Talk:Rwandan Civil War

Not a civil war

ALthough there was a civil war in 1990, the situation in 1994 should not be considered as a civil war, but morely as a genocide that occured. Simultaneously, however, Tutsi rebels were trying to liberate the Rwandan Country, so they in a sense were in a civil war, but the general population of Rwanda witnessed a genocide that was much more national than the civil war. Lets just say that what really happened from 1990-1994 was a planned genocide (with the help of the French) that occured in 1994, with a low-level civil war between the RPF and the Hutu extremist government occuring at the same time.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.89.133.253 (talk • contribs) 25 November 2006

I have removed the box with long paragraphs that roughly repeated the actual text of the article. - BanyanTree 02:00, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

However, the article does not mention how France armed the Hutu genocidal government, so you should put the box back in!—Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.108.171.130 (talk • contribs)

Why not add that to the actual article, as opposed to writing paragraphs in a box? You may have noticed that I've started rewriting the 1990 conflict section with citations. I'm sure that I'll get to the French participation eventually. If you want to work together, please write citing sources in Wikipedia:Footnotes, so I know what is sourced and what I have to replace. Thanks, BanyanTree 16:06, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Infobox

What is wrong to have a infobox? It was a civil war between 1990-94. Killerman2 16:54, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the precise definition of the war changes depending on the sources. I've seen the Civil War defined as being only the main fighting in 1990, 1990 to 1994 excluding the genocide, 1990 to 1994 including the genocide, or through the refugee return in 1996, or even to now. Besides the factual issues outlined at Talk:Rwandan genocide#infobox, the box is just confusing as it cannot cover the about four very different situations covered in the article. I would say that the military conflict infobox does not fit this article and should be left off.- BanyanTree 17:50, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I am curious why it says N/A in the info box under "casualties and losses". Generally N/A is an abbreviation for "Not Applicable", but it is incredibly "applicable" to look at casualties of civil war, no? Perhaps N/A here is meant to stand for "Not Available"? In which case, if this is true (and I am certainly having a difficult time finding death tolls for the war, as opposed to the genocide--which would not include those who died in RPF attacks), it is very important to clarify "not available".Forciera (talk) 13:03, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Be bold! - BanyanTree 23:59, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Propaganda present.

There is a lot of propaganda present in this topic and on this page.

It is claimed that by having 37 advisors in the Rwandan military that France played a substantial role in the genocide. This strains belief. Furthermore, frequent genocides of both Hutu and Tutsi took place between 1959 and 2002, in Burundi, Rwanda, and the Congo, of which the Rwandan genocide is only one. This further makes the ongoing large scale clashes between Hutu and Tutsi very unlikely to have been caused by the French.

Furthermore, it has been presented that the Hutu government of Habyarimana "immediately" began genocide after the invasion of the Tutsi RPF forces. This is clearly misrepresented. There were several cease-fires before the 1993 Arusha Accords, and it was 4 years between the invasion by Kagame's RPF and the genocide. Four years is hardly "immediate." The genocide therefore must be viewed in context of the large scale civil war that was not only occurring in Rwanda but also burundi. Mbabane 22:17, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I have removed the NPOV tag as the content in question has been replaced with that from Rwandan Patriotic Front. The writer/s of the contested material appeared to be confused and added content specific to the genocide here. - BanyanTree 22:31, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

In the Guerilla war part some mysterious sentence hints at a RPF massacre of Hutu in 1993: "By that time, over 1.5 million civilians, mostly Hutu, had left their homes, fleeing the mass murders conducted by the RPF troops towards the Hutu population." However no other part of the article confirms any mass murders of Hutu by the RPF and there is no reference either. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.120.203.238 (talk) 13:35, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

The UN mapping report on Rwanda gives a pretty strong impression that the 1.5 million civilians that left there homes left them to the local mass grave. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.170.192.176 (talk) 02:24, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

I have removed this sentence. We certainly can't have allegations of that nature without any referencing. I am doing a slow refactoring of this article so no doubt that whole section will be revisited at some point. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 14:35, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

UN forces in the infobox

I've removed the claim that the UN somehow "supported" the FPR. If the UN force is to be kept in the infobox, it should at least be as a third-party.

I find it problematic overall to include the UN as a combatant. This conflict was characterized by the absence of UN interference, and while armed, the UN force was certainly not a fighting party (unless attacked). Including a peacekeeping force as a combatant is misleading, and I suggest removing it and leaving the infobox for the combatants only. (That still leaves space for France, Zaire and Belgium, whom all sent troops to fight the FPR). --Mikrobølgeovn (talk) 02:28, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Also, by one definition (the Arusha Peace Accords) the war was already over by the time UNAMIR arrived on the scene. But certainly they did not support one or the other side, and General Dallaire spent most of his time trying to get the two sides to stop fighting and talk, even after the start of the genocide.  — Amakuru (talk) 09:51, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

Combatants in the infobox

As of right now, there are more non-combatants than combatants in the infobox. Can we just agree to narrow it down to the actual belligerents? --Mikrobølgeovn (talk) 18:03, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes, that makes sense. I have removed the recently added non-combatants.  — Amakuru (talk) 22:01, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

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Conflicting (?) sources

@Amakuru: Prunier and Kinzer both seem to suggest that the impetus for the attack on Ruhengeri rested with Kagame. Muhanguzi suggests that it was conceived by Alexis Kanyarengwe. He writes, "Although it was never stated officially, Kanyarengwe is believed to have masterminded the Ruhengeri attack since it happened immediately after he crossed from Tanzania to join the RPF/A". He also cites an unnamed "senior RPA commander" who told him that Kanyarengwe "impressed it upon us and pointed out how important it was to raid the prison and free these detainees who would become military and political assets to the RPA. HE assured us that they would not hesitate to join our ranks if they got to know he was with us."

On the whole Muhanguzi offers more info on the war's impact on Uganda, which should also be included in this article. -Indy beetle (talk) 00:32, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

Civilian casualties in the infobox

@Indy beetle: 1) The Rwandan Genocide happened both during and in the context of the civil war, it was not a separate event (it started after the death of the president (for which rebels were blamed) and it had been planned well in advance), 2) it was mentioned that the 500-800,000 civilians died during the genocide alone, 3) leaving it out goes against conventions and withholds the most important piece of information about this war, 4) "spamming the infobox"? Come on. (I'm going to fulfill Godwin's law: Were the people who died in the Holocaust not casualties of World War II?) Mikrobølgeovn (talk) 02:03, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure what "basic conventions" require that we include the genocide stats in the infobox. I really don't think it helps the reader understand the war, which certainly had civilian casualties of its own, though sadly we've been unable to find any estimates of that. I think one thing that makes the Holocaust different is that so many of those people were taken from occupied territories to be murdered (territories occupied during WWII), the Rwandan Genocide was purely an instance of a government murdering its own citizens. -Indy beetle (talk) 03:29, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Excluding the death toll makes this look, at first glance, like a minor guerilla war. The genocide was part of the war, so its victims were also casualties of the civil war. A note stating that the casualty figure is from the genocide alone does away with any confusion. Mikrobølgeovn (talk) 04:01, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Kinzer's book

@Indy beetle:, here is the conclusion of a critical review which echoes what I wrote in my edit summary. Susan Thomson is a specialist on Rwanda who speaks Kinyarwanda.

A Thousand Hills falls far short of its stated goal of explaining Paul Kagame's road to power; it simply reports the assertions of those in power. It is a pity that many people seeking to understand Rwanda will read this book without realizing that it is little more than government propaganda.

Kinzer's views are pretty worthless in my view, and I don't see the point of citing him. It is far better to cite RPF officials directly, this will be less misleading to the users who may not be aware of Kinzer's naivety. As it stands, the article quotes what Kinzer writes on the nature of the killings of hutus as fact, even though "source of ultimate responsibility of these killings is disputed", as the article itself goes on to write. I therefore find it best to remove it. Uglemat (talk) 20:24, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

I think Kinzer's books can be relied on for some things, in particular uncontroversial facts about Kagame's life and things which are attested elsewhere. The motivation behind the RPF killings is probably not in that category though, so I don't mind that this was removed. There's probably a case for a more thorough analysis of that whole saga presenting all the competing theories, and using recent sources such as Gerald Caplan's 2018 paper "Rethinking the Rwandan Narrative for the 25th Anniversary". According to Caplan, the Conventional wisdom of Rwandan scholars re events during and after the war has been shifting recently.  — Amakuru (talk) 22:20, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

I have found differences with Kinzer's narrative and other narratives before, such as Muhanguzi's. Thank you for the elaboration Uglemat. I'm satisfied that we have reason to question some of this information. What would be best of course is if we could encompass all the main views, since I think it will be a while before a consensus is totally accepted. -Indy beetle (talk) 03:13, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

References

Women’s role section

While this paragraph was well sourced and added in good faith, it seems UNDUE for this article. Most of it has to do with the aftermath of the genocide from a very specific angle, it seems more fitting on the genocide article or an article on gender based violence. -Indy beetle (talk) 22:09, 6 November 2021 (UTC)

Indy beetle The removed paragraph contained a discussion mentioning:

• the fact that most casualties of the war were men, leading to a very skewed gender ration in Rwandan society and government in the aftermath,
• the specific role of women during the war, which belongs in an article concerning the Rwandan Civil War
• the fact that the violence against women during the war led to the government creating new laws (ruling everyone in Rwanda, men and women)

--Flor WMCH (talk) 18:24, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

It's really talking about the specific impacts of the genocide, a subset of the war, not the overall four year long civil war. The information did not address the specific role of women during the war (there doesn't seem to have been one, outside of Agathe trying to lead a coalition government and some war rape, which is mentioned). I've added back some points about women constituting a larger share of the post conflict population and how many took on more roles of social/leadership responsibility. We already have an article on the genocide, so it's more appropriate to include information about specific genocide effects there. Women during the Rwandan genocide would probably be a fine article to start. -Indy beetle (talk) 22:52, 21 November 2021 (UTC)

Not Rwandan Genocide. It is Genocide Against the Tutsi

During Genocide Against Tutsi in 1994 more than 1000000 Tutsis were killed by County Forces Interahamwe and the arm of that time FAR. 197.157.184.222 (talk) 07:09, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

The vast majority of the sources do not use that name. -Indy beetle (talk) 08:46, 13 April 2024 (UTC)