Subject Pages
- Armenian Genocide
- Cambodian Genocide
- Central African Republic Conflict
- Contemporary Antisemitism
- 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda
- Guatemalan Genocide
- Holocaust
- Nanjing Massacres
- Roma Interviews
- Belarus
- Bulgaria
- Czechoslovakia
- Czech Republic
- Estonia
- France
- Georgia
- Germany
- Greece
- Hungary
- Italy
- Kazakhstan
- Latvia
- Lithuania
- Netherlands
- Poland
- Portugal
- Romania
- Russia
- Slovakia
- Spain
- Ukraine
- United Kingdom
- USSR
- Uzbekistan
1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda
The mass killing of 650,000–over 1 million people, ethnically defined as Tutsi, in Rwanda between April 7 and July 19, 1994, implemented against the backdrop of civil war by Hutu extremists who seized power after former president Habyarimana was killed in a plane crash. Victims of the genocide also included tens of thousands of so-called Hutu in opposition to the Hutu extremists. The mass murder was the climax of a larger postcolonial history of Tutsi persecution by the Hutus, who shared language, culture and religion, but had been earlier constructed as different groups by the Belgian colonial power.
The Visual History Archive contains the testimonies of 164 witnesses of the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda. They were recorded in Rwanda and the United States between 2004 and 2023 by the Kigali Genocide Memorial (130), USC Shoah Foundation (26), Holocaust Museum Houston (1), and for the documentary film "The 600: A Soldier's Story" (7). The interview languages are Kinyarwanda, English, or French; all the Kinyarwanda testimonies have English subtitles. For more information on this collection, please see the USC Shoah Foundation website.
Selected Indexing Terms
“Ibyitso”
“Iringaniza”
anti-Tutsi arrests
anti-Tutsi manhunts
anti-Tutsi prejudice
anti-Tutsi propaganda
anti-Tutsi roundups
attitudes toward Burundi and/or Burundians
Bisisero Hills Massacres (April-June 1994)
bourgmestres (Rwanda)
childhood anti-Tutsi experiences
Coalition Pour la Défence de la République
Death of President Juvénal Habyarimana (April 6, 1994)
Ecole Technique Officielle and Nyanza Massacre (April 11-12, 1994)
Forces Armées Rwandaises soldiers
Gacaca courts
Gatwaro Stadium Massacre (April 18-19, 1994)
grenade attacks
Hutu communities
Interahamwe militia
Kibuye Catholic Church and Home St. Jean Massacre (April 17, 1994)
Kigali (Rwanda)
machete attacks
Ntarama Church Massacre (April 15, 1994)
Nyabarongo River (Rwanda)
post-genocide reconciliation
post-Rwandan Tutsi Genocide reflections
Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines
roadblocks
Rwanda 1994 (April 7 - July 19)
Rwandan Patriotic Army
Rwandan Patriotic Front
Rwandan Tutsi Genocide faith issues
Rwandan Tutsi Genocide preparation awareness
Rwandan Tutsi Genocide-related psychological reactions
Saint Famille Church (Kigali, Rwanda)
school anti-Tutsi prejudice
travel permits
Tutsi communities
Tutsi persecution bystander responses
Tutsi prisoners
Tutsi property attacks
Tutsi-non Tutsi relations
Twa communities
United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda
Selected Bibliography
African Rights. Rwanda: Death, Despair, and Defiance. London: African Rights, 1995. Print.
Des Forges, Alison. "Leave none to tell the story": Genocide in Rwanda. New York: Human Rights Watch, 1999. Print.
Fletcher, Luke. “Turning Interhamwe, Individual and Community Choices in the Rwandan Genocide.” Journal of Genocide Research, 9.1 (2007): 25-48. Print.
Fujii, Lee Ann. Killing Neighbors: Webs of Violence in Rwanda. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2009. Print.
Guichaoua, André. Les crises politiques au Burundi et au Rwanda, 1993-1994 : analyses, faits et documents. Villeneuve d'Ascq: Université des sciences et technologies de Lille, Faculté des sciences économiques et sociales; Paris: Diffusion Karthala, 1995. Print.
Guichaoua, André, and René Dégni-Ségui. Rwanda, de la guerre au génocide: les politiques criminelles au Rwanda (1990-1994). Paris: la Découverte, 2010. Print.
Kimonyo, Jean-Paul. Rwanda's Popular Genocide: A Perfect Storm. Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2016. Print.
Lemarchand, René. “Rwanda: the State of Research.” Online Encyclopedia of Mass Violence. 27 May 2013. Web.
Mamdani, Mahmood. When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 2001. Print.
Prunier, Gérard. The Rwanda Crisis, 1959-1994: History of a Genocide. London: Hurst & Co, 1995. Print.
Straus, Scott. The Order of Genocide: Race, Power, and War in Rwanda. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006. Print.
Verwimp, Philip. Peasants in Power: The Political Economy of Development and Genocide in Rwanda. Dordrecht; New York: Springer, 2013. eBook [USC Network Access]
Viret, Emmanuel. “Rwanda - A Chronology (1867-1994).” Online Encyclopedia of Mass Violence. 1 March 2010. Web.
