Rwanda 1994: The Myth of the Akazu Genocide Conspiracy and its Consequences (Rethinking Political Violence)

Through a rigorous critique of the dominant narrative of the Rwandan genocide, Collins provides an alternative argument to the debate situating the killings within a historically-specific context and drawing out a dynamic interplay between national and international actors. This book draws attention to what is intangible to the majority, namely an alternative version of the events that took place in Rwanda before and during 1994, including cease-fire violations, human rights abuses, killings and other abuses, all of which were committed by the RPF. The book is the first of its kind to deconstruct the dominant narrative of the circumstances leading up to, and during, the period defined as the Rwandan genocide, highlighting the suppression of evidence that runs contrary to the dominant narrative. It controversially questions the accepted wisdom of the events using a revisionist interrogation of the evidence, aiming to provide the most robust and academically credible investigation on the issue of the Rwandan genocide through an interrogation of all the claims made to support the genocide thesis. The author adopts a logical-historical approach which aims to situate the killings within a historically-specific context, drawing out a dynamic interplay between national and international actors to provide the most empirically detailed and forthright investigation of the butchery of Rwanda's Tutsis, and the perpetrators. Front Matter....Pages i-xiv The Tipping Point....Pages 1-12 Apocalypse 1994....Pages 13-36 The Kingdom, the Colony and the Republics: Ethnicity in Perspective....Pages 37-55 The RPF’s War....Pages 56-129 The Myth of the Akazu Genocide Conspiracy....Pages 130-159 Hate Speech, the Audience and Mass Killings....Pages 160-179 Genocide and Humanitarian Intervention in the Twentieth Century....Pages 180-204 Consequences....Pages 205-218 Back Matter....Pages 219-272