renewed invasion", reference 93 has a dead link to a transcript of Doyle's quotation. Here is the new link http://www.rwandainitiative.ca/symposium/transcript/panel3/doyle.html Just to make sure, there is also an archive.org snapshot of the dead link: http://web.archive.org/web/20100103060709/http://www.carleton.ca/mediagenocide/documents/transcript/panel3/doyle.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.196.171.46 (talk) 18:50, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Edit request (political development)

The aftermath of the genocide and change of regime has not all been cream and peaches as has often been presented in the media. Kagame's regime has it dark side(s) too: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2010/aug/05/rwanda-kagames-power-struggle — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.196.171.46 (talk) 19:19, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Edit request (Minor)

Once on the page the wrong abbreviation is used: "DRC" (which refers to the Congo). It should be CDR. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aralo (talk • contribs) 14:01, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Get this up to FA in time for Today's Featured Article on April 7 2014

It would be really good to have this be the Today's Featured Article two years from now, on April 7, 2014. Amakuru and others, do you think you'll have the opportunity? - Lemurbaby (talk) 05:08, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Condescending Tone

Just an observation. This article takes a condescending tone towards the subjects it is written about. To be more explicit, I would say one that considers Westerners, for example Europeans, to have reached a supreme understanding of civil society while they report on less enlightened cultures. Accipio Mitis Frux (talk) 22:57, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Unless you can provide some specific examples, this is just your point of view. Do you have some Reliable Sources to cite that would improve the article? HammerFilmFan (talk) 09:05, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Rwandan Survivors article

Hi. In the Articles to wikify backlog I found this article Rwandan Survivors. Since the survivors are linked to the genocide can I suggest the pages be merged? Gbawden (talk) 13:47, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Davenport and Stam's research

It appears there has not been any discussion about Davenport and Stam's research on the genocide in Rwanda. It certainly isn't the dominant narrative, but their research was quite rigorous and was largely based on composites of other direct surveys generally considered authoritative, as well as direct work in Rwanda during the late 2000s. However, they have been banished from Rwanda and, by some, have been accused on being genocide denier (this is not a very credible claim in light of the nature of their research and the fact that they never deny a conspiracy by certain elements in the Hutu military and government to exterminate Tutsis).

There is also a mention of Robin Philpot, and the accusation that he is a genocide denier or revisionist. There is also only quotes ABOUT his work, not citing his work or his arguments directly at all. Certainly his research is of a very different nature, caliber, and perspective than Davenport/Stam's, but wouldn't it be a good idea to at least summarize a little bit more of his reasoning for the sake of clarity?

What about a section on "Alternative perspectives," or something, discussing the various different dissents from the mainstream narrative and what distinguishes them and how they have been received in academic and political circles? In particular, it might be a good idea to clear up the "double genocide thesis." Generally the double genocide thesis is discounted as false on the grounds that, although the RPF appears to have killed something along the lines of 70,000 Hutu civilians between April and October 1994 (from sources such as the Gersony report), which could qualify as crimes against humanity but, in comparison to the 800,000 or 900,000 killed (how many of those were Tutsi and how many were Hutu is another question that could be expanded upon in an addition of Davenport and Stam's findings) under the jurisdiction of the FAR, is not genocide, or is at least not genocide of the comparable enough scale to warrant calling the period a "double genocide." However, in my experience, many people who argue that there was a double genocide point to (1) RPF atrocities against Hutu and Tutsi civilians during the Rwandan Civil War between 1990 and 1994, (2) the 70,000 or so Hutu killed by the RPF during the genocide itself, (3) a couple massacres in Rwanda between October 94 and 96, such as the Kibeho refugee camp, where thousands were counted before the RPF shut off access to the area; some have estimated there may have been as many as 100,000 dead, and (4) the massacres throughout 1996 and into 1997 of various refugee camps in Congo which killed hundreds of thousands of Hutu Rwandans and Burundians. Taken together, these numbers start to plausibly look comparable to the Tutsis killed by the Hutu Power forces in Rwanda during 1994, and the distinction between these two articulations of what might be called the 'double genocide' are distinct and should be recognized as such.

With some time, I'd be happy to provide citations and further explanation for any of the claims I have just made. Just wanted to see if anyone involved in this article was receptive to any of these ideas. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 126.248.5.144 (talk) 06:30, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Plan to Update the Article

Hello, I am a college student studying poverty, justice, and human capabilities. I am working on a project for one of my classes, and the project requires that we improve a Wikipedia article of a topic that we are interested in. I am interested in the Rwandan Genocide, and I would like to contribute in improving the article.

My plan to improve the article consists of the following:

• Adding a Gacaca Court section
• Editing the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) section
• Editing the War Rape section (possibly renaming it as Gender Targeted Crimes Against Humanity)

I strongly believe that an update/expansion of the mentioned sections is necessary especially with the recent closing of the Gacaca Courts(link to news article by BBC News) and the United Nation's announcement to close the ICTR by the end of 2014 (link to news article by UN News Centre).

I need advice as to how I can find scholarly articles on the current closing of the Gacaca Courts, the plan for ICTR's closing, and the future for Rwanda's justice system. Please comment if you have any advice.

If you have any suggestions or comments, please post a message to me on my Talk page. I would appreciate it! Thank you.

MinjKim (talk) 07:29, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Welcome, MinjKim! I think I'd disagree with you that a separate section is needed for the Gacaca Court here. The courts are already discussed in the aftermath section. It might be worth adding a few sentences to note that the Gacaca and ICTR have finished their work, but a better place for you to do significant updates would be the Gacaca court article itself.

As for the "war rape" section, what do you plan to change with your edits? Do most commentators appear to be using the phrase "Gender Targeted Crimes Against Humanity" instead of "war rape"? Thanks for your interest in this article, -- Khazar2 (talk) 12:00, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Hi Khazar2! Thank you for your response! I have taken your suggestions into consideration and made a new plan. Here is an outline of my new plan:

I. Edit “International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda” section

• a. Change title to “Justice System After Genocide”
• b. Include link to “Gacaca Court” page
• c. Expand more because the page does not provide enough content to have readers visit the “Gacaca Court” page
• d. Update with current news
• e. Add significant information with scholarly articles

II. Change “War Rape” to “Gender Targeted Crimes"

• a. “Gender Targeted Crimes” title- more inclusive

• i. There were crimes other than rape

III. Editing “Criticism” section of the “Gacaca Court” page

• a. Use neutral tone and scholarly articles to support points

Please let me know if you (and other WikiUsers) have any thoughts on my new plan. Thank you! MinjKim (talk) 21:32, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

I have already made some changes to the Rwandan Genocide page (due to an assignment that was due yesterday for the class- the link to the class' Wikipage is on top of this talk page) Please let me know of any thoughts on the changes. I am having trouble finding scholarly articles to learn more about the effects of the closing of the Gacaca court system. Even though it is a vey recent event, are there any sources besides news articles that have information on the effects of the closing of the Gacaca court system? MinjKim (talk) 05:52, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

- MinjKim, looking at the 'Gender Targeted Crimes' section, it appears there is a discussion of GTC that is general in nature and certainly not limited to this conflict/genocide. It might be worthwhile to look through WP (Bosnian conflict would be a place to start) for an article that already covers this material (and edit if need be) and use that as a "see also" tag, while editing out the general background on GTC and leaving only the stuff that is specific to the Rwanda genocide.Kerani (talk) 19:38, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

References

Photo

Is there a reason the first photo is repeated in the article? Robvanvee 16:02, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

 Done, repeated photo deleted.--HCPUNXKID (talk) 18:00, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

BS

"It is considered the most organized genocide of the 20th century."

Really? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Winston S Smith (talk • contribs) 23:04, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

I doubt it as well. I just read it in passing and added it in. Feel free to chop it out if you don't like it, no big loss from my point of view. LudicrousTripe (talk) 08:29, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

More so than the holocaust? With charts and machines? Agreed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.28.82.250 (talk) 23:01, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

It's right to remove that line unless numerous sources back it up, but let's not assume the Holocaust was more organized because Nazi Germany set up concentration/extermination camps - that may be more a reflection of the money the Nazis had at their disposal. About a million people being murdered in about 100 days as happened in Rwanda takes considerable organization. Either way, both are horrible and let's not risk denigrating the people who suffered in both atrocities by speculating about them - let's do them justice by making sure everything we include here is very well supported by the sources. Lemurbaby (talk) 12:54, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Revisionism section

Thanks to Ludicrous Tripe for developing the section on historical revisionism and genocide denial. All the content is cited and the views presented exist; this is a real phenomenon. It's also very much the case that genocide denial is a criminal act in Rwanda, and that this is controversial as it's been claimed that political dissidents are often slapped with the charge to silence them. So the content here needs to be included. The key is going to be ensuring that the views of historical revisionists are not given too much weight as a fringe theory. That's going to require two things - 1) editing the style and content of this section to be a strictly objective summary report of facts around the phenomenon and the essence of revisionists' perspective, and 2) significantly strengthening the body of the article to illustrate the facts around the genocide, so that any reader can draw their own conclusions based on fact. Ludicrous Tripe has been doing a lot of copy editing, which has improved the article. There is much meatier work that will also need to be done to develop each of the sections, something I'm intending to do by mid-January in preparation for a GA run. The German version of this article is what I'd like this to look like by the time we're done. So given the extremely sensitive nature of the content in the historical revisionism section, and the relatively underdeveloped rest of the article, we run up against the likelihood of this section being viewed as promoting a fringe theory, which none of us want. I believe the best solution for now is to keep the content hidden until the rest of the article has been more fully developed, when it will be unhidden and adjusted in line with changes to the rest of the article. Thank you to Ludicrous Tripe for the time and effort made to research and write this section, and to improve the rest of the article as well. - Lemurbaby (talk) 02:19, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

This material belongs in the Rwandan Genocide denial article, not here. The Holocaust article does not devote any space to deniers, nor does any other article on genocide.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 02:29, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Your logic for referring to Herman as a Genocide denier has left me a little confused. Raul Hillberg made the discovery of the Judenrat (Jewish collaborators during the holocaust), and received much push back from members of the Jewish community. Yet he is not referred to as a genocide denier on his wikipedia page. He certainly was a historical revisionist, considering he was challenging the prevailing notions of historians at the time. Now his findings are widely accepted. So prevailing narratives of genocides can change with time. Edward Herman in his works do not deny that major crimes happened. Therefore, I do not think it is fair to label his ideas as "genocide denial" but rather revisionists (keep in mind that there have been plenty of periods where the majority consensus of historians have been wrong on a particular issue, it is unfair to label anyone who challenges a prevailing narrative as a genocide denier, even if they are incorrect). I urge everyone on wikipedia to consider the fact that Raul Hillberg's findings at one point in time were dismissed as a "fringe theory". I also urge people to remember that eyewitness testimony is not good evidence of a genocide (even in the case of the holocaust) but there needs to evidence of specific policies that entail mass extermination. When I go to the wikipedia page on the holocaust, I see reference to specific policies (such as the final solution). On this wikipedia page I do not see any reference to any specific policies.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.252.25.21 (talk • contribs) 02:00, 20 February 2015‎ (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out that the article exists. I'll make sure this links to it eventually. To the extent that I develop a section going over the aftermath, I will likely touch on the denial issue. Just as all the subsequent wars in Congo have their own articles but are also touched on here, a major outcome like the criminalization of denial and its ramifications for political (and economic - donors have threatened to suspend funds if the political space isn't opened up to dissidents) development in Rwanda deserves a mention here, although most likely much shorter than what's been written by LT. I'm a level headed editor, so it won't be out of balance. I'll welcome your input as the section is developed. Lemurbaby (talk) 02:38, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

A section on it definitely belongs here, but it should have a Main template and just provide a small summary of the main article. EvergreenFir (talk) 04:38, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Ought to be a short overview here with the main article linked. Darkness Shines (talk) 08:48, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I think we all see it the same way. Lemurbaby (talk) 10:39, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

I hid it again because it does need some modification- it needs to be shortened and written in summary style and the rest of the article needs to be developed to balance this out. Otherwise we risk violating the fringe views rule. Lemurbaby (talk) 00:43, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

• I haven't had a chance to read through the entire article nor the section on revisionism mentioned, but I came to this page to note that a section on revisionism does belong in an article like this. Revisionism ≠ denial (although, the material read by TheTimesAreAChanging may have been denial, again I haven't had a chance to read it). Research, like that of Davenport and Stam, offers new light on the situation. That is not denial, although it has been argued as such. It would give the material undue weight to incorporate it directly into the article, but it does belong in a section on revisionism. Ryan Vesey 21:27, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Ed Herman's denial is more extreme than any Holocaust denier's; the equivalent would be arguing that the Jews actually murdered several million Germans.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 22:24, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Why in is the whole section still invisible? Ed Herman and the other person who he writes with, some independent researcher, might like to be removed, since their conclusions are simply incredible, certainly at least on the basis of the evidence they presented. But the remainder of the material by the two US academics is fine, and the coverage of how Kagame has used the genocide to silence critics is very important. 86.181.152.118 (talk) 08:01, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

This content is being removed, why is it still hidden? @TheTimesAreAChanging: @Ryan Vesey: @Lemurbaby: @LudicrousTripe: Darkness Shines (talk) 08:56, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Hello. I agree with TheTimesAreAChanging. Genuninely, why keep this Herman and Peterson thesis in this article? As people above would agree the claims they make rely on ignoring a large amount of counterevidence. So I think calling it genocide denial is accurate, and so their argument should be moved to the denial article? RwandaPanda (talk) 09:09, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Hello Darkness Shines. Some people have said that the Herman and Peterson book is not solid enough to be in this article, that it is poorly argued denial rather than legitimate revisionism. I agree with this assessment of their work, which does not seek to counter the mass of evidence that the Tutsi genocide was planned. For example, how about all the weapons imports, the radio broadcasting, the survivor testimony, and so on. None of that is dealt with in their book. Nor could it be given the handful of pages the two of them devote to the topic. The research by the other two Americans seems much more detailed, lasted a decade, does not deny the Tutsi genocide, relies on expert demographic studies, and so on. This to me seems much more solid, and so I think it qualifies as legitimate revisionism. Certainly there can be little doubt that Kagame is not a good man and has caused much suffering in the Congo, and puts people in Rwanda jail and assassinates them, so it suits him to not have any questions asked about what else happened apart from the Tutsi genocide. RwandaPanda (talk) 09:45, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Genocide denial is genocide denial, regardless of how poorly it is argued. Darkness Shines (talk) 09:49, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes I agree. Sorry if my way of phrasing things has given an impression otherwise. I have added Herman and Peterson to the Rwandan Genocide denial, what do you think? RwandaPanda (talk) 09:52, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Since Darkness Shines pinged me...I believe we should be careful to avoid giving undue weight to Herman and Peterson's fringe theories when there is a dedicated article on the topic. The Holocaust omits any mention of Holocaust denial.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 01:10, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Correction request

The second sentence in the third paragraph starts "Continuing ethnic strife resulted in the rebels' displacing large numbers of Hutu in the north". The apostrophe shouldn't be there. Please could someone with editing powers correct it to "Continuing ethnic strife resulted in the rebels displacing large numbers of Hutu in the north"? 81.145.162.95 (talk) 13:31, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Done, thank you. Darkness Shines (talk) 14:32, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Links

>> France to open Rwanda genocide trial >> Rwanda: re-opening old wounds? (Lihaas (talk) 07:23, 4 February 2014 (UTC)).

Gender-targeted crimes / general structure of the Genocide section

@Darkness Shines: - I'm intrigued as to why you didn't like the changes done by @Lemurbaby: this morning. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the whole "Gender-targeted crimes" section needs to be vastly shorter than it is now. For interest I've copied the entire section to a user page User:Amakuru/Rwandan Genocide/Gender-targeted crimes, and measured its readable prose length using User:Shubinator/DYKcheck. It comes out as 11,509 characters at present, and that doesn't include the bullet points at the bottom. Given that per WP:Article size#A rule of thumb we're ultimately aiming for a length of maximum 60,000 characters here, that 11,500 is clearly vastly too much. Personally I think two or maximum three paragraphs on this topic as a subheading of "Genocide" is sufficient.

This is not to belittle the issue of gender crimes in the genocide, by the way, just that this is essentially a summary article for the whole Genocide and there is a lot of material to cover. So individual topics can't get more than a couple of paragraphs with a main article link in general.

Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 13:30, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

I do not like the changes as he messed it all up. If he wants to do it he can do it properly. Darkness Shines (talk) 13:59, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Hi Darkness Shines, I appreciate you wanting to maintain the quality of the articles you created. I do the same. But the changes I made will actually enrich your article, and reverting them actually lessens the quality of what that article could be. There is good quality information in what was moved there, and it expands significantly on the content. It needed to be copy-edited and duplications needed to be removed, which I was intending to do (your help would have been welcome), and I had already begun that work yesterday. If the link on the Rwandan Genocide article to the "main" Rape during the Rwandan Genocide article is to be kept, it is only right and logical that the main article be longer and more complete than the related subtopic in the Rwandan Genocide article. But as it is now, the "main" one is shorter and less informative than the subsection in the Genocide article. If you want me to "do it right", I will finish the edits in a sandbox and then paste the entire thing into the article. But please let me know that you are not going to just revert it, because it's a lot of work to undertake and would be done in good faith. As it is currently, it does not belong in the Rwandan Genocide article. It overbalances the content, as Amakuru confirmed. - Lemurbaby (talk) 04:54, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

BTW Thank you Amakuru for moving the content to that userpage. I can work on it from there if needed. In the meantime, I'm going to spend some time today working on this article and I'd like to start with going back to the shortened section I put together yesterday. - Lemurbaby (talk) 05:05, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Don't bother, I am already in the process of doing it, and intend to see it done correctly. Darkness Shines (talk) 08:06, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

All right. I'm happy to help you with the copy editing once you're done with the changes, if you'd like a second pair of eyes on it to polish the English. - Lemurbaby (talk) 08:53, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

International responses section

Hi Amakuru, it's exciting to see this article transforming so quickly! I realized today that it may be a long shot to have this up as today's featured article by April 7, but let's give it our best. :) One significant change that strikes me as needed is the condensing or removal of the international responses section and shifting most of the content into the related "main" article. The French role probably deserves its own article. I've been looking at a translation of the German version, which I think is really excellent and serves as a good model for what this article could be. - Lemurbaby (talk) 16:36, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Indeed. I don't know why, but I'd completely forgotten until recently that this year's memorial week is the twentieth anniversary one. I was in Rwanda during the tenth, I can't quite believe that was a whole decade ago now. And you flagged it up on this page almost two years ago, so no excuse really! I hope that at the very least even if we don't quite make it over the TFA line that we can get a mention in "on this day" and if so, we still want the best possible article for people to click through to from the main page, not to mention the hits resulting from added interest that may be generated if the anniversary gets any coverage in the international media. Regarding the international responses, I think I pretty much agree with what you say. I think the international response is worth some sort of mention, particularly as (a) the French involvement is a subject of active discourse even do this day, and (b) the international response is often mentioned as having been notably lacking. But it's way too long right now, and we don't need separate France and United States subsections. The only other thing I'd personally do would be to place Operation Turquoise somewhere separate from the general discourse on French and international involvement. That was a clear and distinct part of the narrative of the genocide itself. Even that wouldn't be a huge part though. I'll have a look through the German article as well, and maybe the Finnish one as well as that also seems to be featured.  — Amakuru (talk) 23:09, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Chronology

I've just completed this subsection of "Genocide" section, which aims to provide an outline of the major events of the genocide from start to finish, in a few paragraphs. I thought this was important because otherwise if the whole section is dedicated to specifics, the chronology ends up fragmented, between "initial events" and "RPF invasion" with no clear way to follow it. I'd be interested in any feedback on whether this is a good idea, and also if there are any important facts that I've omitted here that one would expect in a timeline.

Having done that, the remainder of the "Genocide" section can be dedicated to specific subtopics, including the existing "Planning and organization", "Gender-targeted crimes" and "Death toll" (or variants thereof), as well as a section with more details on safe havens, survivors, possibly some specific examples of incidents and anecdotes. Again, any ideas on this, or contributions would be useful!

I've left the section "Escalation of killings" in for the time being, because it has some material not repeated anywhere else, but I imagine that will be restructured shortly and that section wouldn't persist. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 23:55, 21 February 2014 (UTC)

Template needed

I think that this article, along with all the others related to the 90s civil conflict in Rwanda, should be included in a template (either a bottom template or a campaignbox template). This, in my opinion, would be very useful and would make it a lot easier for readers to know more about the events that occurred in the country during this period. Fitzcarmalan (talk) 10:03, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

7 April

Not TFA for the twentieth anniversary then, unfortunately (I've been too busy in real life recently time give it much attention) but I have at least listed it under selected anniversaries for 7 April so well get a small main page mentioned on Monday. Fingers crossed we can get over the line in time for the 21st anniversary next year!  — Amakuru (talk) 18:59, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Into too long

The introduction is too long. Do something about it. --173.76.108.247 (talk) 03:44, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

It's fine according to WP:LEADLENGTH. Also, WP:SOFIXIT. EvergreenFir (talk) 03:52, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 13 August 2014

Hi, could someone please update the following links? Change http://69.94.11.53/ENGLISH/cases/Seromba/appealchamber.htm to http://www.unictr.org/Cases/tabid/127/PID/42/default.aspx?id=5&mnid=4 and http://69.94.11.53/ENGLISH/PRESSREL/2006/503.htm to http://www.unictr.org/tabid/155/Default.aspx?ID=91 Thanks! 2003:74:CE21:2E01:894D:C84:587C:95D2 (talk) 20:17, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Done EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 20:19, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Davenport quote

In the revisionism section, if someone could please check whether Davenport has been misquoted (he could definitely be considered an authority on African conflicts/peacekeeping in Africa, so I find it odd that he would label the Tutsi "Francophone"). Most Tutsi were actually Anglophone (spoke English in addition to Kinyarwanda and were less likely to identify with French culture compared to the Hutu).

"A great deal of effort has been extended to make sure the focus stays exclusively on the Francophone Tutsi victims...."

BBC documentary

Should this recent BBC documentary or any of its contents be included on this page? Perhaps as an external link? http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04kk03t/this-world-rwandas-untold-story http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/tv-and-radio-reviews/11133986/This-World-Rwandas-Untold-Story-BBC-Two-review-intense.html

seems to be required. See here a short analysis about it: http://libya360.wordpress.com/2014/10/11/rwanda-the-untold-story-what-really-happened/ Mocvd (talk) 06:23, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Completely new view of the genocide since an BBC report?

Sorry, I do not have the time and ability to do it, could anyone more able to check this http://libya360.wordpress.com/2014/10/11/rwanda-the-untold-story-what-really-happened/ and possibly make the required adjustments please? Mocvd (talk) 06:19, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Anyone considering making changes based on the documentary, should perhaps also note this letter of rebuttal signed by 38 people here: http://umuvugizi.wordpress.com/2014/10/13/1994-bbc-2014/ Reissgo (talk) 12:56, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

I second what @Reissgo: says. The article should be based on secondary reliable published sources, which overwhelmingly assert, based on eyewitness testimony from those on the ground at the time, including the UN peacekeepers and journalists, that the genocide was primarily directed at Tutsis. Those responsible have in many cases been tried and found guilty by international courts. Until that overwhelming consensus changes, any other view is a fringe theory and probably not meritous of consideration.  — Amakuru (talk) 16:39, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

These new allegations hinge on the veracity of 1991 census[1]. Prof. Stam claims there were 500,000 Tutsi before the genocide and 300,000 survived, which is a rather high number. Given between 500,000 and 1 million were killed, this seems to indicate that most of those killed where Hutu. But there's evidence that the 1991 census under reported the numbers of Tutsi by ~40%, many registered as Hutu to avoid discrimination and the government under counted Tutsi in schools and to keep public employment quotas low. This is not considered by Prof. Stam. Also, given the annual 3% growth rate, even if the 1991 Census was correct there would have been 650,900 Tutsi not half a million by July 1994. Taking under reporting into account, it's believed there were 910,900 Tutsi before the killings started of which ~150,000 survived.[2] --Diamonddavej (talk) 19:33, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

France as perpetrator

There is an issue currently with the list of "perpetrators" in the infobox on this article. 50.101.244.184 has inserted three times now, the inclusion of France in the list. This has already been discussed above, and I believe the consensus there is that it is WP:UNDUE to include an assertion that France participated in the genocide. Some sources in Rwanda have been known to assert that, for example [3], but the vast majority of reliable sources do not include France as a direct participant in the genocide. Many more sources do accuse France of assisting the regime or failing to act, but that's a different question, and would not merit inclusion in the "perpetrators".

As far as I am concerned this is a fairly straightforward case, the inclusion of France is unsourced and violates WP:NPOV, but I don't want to get into an edit war here, so I'm bringing the issue here for discussion. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 11:53, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 June 2015

Current text: "...even though he had the authority to do so." (under "Preparation for Genocide") Suggested replacement: "... even though he had the authority to approve it." This should help to clarify the meaning of the statement MagikM18 (talk) 22:02, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Done Stickee (talk) 23:48, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Citation?

Where is a citation for this? "In the interwar period, the Catholic Church favored Tutsi enrollment in their mission schools, which taught French and key skills required for civil service and leadership positions." If there is none, it should be removed. 172.10.237.153 (talk) 06:11, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

@172.10.237.153: I don't know where that sentence came from, it wasn't part of the original text as I wrote it, and is probably dubious. I've removed it from the article. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 16:26, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

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Semi-protected edit request on 3 January 2016

I suggest to add a "See also" section, and to include in this section the Bibliography of the Rwandan Genocide entry.Reneza (talk) 04:29, 3 January 2016 (UTC) Reneza (talk) 04:29, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Not done: Per WP:NOTSEEALSO, As a general rule, the "See also" section should not repeat links that appear in the article's body or its navigation boxes. Bibliography of the Rwandan Genocide is already linked to in the article as a hatnote underneath the "Media and popular culture" section. Do you have any other suggestions for potential "See also" links? Regards, Mz7 (talk) 06:06, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. The bibliography is not exclusively linked to Media and popular culture, I would suggest it would be primarily in the see also section, in order to attract more attention, because it is very useful to know where to go in order to know more about the subject. Reneza (talk) 18:11, 26 January 2016 (UTC)

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Add a link to the search engine to brwse ICTR Archives in External links

- International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda Archives hosted by the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals which has an online search engine called JRAD for Judicial Records and Archives Database — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hieromnemon (talk • contribs) 08:06, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 17 February 2016

Add in External links the following:
- International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda Archives
- Gacaca Courts Archives

Hieromnemon (talk) 08:10, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Done EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 19:04, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

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Requested move 26 March 2016

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved. Number 57 13:00, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

---

Rwandan Genocide → Rwandan genocide – There is no basis in sources for treating this as a proper name. The overwhelming majority of better sources (books) use lowercase, treating it a generic or descritpive phrase; per MOS:CAPS, so should we. Dicklyon (talk) 16:25, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

• Support – It is clear that the lowercase "g" is favoured in sources. Furthermore, it is clear that "Rwandan genocide" is not a proper name, but a descriptive phrase. Per WP:NCCAPS, the "g" should be lowercased. There is no reason to retain the capitalisation. RGloucester — ☎ 16:56, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
• Support per above. Seems pretty straightforward. —Torchiest ^talk_edits 16:21, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

---

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Title case

@Dicklyon: the recent move has put this out of alignment with almost every other article on conflicts - Finnish Civil War, Bosnian Genocide, Dominican Civil War (1911–12), Silesian Uprisings, etc. I'm just wondering why you feel this one should use sentence case for the title while everything else uses title case? There is a WP:CONSISTENCY issue here. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 10:47, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for asking. Just before this, someone has asked to capitalize a different genocide, "for consistency". That failed, when I and others looked and saw that if consistency is needed it would be more sensible the other way. See Category:Genocides. I think only named military campaigns get treated as proper names; not so much uprising, rebellions, massacres, riots, genocides, and other troubles. Dicklyon (talk) 15:09, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

@Dicklyon: Yes, you may be right. It might be worth looking at other articles to see which ones would benefit from a move to lower case. I guess this one caught me by surprise mainly because I've been staring at it for so many years while working on this article, that it just seemed wrong. But the ngram thing is quite compelling. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 12:04, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

I would have supported title case as well. Everyone wants to capitalize things that are important to them or to their interests, but it's rarely reflected in broader usage. If I organize a company picnic next week, the flyer will probably say "2016 Company Picnic", but people at another company will not refer to it as "[that other company's] Company Picnic of 2016". This principle applies pretty broadly. Actual wars tend to get proper name treatment, but even this isn't universal, especially when the combatant sides call it something completely different and those external to the conflict come up with additional descriptive terms for it that don't promote one side or the other.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  07:15, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Twa

Did hutu kill Twa in 1994 Genocide?--Kaiyr (talk) 11:06, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

@Kaiyr: many Twa were killed collaterally, although they weren't specifically targeted. I will see about inserting a new section detailing who exactly was killed, or incorporating that into Death Toll, because it's not clear at the moment. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 12:12, 19 April 2016 (UTC)

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Rv, why

I reverted changes by an IP editor as neither source given supported the addition, specifically the claim of disagreement amongst scholars of whether this were a genocide. Darkness Shines (talk) 11:41, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

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"revenge killings"

@Amakuru: The problem with what Kinzer is writing is that it is factually dubious. Kinzer makes the unwarranted assumption that the killings were the work of the fresh Tutsi recruits who were out of control, "quite unlike the tightly disciplined inkotanyi". This is what the Rwandan government was telling him. In reality, it was the "tightly disciplined inkotanyi" who were responsible for systematic massacres. According to Alison Des Forges, "Revenge killings by soldiers—or other crimes of passion—as well as the unintentional killing of civilians in combat situations could never account for the thousands of persons killed by the RPF between April and late July 1994." She notes that "Certainly some soldiers killed out of personal grief and rage, but the RPF has not provided any evidence to establish that revenge was the motive in a substantial number of cases." She was writing this in 1999, long before the revelations in Judi Rever's book, which strengthens Des Forge's case, to say the least. Repeating government propaganda as fact (i.e., the perpetrators were undisciplined recruits) is therefore, in fact, exonerating the perpetrators. The article already cites Kagame's false excuse ("Kagame acknowledged that killings had occurred but stated that they were carried out by rogue soldiers and had been impossible to control"). Uglemat (talk) 22:17, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

@Amakuru: I would also like to point out that the article's claim that "RPF soldiers killed many people they accused of participating in or supporting the genocide." is highly misleading, at best. According to the findings of the Gersony mission (a summary leaked in 2010), "It appeared that the vast majority of men, women and children killed in these actions were targeted through the pure chance of being caught by RPA. No vetting process or attempt to establish the complicity of the victims in the April 1994 massacres of Tutsis was reported" (summary, p. 8). How could the RPA claim that their victims were participants in the genocide, if they did not even bother to check? Uglemat (talk) 22:38, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

@Uglemat: thanks for your response, and you make some interesting points. I'm obviously keen to strike the right balance here, because the sources clearly have very different perspectives and the truth (whatever that is) will never be known. Neither of the things you removed are actually implausible though, even if they are just a small part of a much more systematic slaughter. The RPF certainly was recruiting rapidly, and of course many of those joining from within Rwanda would have lost relatives in the genocide. You acknowledge yourself that both the revenge killings by new recruits and the attempt to target those who participated in the genocide was real. So I think they should be mentioned, perhaps further down in the section detailing the RPF's view of the events.  — Amakuru (talk) 22:57, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

Yes, it could be mentioned a bit further down, and it should not imply so strongly that the rogue elements were the main perpetrators. The article currently starts by explaining why the victims were killed, even though the evidence does not support that contention: the perpetrators were in desperate grief and their victims were (probably) responsible for genocide. It is a case of blaming the victim, and it is something that Hutu victims of RPF violence have had to endure for decades now. It is only the psychological weight of the genocide which makes this kind of apologetics seem acceptable to people like Kinzer. Uglemat (talk) 23:46, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

@Amakuru: It should also be pointed out that the government spokespersons at the time that Gersony's findings was leaked to the press (autumn 1994) were lying about RPF abuses for the purpose of "national unity". Both Interior Minister Seth Sendashonga and Prime Minister Faustin Twagiramungu lied to Prunier, which they apologized for later (Africa's World War, p. 373n64). Kinzer 2008 p. 189 cites Sendashonga to back his case, but then he cites Sendashonga completely contradicting his earlier statements later in his book: "These were not slip-ups born out of anger, as I believed at the beginning. There was a master plan..." (p. 214) Suffice it to say that Twagiramungu concurs, tweeting that Judi Rever's book has become his "favorite bible". The very high-level RPF defector Theogene Rudasingwa admits that a genocide was committed, writing that "There is no doubt that DMI systematically killed Hutus with intent to exterminate them in part or in whole, and methodically concealed the evidence", although he took care to exonerate himself, as is the wont of RPF defectors. Shaharyar Khan, in a memo to the UN, writes that these were the findings of the Gersony mission:

Gersony put forward evidence of what he described as calculated, pre-planned, systematic atrocities and genocide against Hutus by the RPA whose methodology and scale, he concluded, (30,000 massacred) could only have been part of a plan implemented as a policy from the highest echelons of the government. In his view, these were not individual cases of revenge and summary trials but a pre-planned, systematic genocide against the Hutus. Gersony staked his 25-year reputation on his conclusions... (cable publicly available, cited in Rever 2018 p. 97. Rever notes that Gersony did not visit Byumba prefecture, Kagame's "most efficient kiling ground".)

In response to these well-documented facts, Khan convinced himself that the evidence was not compelling (the lies of the Rwandan government seems to have been instrumental) and "respectfully disagreed" (in his Orwellian prose: "We disagreed with his conclusions but accepted the integrity of his assessment based on the evidence that he had collected.") Khan felt that "the public airing of the Gersoni information [...] is [...] extremely regrettable and damaging to the UN cause in Rwanda". Khan goes on, "We are now engaged in a damage limitation exercise. Hopefully time and our bona fides will act as a healer." Khan cared more about "healing" UN's reputation than victims of systematic murder. It is exactly the same logic which caused UN researchers to leak a draft version of the DRC Mapping Exercise Report, to preempt high-level UN bureaucrats from diplomatically removing the reference to a possible genocide committed by the Rwandan government. The reality is that the evidence for systematic and centrally directed killing by the RPF is overwhelming, but it has been suppressed by the Rwandan government and the "bona fides" of people like Khan, and the U.S. government in particular. Uglemat (talk) 13:56, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

I think information on the double genocide should be placed under the section "Rwandan Patriotic Front military campaign and victory", because the killings happened during the genocide itself (if not before, as Rever claims but Rudasingwa denies), perhaps as a subsection, and it should contain much more information. Des Forges dedicated an entire chapter of her book to RPF abuses, but even that seems too little in retrospect as she didn't go much in detail, and she emphasized that it was not genocidal in nature, a politically correct but factually dubious proposition. Placing it under the "aftermath" section is misleading. It should refer to the Gersony findings and the suppression of those findings ("The Gersony Report does not exist", as the infamous phrase goes). It must also include information on the ICTR prosecution investigation (under Carla Del Ponte's tenure) into the RPF which was suppressed in 2003 by the U.S. government, IIRC. This investigation was leaked to Rever; I haven't had the time to read her book so I don't know the details, other than that their findings were shocking. Uglemat (talk) 17:02, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

What's the problem?

I don't see your point, @Amakuru:. My version also presented both points of view, as you will see if you bother to read it. Can you suggest some modifications to the version I wrote to make it more balanced?

We were discussing this above,and I agreed with your suggestion to move the material about to ensure the material is suitably balanced. Your rewrite goes way beyond that, and fails to present the RPF view at all, except as a "response" which is not given credibility. This is a complex issue and without independent witnesses from the time we will never know the truth. Both versions are plausible and covered in multiple sources so we have to maintain them both.  — Amakuru (talk) 16:35, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

Your claim that we don't have "independent witnesses" is completely false. Judi Rever has interviewed hundreds, and they independently confirmed the same events. For example, she confirmed the Byumba stadium massacre with numerous witnesses and even placed Paul Kagame himself on the scene after it happened, angrily ordering the survivors to be executed. The 2008 indictment of Fernando Andreu was also based on witnesses, but was never put to the test in a trial. To say that we will "never know the truth" is your decision to ignore evidence which does not fit your world view. I may remind you that many intelligent people deny the Holocaust and the genocide against the Tutsi, even though the evidence for those genocides is overwhelming. What you are doing is quite similar, in my opinion (I'm sorry if I'm being rude. I must say what I think about what I think is your genocide denial).

The reason I wrote that the RPF "responded" to the allegation is that that is what Kinzer wrote, and I already consider Kinzer very biased. Perhaps we can compromise by changing some words here and there. We may write, for example, that "The RPF, for its part, maintains that..." I am open to compromise, but I need your help. I think instead of reverting my changes you should modify them to make them more balanced. Uglemat (talk) 16:59, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

Look, the changes can't stand at the moment. They are completely lacking in neutrality, and are a major change to a section which has been stable for many years. I suggest we put the changes in a draft subpage of the talk, where we can work on them together and come up with a compromise, which may or may not be difficult given your personal attacks on me above. I don't want to politicise this, and I'm sure we can come to a compromise, but the present version of your rewrite is not neutral, I'm sorry.  — Amakuru (talk) 18:55, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

I have started a draft at Talk:Rwandan genocide/Draft RPF killings section. I'll have a deeper look and see what changes I would like to make over the coming days.  — Amakuru (talk) 19:01, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, I'm also sure we can compromise! I accept your view that this is a big change to the page, and I'll grant you some days to check the new version. Uglemat (talk) 19:15, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

Number of death people in genocide, something cant be correct

The article says, that up to 1 million people were killed in 1994. So why did the population jut drop for 60.000 from 1994 to 1995 The shrinking of population number already begun 1990.

1990: 7,2147 Mil Einwohner

1991: 6,9737 Mil Einwohner

1992: 6,5451 Mil Einwohner

1993: 6,0663 Mil einwohner

1994: 5,7285 Mil Einwohner

1995: 5,6638 Mil Einwohner

So the polulation dropped altogether 1,6 million or 21 percent from 1990 to 1995,but the year,where the genocide happened, it just dropped 60 thousand. Can there be a fitting reason for that, or is something wrong about the whole story?

Source of my numbers is the Worldbank:

[4] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.176.47.174 (talk • contribs) 10:56, 14 April 2015

Data is not complete, it uses estimates when actual data is not available. David C 15:02, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

@85.176.47.174: I'd have to check the exact numbers to figure out what's going on, but one possible reason why the actual population may not have actually dipped much in that period is that as the RPF took control of the country, a large number of Tutsi refugees, who had been living in Uganda for 30+ years, returned to Rwanda and settled in the areas won by the RPF. This influx may have been enough to offset the numbers killed. I'll have a bit more of a look at the figures later on. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 16:33, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

---

The segment "Death toll" says:

Out of a population of 7.3 million people–84% of whom were Hutu, 15% Tutsi and 1% Twa–the official figures published by the Rwandan government estimated the number of victims of the genocide to be 1,174,000 in 100 days

According to Worldbank ,7.3 million is indeed nearly the population of 1989, not the number from 1994 before the genocid officially started. So either the numbers of the Worldbank are wrong ,or the number of deaths during the masacre.So maybe everything just a propaganda lie? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.176.47.174 (talk • contribs) 19:32, 14 April 2015‎

Yes, I think using the official Rwandan government figures is probably not the best approach, as it is not at all clear how they arrived at their figures. Gerard Prunier did a very detailed analysis in his 1995 book on the subject, and came up with a wide range of possibilities from 500,000 to 1 million. That is the headline figured used in the lead here, and across Wikipedia. The 1,174,000 figure should probably not appear as it is not scientifically sourced. But either way, saying "everything is just a propaganda lie" is taking it too far - all analyses I have seen points to a figure of at least 500,000 as a bare minimum.  — Amakuru (talk) 10:37, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Surly massacre of Tutzi is not propaganda lie, but something is deeply wrong with all numbers we can find on internet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Rwanda Just one look on graph on this page..70% of population increase in just 7 years...sure. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.115.65.8 (talk) 09:10, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm sure those saying the official Rwandan government figures are propaganda, don't say it lightly. So let me clarify where those numbers come from.

Those numbers come from The National Commission for the Fight against Genocide (CNLG), CNLG also works in partnership with other organization such as IBUKA (means "remember" in Kinyarwanda). The main objective of such institutions and organizations is to make a census of genocide survivors, help the most vulnerable of them (women and children), make a census of genocide victims for memorial purposes, thus the official numbers. Regarding population numbers between 1994 and 1995, as already mentioned, a big number of refugees returned to Rwanda after the genocide, main from Uganda, but also other east African countries such as Tanzania, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo (former Zaire), Kenya, etc. Joel.mugabe (talk) 10:50, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Low quality sources should be phased out

It is a recurring problem that sources such as Prunier 1995/1999 interpret the actions of the RPF in a far too positive light. Prunier has himself admitted that he had misjudged the RPF. Generally, the sources written soon after the genocide by newcomers should be used with caution. They were not aware of the treacherous waters they were entering, and were especially receptive to RPF propaganda, above all the books of the "independent" human rights organization African Rights, which was in reality controlled by the RPF (see Reydams, Luc (2016). "NGO Justice: African Rights as Pseudo-Prosecutor of the Rwandan Genocide" (PDF). Human Rights Quarterly. 38 (3): 547–588.).

For example, Prunier has written that it was irrational on the part of the Hutus in the north of the country to fear the RPF. The recent book by Judi Rever shows that the opposite is true. They had every reason to be afraid of the RPF. Uglemat (talk) 17:36, 7 December 2018 (UTC)

 @Uglemat, We should let the readers decide for themselves which source is low or high quality. Also, can you clarify more on what you call "RPF propaganda"? What was it about? Joel.mugabe (talk) 11:20, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

revisonist accounts vs genocide denial

I feel it would be useful to clarify two aspects :

• historical debates about the genocide (which are primarily adressed by professional/academic historians)
• genocide denial

All massive killings and genocide give raise to denial on scope, number of people, identity of killers (see genocide denial). This is different from the on going historical debate on different aspects of a genocide. I suggest to have two separate sections one, the materials which are presently in the "revisionist accounts" section will have to be sorted out in each of the sections, according to their nature. Reneza (talk) 06:55, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

@Reneza: do you have any feel for the best way to handle this? I've been gradually sifting through and rewriting the general narrative sections in the past year or two, with a view to a tilt at GA and FA status, but I have to admit I'm a bit at a loss what to do about the revisionist stuff, genocide denial, etc. stuff. I think one issue here is that scholarly sources differ widely in how they discuss these issues. Several highly reliable sources mention the possibility that the RPF killed up to 100,000 Hutu for example, although not necessarily ever referring to that as a "double genocide". This section needs to be handled quite carefully to maintain a neutral point of view.  — Amakuru (talk) 17:28, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

I hope this is helpful. In the context of US intervention of Rwandan Genocide, the genocide was denied by not avoiding the term "genocide." There are sources and articles that admits this case of neglect: https://www.democracynow.org/2014/4/7/refusing_to_call_it_genocide_documents https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu//NSAEBB/NSAEBB53/index.html (the archive contains many national documents that insists the denial) https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu//NSAEBB/NSAEBB53/rw050194.pdf https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu//NSAEBB/NSAEBB53/rw052194.pdf — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jkang35 (talk • contribs) 03:52, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

  @Amakuru, so Rwandan government official number of genocide victims being 1,074,056 is "unreliable" and "propaganda", but sources saying the RPF killed up to 100,000 Hutu are "highly reliable"?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joel.mugabe (talk • contribs) 12:38, 24 April 2019 (UTC) 

Of course the Rwandan government official number is unreliable. This is what Lemarchand writes:

The global figure of 1,074,017 dead cited by the Rwanda government, though too precise to inspire confidence, conveys a realistic order of magnitude, but there are reasons to question whether 93.67 per cent of these can be identified as Tutsi (Republic of Rwanda, Minister of Local Administration, 2002).[5] (my emphasis)

It is also worth noting that I've seen Rwandan government sources saying that all the 1,074,017 victims were actually Tutsi. Uglemat (talk) 13:28, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

The expression "Rwandan genocide" is not right

Genocides are qualified by the target population. We say the Armenian Genocide, the genocide of European Jews or the Holocaust, the genocide of the Tutsi. All the titles in the English version of Wikipedia, concerning the genocide of the Tutsi, are incorrect. It is added to that that there are negation theories to say that the Tutsi would have committed in Rwanda a genocide against the Hutu, to justify the latter. The expression becomes a negationist catch-all.--Mutima (talk) 09:28, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

The expression "Rwandan genocide", which mirrors the expression "Burundian genocide of 1972", is used by virtually all English-language scholars. This includes Alison des Forges and Gérard Prunier, the most respected authors. Even Linda Melvern, who is very pro-RPF and now have adopted the new name "the genocide of the Tutsi", titled her 2006 book "Conspiracy to Murder: The Rwandan Genocide". How can "Rwandan genocide" be "incorrect" when they all used it? It is "incorrect" because the Rwandan government, which is a totalitarian state which has instrumentalised the memory of the genocide in order legitimize its hold on power, has declared it to be. Scott Straus, who rejects the G-word for the crimes of the RPF committed during 1994, is nevertheless critical of the expression "Genocide against the Tutsi", which is the official Rwandan government name. This is why:

[...] the genocide that the Hutu-led state committed against Tutsis in 1994 was not the only episode of large-scale, systematic violence against civilians that took place in 1994 and more generally around the struggle for power in the 1990s. There is much to learn about these other episodes of violence. Their documentation remains sparse, in part because of the absence of public trials or other forms of accountability, and the research on them remains thin. That said, we know enough to know that there was mass, horrific violence. That violence was a major experience for its victims and their families, and their experience should be acknowledged, validated, and memorialized at a minimum. Any accounting of Rwanda’s history of violence in the 1990s should include these experiences. If Rwanda’s history of violence in the 1990s is reduced only to the “genocide against the Tutsi”–as has now become the standard–then that construction omits large categories of experience and suffering.

I am therefore in favour of continuing to use the term "Rwandan genocide". Uglemat (talk) 13:56, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

References

It may be best to remove/move the section "Revisionist accounts"

I feel that the section "revisionist accounts" should be reworked into a subsection of "Killings by the Rwandan Patriotic Front" dealing with the double-genocide thesis, where arguments for and against the use of the g-word can be presented. This would group all the RPF related stuff in one place instead of two. I feel that the title "revisionist accounts" exaggerates the contradictions within the sources, as if there were only two points of view, namely: (1) RPF committed genocide; and (2) RPF is totally innocent. Most knowledgeable sources take a middle position and reject the g-word mostly because they they feel it would minimize the genocide against the Tutsi to use it, not because they doubt Gersony's findings, or even the legal applicability of the term. This middle view, held by Straus, Prunier and Vidal, among countless others, should be present. This section should also mention the two other major episodes of RPF human rights abuse of the 1990s apart from the Kibeho massacre (which is already mentioned), namely the massacres/genocide in the Congo and the counter-insurgency campaign in Gisenyi and Ruhengeri in 1997-1998. The "unorthodox" estimates of Davenport, Stam and Péan which deflate the number of Tutsi victims might be mentioned and duly rebutted by more respected sources. I have some idea about what to write and I will probably make this change in a few weeks. Uglemat (talk) 06:49, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

2012 report

198.84.253.202 took issue with what was written (by me) on the 2012 report, although I don't think the change was an improvement. I'd like to point out two things: First, Filip Reyntjens is very knowledgeable on the downing of the plane. Secondly, Reyntjens does not dispute the accuracy of the 2012 report. Please read what he says about the report carefully. He says that the report—by its own admission—did not exonerate the RPF. In other words, the report didn't really prove anything, but propagandists made the best out of it and pretended that it was proof. That is the reason I think it is appropriate to say simply that what the international press reported was false. I'd like to hear some other opinions on this issue. As it stands, the sentence misrepresents Reyntjens. Uglemat (talk) 22:13, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

For clarity, here is the relevant part of what Reyntjens wrote:

The signatories [...] claim that French judicial evidence shows that the RPF could not have committed the attack, as the missiles “came from the confines of the government-run barracks”.

First of all, this is untrue: the report found that the missiles were fired from the limits of a military domain that is over one hundred hectares large and from a spot far away from the barracks.

Second, the findings were based on the assumption that the plane followed a normal approach, something that is not certain – as the report itself acknowledges.

If what Reyntjens is saying is correct, then it means that advocates of the report can't even get basic facts straight! In my view, this raises serious questions about the reliability of those sources. Uglemat (talk) 22:39, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

I do not dispute the credentials or authority of anybody. However, this is obviously a matter where there has been some amount of controversy, and therefore we must take special care not to make judgements about the sources (which one is wrong, which one is the most knowledgeable,...), rather report what they say. By saying "however, that is false", we are saying in WP:Wikivoice that what other reliable sources (Reuters, The Guardian, et al.) have said is false, basing it on only one opposing statement. WP:BALANCE requires that differing viewpoints be described equally if they have about the same prominence in reliable sources, but not that we judge which one is correct. WP:Wikivoice states, explicitly, to "avoid stating opinions as facts" and that we should "prefer nonjudgmental language". By saying "that is false", we are stating an opinion (of only one scholar) as if it were a fact, and we are clearly judging it.

By saying "its accuracy was disputed" [and here we could potentially name the source, Reyntjens, but that is besides the point], we are accurately reflecting the situation and giving a statement of fact (the accuracy of the French probe was indeed disputed), rather than giving an opinion (the French probe is incorrect), and by avoiding rash declarations, we also avoid using judgmental language. Thus, a win-win situation. 198.84.253.202 (talk) 01:01, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

I must reiterate that Reyntjens does not necessarily dispute the report, and I changed the sentence accordingly. Perhaps this change is for the best, although it is painful to see that propaganda is effective! Uglemat (talk) 12:35, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

We still can't riddle the sentence with mistakes in the name of being accurate. Maybe "but some of its findings were disputed"? And, is it just me, or Reyntjens seems to actually be responding to a letter sent to the BBC (link provided on the page is broken, seems to be this) to protest the findings of this documentary. And Reyntjens actually seems to be defending the documentary, clearly stating that despite "[not agreeing] with everything shown and said in the documentary[,] [he is also] concerned about the use that is already being made and will be made of the film by those who deny the genocide. But that is not a legitimate reason to unfairly attack the BBC and the programme’s producers." 198.84.253.202 (talk) 14:08, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

For the third time: Reyntjens disputes that the report exonerated the RPF. It is false to write that he disputes the report's accuracy (at least from the source that is cited)! I'm trying to compromise with you, please be more cooperative! Uglemat (talk) 15:20, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Ok, sorry, my bad. The present wording is fine and avoids all the possible confusion. Issue resolved  Done. 198.84.253.202 (talk) 02:30, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

¡No hay problema! Admittedly, it was probably the right decision not to decide for the readers which side is correct. I don't want to leave you with the impression that I don't appreciate your input! Uglemat (talk) 06:07, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

For those who read these two documents in French, an exchange of letters between Hasan Ngeze, ultimately condemned by the ICTR, and Filip Reyntjens, documents from the ICTR database, show that Reyntjens had a partisan attitude in the research of the causes of the attack of April 6, 1994 "Ce serait en effet crucial de pouvoir prouver l'implication du FPR dans l'attentat contre l'avion du Président Habyarimana"(Google trad : it would indeed be crucial to be able to prove the RPF's involvement in the attack on President Habyarimana's plane . In France, only supporters Mitterrand, and of the French general staff at the time, continue to say that the judicial order of Judge Bruguière, who accused the RPF, was correct. Felip Reytnjens was closely linked to the Habyarimana regime whose constitution he wrote. In France, the facts that the attack of April 6, 1994 is a military putch by the hardliners of the Habyarimana regime, against the government of cohabitation with the Hutu opposition, to lead the genocide of the Tutsi is becoming more credible.
The documents :
1-Letter from Reyntjens to Ngeze
2-Response from Ngeze to Reyntjens--Mutima (talk) 09:04, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

I don't see anything particularly incriminating in those exchanges (I also speak french). The things you write about Reyntjens are not true. Uglemat (talk) 14:14, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

What is not true ? --Mutima (talk) 13:55, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Questionable deletions by 136.228.173.180

@136.228.173.180 I am concerned about a few recent and major deletions by 136.228.173.180: [6][7]

The alleged reason for deletion given by the editor is that "the source doesn't suggest this".

However, in these deleted edits, I was quoting subsantially (with only necessary editorial adjustments) from the book "Century of Genocide, Critical Essays and Eyewitness Accounts" edited by Samuel Totten, a very reputable genocide studies scholar.

The idea that the Hutus and Tutsis were not rigid ethnic categories (in the sense that it had no historical basis in biology, genetics or social stratification), and were only made into rigid distinctions by deliberate policy in the recent century prior to the genocide, is an idea discussed by the ICTR jurisprudence and well accepted by genocide studies scholarships. I can provide more academic sources on this issue if need be.

I kindly invite 136.228.173.180 to explain the deletion. HollerithPunchCard (talk) 14:27, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Scholarly estimates of death toll

Demographic data should provide a means to estimate the Tutsi death toll more accurately. The last population census prior to the genocide was conducted in 1991. This census reported 596,400 Tutsi living in Rwanda, representing 8.4% of the population. Based on an annual population growth of 3%, the number of Tutsi would have been 650,900 at the end of July 1994 (under the no-genocide scenario) The next step is to obtain an estimate of surviving Tutsi. At the end of July 1994, head counting in refugee camps resulted in an estimated 105,000 Tutsi survivors. According to Prunier (1998, p. 265) 25,000 survivors who did not go to camps should also be added. Human Rights Watch (HRW, 1999, p. 15) adds another 20,000 surviving Tutsi in Zaire (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) and Tanzania. This gives a total of 150,000 Tutsi survivors. By subtracting the number of survivors from the estimated Tutsi population under the no-genocide scenario, we obtain an estimate of 500,900 Tutsi killed in the genocide, a loss of 77.0% of the Tutsi population of Rwanda.

— Marijke Verpoorten, 2005[8]

Early scholarly estimates [came up with] 507,000 to 800,000 Tutsi genocide victims... My second critique concerns Prunier’s numbers. Despite being a newcomer to Rwanda, he was among the first to publish a book on the genocide. His estimate that 800,000 Tutsi died in the genocide is 30% and 60% higher, respectively, than the estimates of Reyntjens [600,000] and Des Forges [507,000]. On closer examination his appears to be the most speculative.
...
Hyping numbers was part of the RPF’s communications strategy from the beginning of the civil war. Émigré circles in the early 1990s claimed that during and after the ‘Hutu Revolution’ (1959–1962) ‘several hundred thousands of Tutsi were savagely slaughtered’ (Prunier 1996, 53), and that the Tutsi diaspora had reached two million (Guichaoua 1992, 18). I come back to these fantastic claims in section VII.
...
As Scott Straus notes, ‘There are serious problems with the [report]’ (2008, 53). [The one finding "934,218 ‘confirmed’ victims and 1,074,017 ‘declared’ victims"] The total death toll far exceeds the size of the Tutsi population inside Rwanda in 1994. The government counted 25,000 more victims than IBUKA did in Kibuye; in Gitarama, the prefecture with the highest survival rate (50%), it counted nearly three times more victims than estimated. The results for the city of Kigali are also remarkable. The government counted 130,000 genocide victims, whereas the pre-genocide Tutsi population was only 45,000. These implausible numbers do not render this report any more credible than that of Rousseau. The original census cards are kept at the CNLG, but its archives are off limits to researchers unless they partner with an official. See, for example, the publications of US academics Hollie Nyseth Brehm and Christopher Uggen co-authored with CNLG Executive Secretary Jean-Damascène Gasanabo. My own numerous requests for access to the archives received vague answers, or none at all.

— Reydams, Luc (2020). "'More than a million': the politics of accounting for the dead of the Rwandan genocide". Review of African Political Economy: 1–22. doi:10.1080/03056244.2020.1796320.

I would encourage anyone interested to read the full symposium in Journal of Genocide Research[9] (you can ask for a copy at WP:RX), but here are some of the summary conclusions:

In 2002, the RPF-led government endeavoured to turn conjecture into fact by way of science. Based on a nationwide census, the Ministry of Local Government and Social Affairs (MINALOC) reported that the official number of the Rwandan dead stood at 1,074,107, of whom, it claimed, 998,835 were Tutsi.8 It stands to reason that this figure, to borrow the words of Johan Pottier, was a component part of a broader “disinformation” campaign aimed at disseminating “imaginings the world wanted to see and the ‘morally pure’ post-genocide regime in Kigali wanted to promote.”9 One should not underestimate the priceless moral capital that a media-savvy authoritarian regime can accrue by reaching – and marketing – the morally meaningful threshold of one-million genocide victims. As the Sorbonne-based sociologist André Guichaoua reminds us in his concluding remarks for this forum, the RPF – in the preamble of the 2003 Rwandan Constitution – even constitutionalized a Tutsi death toll of “more than one million daughters and sons of Rwanda.”
...
The efforts of scholars versed in the quantitative methodology of the social sciences have, in the last two decades, majorly advanced, as the contributions to this forum demonstrate, the debate about the dead of Rwanda. The scholars we assembled have tried to measure more rigorously than participants in the numbers parade the scale of the categorical destruction in 1994. Despite methodological disagreements among our authors about the state of the art in the large-n study of the Rwandan genocide, it is striking that all of them – and independently from one another – arrived at casualty counts in the range of 500,000-600,000, that is, at estimates not only substantially lower than the body count on which RPF insists, but also lower than the estimated range reported on the so-called legacy website of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, where the UN International Residual Mechanism for the Criminal Tribunals confidently asserts – without attribution or methodological qualification – that “[b]etween eight-hundred thousand and one million men, women and children were massacred by Hutu extremists – a rate of killing four times greater than at the height of the Nazi Holocaust.” [Buidhe: This claim is also inaccurate, see: https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/1/eaau7292 ]
...
Despite the various methodological disagreements among them, none of the scholars who participated in this forum gives credence to the official figure of 1,074,107 victims. Our diverse group of authors may not agree on how many victims exactly there were in the Rwandan genocide, but – collectively – it casts aspersion on the RPF’s “calculative practices.”52 Given the rigour of the various quantitative methodologies involved, this forum’s overarching finding that the death toll of 1994 is nowhere near the one-million-mark is – scientifically speaking – incontrovertible.

— Meierhenrich, Jens (2020). "How Many Victims Were There in the Rwandan Genocide? A Statistical Debate". Journal of Genocide Research. 22 (1): 72–82. doi:10.1080/14623528.2019.1709611.

I would say if anything the article should say that 500,000–600,000 Tutsi victims is about the most accepted scholarly estimate today. (t · c) buidhe 06:08, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

Amakuru please see these sources—read the entire papers if you can get access to them. The language used is very harsh when discussing the plausibility of high estimates. (t · c) buidhe 09:46, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

@Buidhe: yes, I will try to have a look at them. But ultimately those are primary sources, and reflect only one side of the evidence. So of course we take them into account, but you've steamed in and replaced years of consensus just based on a couple of recent papers. In his 1995 book Prunier did a very detailed analysis of the likely death toll in the year after the genocide, with estimates of the Tutsi population (which the Hutu government had always downplayed, for political reasons) and the survivor population in refugee camps, and he concluded that the figure of 800,000 was plausible. Obviously HRW and others have used a lower figure of 500,000 over the years too, which is why we established consensus here many years ago to use a wide range, simply to reflect the uncertainty. Secondary and tertiary sources such as BBC News and Britannica also used the 800,000 figures in recent pieces. New scholarship can certainly give us new angles, but I fail to see how it can completely override proper research which was done at the time.

By the way, many thanks for your thorough pruning of some of the crap that has built up in the article over the years... I spent quite some time writing detailed and well-referenced prose for this article about 5 or 6 years ago, but got sidetracked at a certain point with the lower half of the article not yet rewritten, and had always meant to come back to it. Are you planning to have a serious crack at getting it to GA/FA? Cheers  — Amakuru (talk)

Actually, striking primary sources since that's not what they are. But the point about differing scholarly sources remains. By the way, I do agree that the RPF's official estimates shouldn't play much part in the analysis and using that bizarre 1,074,107 figure was not something I ever advocated for. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 10:04, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

Amakuru, you restored the 1 million number. And according to Meirhenrich's meta-analysis, "that the death toll of 1994 is nowhere near the one-million-mark is – scientifically speaking – incontrovertible".

I agree that a few scholarly sources have arrived at figures around 800,000. However, I don't think that they're generally accepted by scholars who have studied the death toll of the Rwandan genocide. Prunier's estimate was criticized by Reydams, who writes:

The number stuck because he was ahead of Reyntjens and Des Forges; his book was in English and widely available; and 800,000 seemed a reasonable compromise between the 500,000 and one million mentioned by the UN Commission of Experts... Prunier does not offer any proof of manipulation of the census results. RGPH2 (like RGPH1 of 1978) was conducted with considerable international technical assistance and oversight, leaving little room for systematic tampering. More importantly, a census answer did not determine one’s ethnicity. Census forms typically are destroyed once the field data have been coded and entered into a database. If there was ‘cheating’ with ethnicity, it was at the local level: Tutsi who managed to pass off as Hutu before communal officials received a ‘Hutu’ identity card from them. Those who carried such a card in 1994 reportedly escaped the slaughter (Uvin 2001, 166–167; Des Forges 1999, 238, 485, 538; Burnett 2009, 85). Hence, the question of how many were able to register as Hutu is irrelevant to estimating the death toll...
The combination of an incorrect baseline (930,000) and a speculative number of survivors (130,000) renders Prunier’s death toll estimate of 800,000 questionable. Written in less than year, The Rwanda crisis: history of a genocide certainly was a tour de force, but it was also bound to contain factual errors. Others have noted that the numbers in the book do not always add up (e.g. Mamdani 2002, 318–319).

But if we're including that (speculative) number, why not the lower one (also criticized) of 200,000,[10] or at least the lower estimates by McDoom (lower bound: 491,000) or Reydams (lower bound: 489,000)?

Popular news sources are simply not reliable sources for historic atrocities and genocide. It's not their area of expertise and I've often seen them get things wrong. I would consider any figure above 800,000 a WP:FRINGE estimate. And it is certainly correct to say that "the most accepted scholarly estimates are between 500,000 and 600,000 Tutsi victims", the reader should be given this information.

I am working on a lot of stuff and getting this to GA/FA status would take a lot of work, IMO. It needs a systematic overhaul based on newer, scholarly sources. (t · c) buidhe 10:37, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

@Buidhe: You should know as well as I do, that just because a scholarly source was released more recently does not make it more accurate. You say that the number of Tutsi in Rwanda pre-1994 was overstated, but based on what? Why has the previous assertion that it was understated now been revised? Ultimately, nobody knows, but various sources have put together the scant evidence we have, and arrive at different answers. By the way, you've misquoted the Verpoorten article above - the paragraph you've pasted here is where she is describing the rationale for the 500,000 figure that was prevalent at that time. The conclusion of the 2005 paper, however, is that "Gikongoro is only one of the eleven prefectures in Rwanda, accounting for less than 7% of the total population and about 10% of the Tutsi population. Extrapolating evidence from Gikongoro to the whole of Rwanda cannot therefore provide one sound estimate for the overall death toll of the genocide. However, the case of Gikongoro brings the estimated death toll closer to its true value and narrows the interval around the estimate. Based on the presented evidence and a sensitivity analysis (Appendix III), we estimate that the number of Tutsi killed during the genocide lies between 600,000 and 800,000, and that only 25 to 30% of the Tutsi population survived the genocide of 1994." Now based on that you may be correct on the 1 million figure being universally accepted as too high, so there *might* be a case for revising the maximum down to 800,000. I feel like we'd need to do a far more thorough analysis of the available literature to make that call though. The wide range was not arrived at by accident, it is based on real sources. And also at the same time we'd want to understand why Britannica, which is itself compiled by expert authors who analyse the sources, still says "more than 800,000 civilians" if that's the case. The bottom line is though, cherry picking a recent source as the basis for a very heavy narrowing of the accepted range, especially 26 years on when real data is so scant, does not meet our requirements for WP:DUE weight.  — Amakuru (talk) 11:06, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

Addendum: I see that Verpoorten has written a paper this year, for the same symposium which you mention above, detailed here: [11]. I can't access that paper myself, so I don't know what its conclusions are. If she has revised her figures down to below 600,000 in the new piece, then obviously that genuinely would supercede the older one since it's by the same author. To be clear, I am not objecting just for the hell of it, and if the evidence is right then I will certainly be on board with making changes. It's just that I am genuinely amazed and somewhat sceptical that a subject which has been the subject of such speculation and doubt for so many years, can suddenly be whittled down to a range whose upper bound is 200,000 below the most commonly mentioned value for the toll. And let's face it, it's safer to give a wider range than a narrower one until we're sure otherwise... logically if your 500,000-600,000 figure is correct, then the 500,000-1,000,000 is also correct by implication. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 11:34, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

• Brittanica is not always a reliable source either. Its entries are not (necessarily) peer reviewed, up to date, or written by subject matter experts. I agree that just being recent does not *necessarily* make a source more authoritative, but on the other hand research does advance and claims that have been disproven should not continue to be accepted if scholars do not continue to accept them. In her 2020 paper, Verpoorten changed the upper bound of her estimate to 660,000. The estimate of 500,000 to 1,000,000 is misleading because it implies that legitimate, reliable sources accept the upper bound of that estimate, which is not the case. Similarly, our article on Jasenovac concentration camp does not include the estimate of 600,000 people killed in the infobox even though it was published as recently as 1990 in Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, because recent, scholarly sources say that it's total nonsense. If we are doing a broad estimate and including 800,000, the lower bound would have to be lower than 500,000. (t · c) buidhe 11:53, 6 November 2020 (UTC)
  • It's the equivalent of: "Although some sources say that the coronavirus was of natural origin, others say that it was designed in a Chinese lab." (t · c) buidhe 11:57, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

Twa and "moderate Hutu" victims

I cannot find any credible scholarly estimates for the number of such victims, so left them out of the infobox for now. (t · c) buidhe 07:29, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

What makes you believe that Reyntjens' estimate of Hutu dead that you removed is not credible? René Lemarchand cited it in his "Rwanda: the state of Research" article, calling it a "careful estimate".[12] Lemachand obviously doesn't believe Rwanda's official figures but believes that the figure of 1 million dead "conveys a realistic order of magnitude". There is a lot of uncertainty regarding Hutu victims, both their number and their cause of death (a majority of the Hutu victims may well have been massacred by the RPF, in which case the label "moderate Hutu" is especially misleading), and I feel that the article should reflect this uncertainty, which it earlier did with the estimates of Reyntjens and HRW. Btw, HRW's estimate of 507 thousand refers exclusively to Tutsi (this is not evident from the "Death toll and timeline" section as it stands). Thanks for working on this article btw, I haven't looked through all your changes but you're probably making things better. Uglemat (talk) 12:43, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

Well, I wasn't looking for French language sources! Also, it is not clear to me whether people killed by the RPF are generally included in the "Rwandan genocide" victims. Dividing those killed by Hutu Power vs. those killed by RPF is, I suspect, very difficult, and looking at a recent table which does give some estimates of Hutu deaths it seems that only Prunier (1995) has tried to separate them, he states that 10–30,000 Hutu were killed by the Hutu Power movement. However, without another source to corroborate it's not clear if this is accepted today. (t · c) buidhe 13:16, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

On that topic, killings of Hutu by the RPF is one area where Prunier admits he got it wrong in the first edition of his book, and was partially deceived by their apparent "saviour" status, failing to notice those atrocities. By the 1999 edition of "History of a Genocide", he said that most likely those numbers could be anywhere up to 100,000. By 2008, in his book about the Congo war, Prunier had gone full-180, and was now accusing the RPF of all-out systemic brutality, at least in the Congo. I haven't seen any update on what he thinks happened during the genocide though. Re whether the deaths labelled "moderate Hutu killed in the genocide" were also actually RPF killings rather than Hutu Power, I havne't heard that before but it's certainly plausible. Clearly *some* Hutu were killed by the genocidaires, such as the prime minister, various other government and prominent figures, and perhaps even Habyarimana himself, but they could have been fewer in number than we thought.  — Amakuru (talk) 14:01, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

References

Semi-protected edit request on 7 April 2021

Change title of article “Rwandan Genocide” to “Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda” as the term “Rwandan Genocide” is not technically accurate. 185.69.145.194 (talk) 21:33, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

 Not done. The proposed title change would be a controversial one, and is most likely not the WP:COMMONNAME for this subject. Although the Rwandan government and various others have decided to use the proposed name, Wikipedia goes with what most reliable sources say rather than any "official" name.  — Amakuru (talk) 22:22, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Genocide against the Tutsi

It is really embarrassing not admitting the statement "Genocide against the Tutsi". Using the Statement "Rwandan Genocide" defies and ignores the fact that it was perpetrated against the Tutsi by Hutu extremists. The UN has long ago declared that it was a genocide against the Tutsi. This gives courage to the deniers; I don't see why an international encyclopedia gives a hand to these criminals. Please make sure you say truth as it is; don't beat around the bush. This is an online library; it is accessed by everyone. If you take the first step to speak truth it sheds light to the world and the future generations. Please do not be in the armpit of the super powers and those with blood in their hands. Be the first to shade light to the world. I advise you to be independent of any political power and speak truth to power. Nhubz (talk) 17:49, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

The proper term based on scholars is Genocide against Tutsi and some moderate Hutu. For example:Agatha Uwiringiyimana who served as Prime Minister of Rwanda and acting president from 18 July 1993 until her assassination on April 1994, she was Hutu.

Bukamba78 (talk) 07:37, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Change of the name of the Genocide and Estimated number of the people who were killed are completely wrong.

It’s the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi and therefore including other groups of people that were killed deprives the whole crime from being called Genocide which is always targeted at wiping out one particular of people. The estimated number shouldn’t be 800,000 but rather over 1,000,000 people who were killed within a period of 100 days. Glitzen (talk) 21:36, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

The 1994 Genocide against Tutsi took more that 1 million Tutsi lives.

Although many outdated research papers state that the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi took the lives of 800,000 Tutsi lives, these papers are simply outdated and shouldn’t be taken into consideration. Even after 27 years the government of Rwanda is still discovering new mass graves. In the year 2020 a new mass grave with 5000 bodies was discovered in Gatsibo and adds to more graves that were discovered in 2018- 2019 with more than 118,000 bodies. In addition , some graves like the Kiziguro mass graves are still inaccessible and holds more than 14,000 bodies (Tasamba,2020). The numbers are constantly updated. The numbers should actually be larger since a sizeable number of bodies were thrown in rivers, and taken to neighboring countries. Even after 27 years, genocide perpetrators and western countries still deny the genocide and some of their tools are reducing the number of victims that perished, simplifying it to a civil war, or simply calling it names like it was done in this article. A story is best told by its owner that is why I would like to attach relevant, reliable sources in the references Gyslain Rutabagirwa (talk) 22:08, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 9 April 2021 (2)

1) It's not the "Rwandan Genocide" but instead it is "The 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi" in Rwanda.

2) It took over 1 Million Tutsi lives not 200,000-600,000 as estimated by the article.

3) It lasted 100 days starting from April 7th and was stoped by the RPF-Inkotanyi.

2C0F:EB68:207:F700:9CDD:9E3A:9E6F:E221 (talk) 09:49, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: see above. Also would recommend using the semi-protected edit request template and reading this page for any further reqeusts. Sennecaster (What now?) 23:23, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 9 April 2021

It's the Genocide against the tutsi not the Rwandan genocide, moderate hutu also were killed but the targeted ones were tutsi and over one million of tutsi were killed. 41.186.78.97 (talk) 06:57, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

1994 Genocide against the Tutsis Considered the worst crime against humanity, genocide is the planned mass killing of a racial, ethnic, or religious group. Under colonial rule, tensions had long simmered between ethnic Hutus, predominantly farmers, and Tutsis, who raise cattle. Hutus were in the majority, though Tutsis generally commanded greater wealth and social position.

A Hutu uprising in 1959 resulted in a civil war that ended Tutsi domination. In 1962, when Rwanda gained independence from Belgium, many Tutsis fled the country. Hutu leaders gained control of Rwanda. Starting in the late 1980s, Rwanda exile groups made political and military moves to repatriate. Peacemaking attempts in 1993 by the United Nations and regional African governments were unsuccessful.

On 6 April 1994, the deaths of the Presidents of Rwanda and Burundi in a plane crash caused by a rocket attack. The killings - more than one million people are estimated to have perished - shocked the international community and were clearly acts of genocide. An estimated 150,000 to 250,000 women were also raped. Members of the presidential guard started killing Tutsi civilians in a section of Kigali near the airport. Less than half an hour after the plane crash, roadblocks manned by Hutu militiamen and Interahamwe (Trained Hutus) often assisted by gendarmerie (paramilitary police) or military personnel were set up to identify Tutsis.

On 7 April, Radio Television Libres Des Mille Collines (RTLM) aired a broadcast attributing the plane crash to the RPF and a contingent of UN soldiers, as well as incitements to eliminate the "Tutsi cockroach". Later that day the Prime Minister, Agathe Uwilingiyimana, and 10 Belgian peacekeepers assigned to protect her were brutally murdered by Rwandan government soldiers in an attack on her home. Other moderate Hutu leaders were similarly assassinated. After the massacre of its troops, Belgium withdrew the rest of its force.

A 100-day spree of 1994 Genocide against Tutsis immediately ensued, perpetrated mainly by Hutus (Trained Interahamwe) together with Rwandan militaria against Tutsis, and the moderate Hutus were killed too. More than one million Tutsis were killed, the country was devastated; survivors were physically and psychologically damaged. Families were decimated, their homes and communities destroyed, of the survivors, more than 75,000 were children who lost one or both parents.

Conclusion: It is called 1994 GENOCIDE AGAINST TUTSIS and more than one million Tutsis were killed.

https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asin=B00IEKS6GI&preview=newtab&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_RA143EQFMP138MB9BNAV

Ndi Umunyarwanda (talk) 09:07, 9 April 2021 (UTC) SHEMA

 Not done: breaks consensus of the article. Also violates WP:NPOV. This article needs to have a neutral point of view. The death count is overestimated compared to reputable scholars, and that book isn't WP:RS as it is a primary source. Sennecaster (What now?) 23:29, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 18 April 2021

The title written is “The Rwandan Genocide” but this is not the correct name. It is officially called the Genocide Against the Tutsi. Please change the title and all references from “The Rwandan Genocide” to “The Genocide Against The Tutsi”.

It’s extremely offensive to Rwandans to be calling it the Rwandan Genocide as this implies it was equally done to Hutus and Tutsis when really, Tutsis were the target by the Hutu extremists and over a million Tutsis were murdered. 87.75.160.4 (talk) 09:12, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: see above, this has been discussed many times. You would need to established a new consensus for the move. ‑‑Volteer1 (talk) 09:55, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

Note on indefinite semi-protection

My reasoning for this action may be read here. El_C 09:13, 10 June 2021 (UTC)

Lower bound for Death Toll is Incorrect & Misleading

Firstly - with reference to the total death count, it is worth mentioning that there is no definitive, agreed upon figure that has been endorsed by scholars. Indeed perhaps the only consensus among scholars is that the true death toll is impossible to obtain. Davenport, Stam and Armstrong, who I will mention below, put it best, arguing that methodologically speaking ‘the most defensible position is that no clear casualty figure emerges’.

Having said this, including the 206,000 figure in the infobox is hugely misleading. Whoever has inserted this has clearly failed to read the paper which they cite. The research paper that is referenced is utilised in an incorrect fashion by whoever included it. In the aforementioned Guichaoua article, that figure is included a table referring to a 2012 article by Armstrong, Davenport, Stam and Loyle, which references 206,000 as the number of Tutsi victims. In the same presentation, they estimate that as many as 408,000 Hutu were killed, which would put their total number at over 614,000). Furthermore, in a later article (in 2020), Davenport and Stam revised their estimate of Tutsi victims to ‘a total figure of 580,000 with an 80 per cent credible interval ranging from just over 500,000 to roughly 687,000’. There is therefore no reason why their extremely low 2012 estimate of 206,000, which is both drastically lower than any other peer-reviewed estimate, and is no longer maintained by the very authors who originally suggested it, should be included.

Furthermore, the central issue with this figure, which is also problematic for most other estimates (nearly all those included in the Guichaoua article cited), is that they refer only to the number of Tutsi dead. By including these Tutsi-only figures in the overall death tolls, this implies that there were no other victims of the Genocide, which is patently incorrect.

The lowest creditable estimate that has not been retracted is Omar McDoom’s figure of 491,000. This, like others, only accounts for Tutsi victims - McDoom says ‘I take care to delimit this estimate both temporally and spatially and to specify it refers only to Tutsi’.

I’m interested to hear what other people would suggest as the lower bound for an academic estimate of total genocide victims - I would need to delve more into the research to provide an answer. At the moment I would be inclined to put the range somewhere between 600,000 - 1 million for estimated total victims, as I believe that captures the range of estimates (for total victims of all ethnicities) quite well.

I see no reason, however, for the 206,000 estimate to remain on the infobox - and am inclined to revise it (perhaps initially to 500,000) unless someone can provide me with one?

Thanks Africanedits (talk) 11:22, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree with you that the current low estimate is somewhat misleading based off its source. Were Armstrong, Davenport, Stam and Loyle arguing for the recognition of a double genocide (I doubt the remnants of the Habyarimana regime killed that many moderates)? McDoom's seems good, though we should look for a tertiary source that evaluates low and high estimates. -Indy beetle (talk) 00:22, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

UPDATE: Thanks for the feedback. I've edited the page to reflect both the range of current estimates, as well as drawing attention to the disparities between Tutis-only estimates and total estimates. I have used McDoom's estimate (491,000) as a lower bound on the Tutsi deaths, and Gerard Prunier's estimate (800,000) as an upper bound. Since there is not much of scholarship which evaluates the total death toll, particularly as it is difficult to estimate Hutu deaths given other violence taking place in Rwanda (& Burundi, DRC) before/after the Genocide, I have used 'up to 1,074,017' which is the official death toll. While many have disputed this estimate in terms of it's Tutsi/Hutu ratio of victims, there is little scholarship that suggests that this is a misleading number in terms of total deaths. I'm happy to listen to any input feedback as I recognise my methodology (for total deaths particularly) might be imperfect - I felt that the 206,000 figure was misleading and offensively low, so should be changed asap. Thanks! Africanedits (talk) 10:40, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

I agree with using Mcdoom and Prunier as lower and upper bound. I'm ok with using the Rwandan government figure for the combined Tutsi/Hutu death toll, but it would be preferable to use an independent source. I would suggest citing the Rwandan government estimate in conjunction with the Reyntjens 1997 estimate (in french, available at https://medialibrary.uantwerpen.be/oldcontent/container2143/files/Publications/Annuaire/1996-1997/10-Reyntjens.pdf), and put the total figure at 1,1 million (which is what Reyntjens estimated). Using the overly accurate estimate of the Rwandan government alone might be seen as an endorsement of it. Uglemat (talk) 19:15, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Think that's the best move - thanks for the suggestion, will update that now. Africanedits (talk) 09:03, 1 June 2021 (UTC)

I will add the information from Dr. Phodidas Ndamyumugabe, the author of Preaching from the Grave, who explains that whole families were killed. In his extended family, dozens and dozens were slaughtered and only he and one sister survived. He goes on to explain that when the complete family is killed, there is no one left to report the missing. Therefore, the counts are far off by tens of thousands. He says that there are far more that the 1.2 million reported. Many are still being found in unmarked burial pits, but many more were lost forever because the bodies were thrown into rivers. We may never know the full extent of the loss, but it is surely more than currently counted.--KitchM (talk) 22:08, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

References

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Semi-protected edit request on 10 March 2022

Change the word 'slaughtered' to 'killed,' or something similar. Slaughter is a word reserved for the killing and harvesting of animals. It should not be applied to people. 199.170.132.3 (talk) 13:32, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

 Done. Seems sensible.  — Amakuru (talk) 13:50, 10 March 2022 (UTC)