Negotiating Genocide in Rwanda: The Politics of History

325 Pages·2017·3.55 MB·English

by  Erin Jessee (auth.)

ERIN JESSEE
Palgrave Studies in Oral History
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Virginia Tech
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California State University
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Erin Jessee
Negotiating Genocide
in Rwanda
The Politics of History
Erin Jessee
The University of Strathclyde
Glasgow, UK
Palgrave Studies in Oral History
ISBN 978-3-319-45194-7 ISBN 978-3-319-45195-4 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-45195-4
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016962735
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To Charles Raymond Jessee (1939–2016)
P a
reface and cknowledgments
This book owes a great deal to many people. First, I greatly appreciate
the contributions of the Rwandans who generously gave so much of their
time and energy in contributing their life histories to this project, as well
as the four Rwandan research assistants who worked tirelessly to translate
and contextualize the resulting narratives. I am also grateful to the count-
less other Rwandan civilians, community leaders, partner organizations,
government officials, and academics who, on a less formal basis, supported
and guided my research and analysis in crucial ways. I cannot thank these
people by name—in all but a few rare instances, I use pseudonyms in
the pages that follow to maintain participants’ confidentiality—as many
of these individuals felt they might risk government persecution should
their often complicated perspectives on Rwanda and its past become pub-
lic knowledge. I only hope that the end result does justice to their varying
perspectives on this matter.
Beyond Rwanda, I am grateful for the institutional support of the
Montréal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies and the
Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling at Concordia University
where this project began. I am similarly grateful to the Department of
Anthropology at Carleton University, and the Liu Institute for Global Issues
at the University of British Columbia for hosting me as a postdoctoral fel-
low. The Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council gen-
erously funded this project at both the doctoral and postdoctoral stages,
with additional funding from Le Fonds de recherche du Québec—société et
culture, the Canadian International Development Agency, the Association
of Universities and Colleges of Canada, the Canadian Consortium on
vii
viii PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Human Security, the Azrieli Foundation, and the Centre for International
Governance Innovation. More recently, my colleagues at the Scottish Oral
History Centre and the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the
University of Strathclyde in Glasgow—particularly Angela Bartie, Mary
Heimann, Arthur McIvor, and David Walker—deserve special mention for
being so welcoming and supportive of my research.
I also owe significant intellectual debt to those who contributed their
time to reading previous drafts of this manuscript and providing insight-
ful feedback. I am particularly grateful to the manuscript’s anonymous
reviewers, former series editor Linda Shopes, the editorial team at Palgrave
Macmillan’s Studies in Oral History series, and my former supervisors,
Erin Baines, Frank Chalk, Steven High, and Erica Lehrer. I also benefited
from valuable feedback on journal publications and conference presen-
tations from Kjell Anderson, Yolande Bouka, Jennie Burnet, Danielle
de Lame, Marie-Eve Desrosiers,  Sean Field, Villia Jefremovas, René
Lemarchand, Rose-Marie Mukarutabana, Catharine Newbury, Juliane
Okot Bitek, Annie Pohlman, Susan Thomson, Sarah Watkins, Jan Vansina,
and Stacey Zembrzycki. Our conversations, both formal and informal,
have been essential for deepening my understanding of Rwandan history,
politics, and culture, as well as the practice of oral history in conflict and
post-conflict settings.
Finally, I owe a special debt to my family, who have endured, with
exceptional patience, far too many serious conversations about genocide
and related mass atrocities during otherwise lovely family gatherings. To
my sister, Janna Jessee, and my partner, Marc Ellison, in particular: this
book would not have been possible without your love and support.
c
ontents
1 Introduction 1
2 An Official History: Commemorating
“the 1994 Genocide of the Tutsi” 45
3 Memorial Staff: Between Official Narrative
and Lived Experience 81
4 Genocide Survivors: Complicating the Official Narrative 117
5 Convicted Génocidaires: Keepers of “Bad History” 149
6 Returnees: Looking Toward the “New Rwanda” 189
7 Considering Silences: Hutu Survivors?
Tutsi Génocidaires? And What of the Twa? 215
8 Conclusion: The Danger of a Single Story 237
ix
x CONTENTS
Bibliography 269
Index 291