Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction: Problems of Genocide
- PART A THE NATURE AND VALUE OF GROUPS
- PART B THE HARM OF GENOCIDE
- PART C ELEMENTS OF GENOCIDE
- PART D RESPONSIBILITY FOR GENOCIDE
- 9 Complicity and the Rwandan Genocide
- 10 Incitement to Genocide and the Rwanda Media Case
- 11 Instigating, Planning, and Intending Genocide in Rwanda
- PART E SPECIAL PROBLEMS OF GENOCIDE
- Bibliography
- Index
11 - Instigating, Planning, and Intending Genocide in Rwanda
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction: Problems of Genocide
- PART A THE NATURE AND VALUE OF GROUPS
- PART B THE HARM OF GENOCIDE
- PART C ELEMENTS OF GENOCIDE
- PART D RESPONSIBILITY FOR GENOCIDE
- 9 Complicity and the Rwandan Genocide
- 10 Incitement to Genocide and the Rwanda Media Case
- 11 Instigating, Planning, and Intending Genocide in Rwanda
- PART E SPECIAL PROBLEMS OF GENOCIDE
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In this concluding chapter to the fourth part of the book, I will argue, perhaps counterintuitively, that in the Rwandan genocide the most significant actions that should be punished were by some of those who were not merely reckless but intended to incite rather than those who killed or were merely complicit. If we think of genocides on the model of the Holocaust, responsibility is primarily assigned to those who planned or participated in the planning of the genocide against Jews in Nazi Germany and elsewhere in Europe. The “intent to destroy a group” is seen in the explicit and quite elaborate plans that were drafted by, or administered under the direction of, Hitler. But, then, when we think about genocides such as that in Rwanda, conceptual puzzles arise. There seems to have been no central plan to destroy Tutsis in Rwanda. Rather, there was a tinder box of ethnic hatred in Rwanda that various individuals ignited. Mostly these individuals did not communicate with each other and did not follow a single script. Nonetheless, if there was genocide occurring in Rwanda, as seems evident to most legal theorists and practitioners alike, then there must have been something like instigation even if there was no planning. In this chapter I will try to shed some light on this difficult conceptual puzzle.
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- GenocideA Normative Account, pp. 202 - 220Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010