Thread by @BazimyaJoseph

As we approaching #Kwibuka27 let we remind this 👇 Cc: @NKOTANYIFranci2 @KalindaMwene @Arutabos @AgainstDeniers

1)Denial of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda before,during and after the genocide itself was collective and highly organized...C'NTD

2)We gonna identify three forms of genocide denial: literal, interpretative and implicatory....C'NTD

3)When individuals or groups commit crimes, they don’t want to take responsibility for a common response is denial of the facts. The greater the crime, the more elaborate and organized must be the denial...C'NTD

4)Even 27 years after the genocide, leading suspects are still being found and tried; only some will fully admit what happened in Rwanda in 1994....C'NTD

5)'Denial can be individual,personal, psychological and private—or it can be shared, social, collective and organised...' According to Stanley Cohen...C'NTD

6)Comparative genocide studies emerged in the 20th century after several well-documented genocides organized by states in the name of 'racial' purity or imperial conquest...C'NTD

7)In one hundred days,more than one million people were murdered, on the orders of the state...C'NTD

8)The 'dark side of democracy' involved mass citizen participation (forced as well as voluntary) and the failure to protect Tutsi civilians and moderate Hutu, by weak UN forces and unwilling Western governments...C'NTD

9)The genocide of April- July 1994 in Rwanda targeted Tutsis.Organized denial started very far before 1994, to cover up genocide preparation, and continued after the genocide...C'NTD

10)It is important to recognize genocide denial in all its forms in order to prevent future justification of state violence targeted against minorities...C'NTD

11)The three forms of genocide denial: literal (1994-1998), interpretative (1998-2003), and implicatory (2003-present), do overlap, but one form is more pronounced in each period....C'NTD

12)(a)Literal denial (1994-1998)
Literal denial claims no genocide took place.It involves systematically negating the facts of genocide,and keeping silent about genocidal plans and killings...C'NTD

13)Within and outside Rwanda, literal denial was widespread among leaders and followers of the Hutu Power...C'NTD

14)Governments represented in the UN Security Council who had a responsibility to act avoided using the word genocide,and this literal denial was because they did not wish to get involved....C'NTD

15)Even before genocide ended,literal genocide denial started in Europe, spread by groups with close ties to genocidaires before 1994....C'NTD

16)This included the French government and the White Fathers, Catholic missionaries from Belgium...C'NTD

17)After the genocide, literal genocide denial became a defence strategy of genocide suspects at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR Opens external)...C'NTD

18)Attorneys such as Christopher Black and Peter Erlinder believed the denial narratives of their clients and became activists on their behalf claiming convicted perpetrators were actually political prisoners, victims of an international conspiracy led by the US and the UK..C'NTD

19)Several scholars and journalists with little prior knowledge of Rwanda or the genocide were influenced by these lawyers...C'NTD

20)A good example is the case of Edward S. Herman and David Peterson who published several books and articles claiming the accepted history of the genocide was based on a 'complex of interwoven lies'....C'NTD

21)They downplayed the organizing capacities of the Rwandan state, denying that the Hutu Power regime was even 'capable' of planning and managing genocide....

22)(b)Interpretative denial (1998-2003)
Once a firm historical of the facts had been established, around the late 1990s, literal denial became more difficult to sustain...C'NTD

23)As a result, interpretative denial became more pronounced. This involves distracting attention from genocide, by highlighting other crimes committed around the same time or afterwards that were not classified as genocide, in order to relativize genocide....C'NTD

24)Interpretative denial means that the 'drama' of violence is acknowledged, but is recast as something other than genocide. Facts are twisted to deny that the killings constituted genocide...C'NTD

25)Interpretative denial started when the international media swallowed tales of seemingly two-sided 'tribal violence in Rwanda. The killings were justified as self-defence, part of civil war...C'NTD

26)or ethnic self-determination of the ‘majority’ population. In this way, genocide becomes no more than 'blood-letting' or massacre....C'NTD

27)A popular form of interpretative denial implies that the Tutsi minority more or less committed suicide. They first waged war against the Hutu majority, and then were wiped out in retaliation...C'NTD

28)It is claimed Hutu soldiers and civil defence militia had no choice but to defend themselves against an invading Tutsi rebel army...C'NTD

29)In this way, a deliberate campaign of extermination of up to a million unarmed civilians was rationalized by portraying victims as casualties of civil war; a war supposedly caused by victims themselves....C'NTD

30)By portraying selective slaughter as self-defence, or part of civil war and ethnic self-determination by the ‘majority’ population, interpretative denial conveniently reworks the facts of genocide as something else....C'NTD

31)Narratives of interpretative denial suggest someone else was responsible for the killings, not Hutu Power organizers, not the Rwandan state...C'NTD

32)Victims are blamed, which may seem absurd. However, for perpetrators and their allies, this reinterpretation of genocide allows them to maintain a positive self-image...C'NTD

33)In Rwanda, implicatory denial involved conspiracy theories that preceded the genocide and were later revived and expanded upon....C'NTD

34)In the early 1990s Hutu Power media claimed the Tutsi intended to wipe out the Hutu majority. This fear-mongering was intended to justify the creation of so-called self-defence militias, really death squads,...C'NTD

35)like the notorious interahamwe, who in 1994 were deployed to kill Tutsis in their homes, at roadblocks, even in schools, hospitals and places of worship....C'NTD

36)The 'double genocide' thesis suggests the Hutu were themselves victims of genocide, perpetrated by the Tutsi dominated RPF...C'NTD

37)After the genocide against the Tutsi, this theory was used to suggest moral equivalence. It was claimed all sides were equally guilty of heinous war crimes....C'NTD

38)More recently, this narrative has evolved further to claim the RPF – not the Hutu Power elite – somehow masterminded the genocide against the Tutsi....C'NTD

39)According to a false and full hatred to Rwandan government so called journalist Judi Rever, the genocide against Tutsi was secretly planned, ignited, and fuelled by the RPF....C'NTD

40)It is claimed this was planned to generate international support and sympathy for the RPF seizure of state power in Rwanda....

41)At the same time the RPF is accused of planning a genocide of Hutus, and slaughtering and demonizing the Hutu majority...

42)Implicatory denial is a bit like fake news. … Literal genocide denial is relatively easy to challenge. Interpretative and implicatory genocide denial are more difficult...C'NTD

43)Implicatory denial is a bit like fake news, suggesting, 'things are not what they seem'. Evidence is taken out of context or made up to ‘reveal’ a secret conspiracy...C'NTD

44)Literal genocide denial is relatively easy to challenge.
Interpretative and implicatory genocide denial are more difficult, since they are not about denying facts, but about reinterpreting what lies 'behind' facts;what they mean...C'NTD

45)This suggests there are hidden truths behind the facts, often as with fake news, on the basis of hearsay and unsubstantiated evidence...C'NTD

46)More than 27 years after the Rwandan genocide, organized denial persists...C'NTD

47)So, can laws and prosecutions prevent organized, collective genocide denial, in Rwanda and elsewhere?Some think they can....C'NTD

48)Yet the problem is that genuine criticism of the present Rwandan government can sometimes be prosecuted as genocide denial...C'NTD

49)Genocide denial can thus become entangled with genuine criticism of the present Rwandan government. The government of Paul Kagame has been accused of human rights violations, such as massacres of Hutu in Congo, including by the UN....C'NTD

50)Tutsi genocide survivors formerly close to the regime, including famous musician Kizito Mihigo, have been killed, disappeared and died in mysterious circumstances...C'NTD

51)One can resolutely oppose Holocaust denial, for example, without supporting the present government of Israel...C'NTD

52)A principled and respectful memory of victims and due acknowledgement of their suffering is due to all genocide survivors.

53)FINISH