Hegemony and Counterhegemony

Abstract

This chapter investigates the roots of the political conflict that led to the massive genocidal killings in Rwanda in 1994. It assesses how deeply felt grievances met by the political opportunity at the end of the Cold War coupled with new resources led to the mobilization of both extremist Hutu in the government and Rwandan Tutsi refugee groups hoping to return home from Uganda. But while both sides mobilized in the late 1980s and early 1990s, it is the group of extremist Hutu who planned and executed the genocide. This chapter outlines how the Hutu Ethnic Political Mobilization (Hutu EPM)—faced with the tremendous denial of power and loss of resources as delineated by the Arusha Accords for transition to peace and democracy—unleashed the fastest ever genocide on April 6, 1994. On April 6, 1994, the death of the Presidents of Rwanda and Burundi, Juvénal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira, respectively, in a plane crash became the catalyst and one of the x factors that precipitated the genocide.