PRESS RELEASE
CONTACT: Torrey Swan
DATE: January 28, 2008
TEL: 416-250-9807
Responding to Ethnic Tension and Genocide: Lesson from Rwanda for Darfur
Toronto, Canada- The 1994 Rwandan Genocide sheds much light onto the
ongoing genocide at work, a few hundred miles north, in Darfur. It is a
powerful case study in how and why genocide takes place, but it is also
a stark reminder of how easily the world can ignore such brutal
suffering and injustice. This is why Genocide Studies and Prevention: An
International Journal (GSP), has just released a special issue dedicated
to the Rwandan Genocide.
This special issue of GSP provides:
· original, ground-breaking research on the Rwandan Genocide
and its aftermath;
· a symposium on a pivotal book on the Genocide;
· a scathing commentary on our efforts at preventing genocide;
· and two informative books reviews.
This issue includes three articles based on field research conducted in
Rwanda. Reva N. Adler et al., a professor of clinical medicine,
contributed, "A Calamity in the Neighbourhood: Women’s Participation in
the Rwandan Genocide," which focuses on why women assaulted or murdered
targeted victims during that genocide and found that four experiences,
in various combinations, shaped the female perpetrators’ decision to
participate in the 1994 genocide.
Anuradha Chakravarty, a PhD candidate at Cornell University, in
"Inter-ethnic Marriages, the Survival of Women, and the Logics of
Genocide in Rwanda," examines why Tutsi women married to Hutu men appear
to have had a better chance of survival than Tutsi women married to
Tutsi men, or even Hutu women married to Tutsi men.
Scott Straus, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin at
Madison, delineates some of the many key findings of his book, The Order
of Genocide: Race, Power and War in Rwanda which raises critical
questions about previous assumptions about the 1994 genocide and also
provides new insights into how the killing process spread across Rwanda
and why.
Straus’ work is critiqued by three specialists on the Rwandan
Genocide-Lars Waldorf, who is currently Lecturer in International Law
and Human Rights at the University of London and is writing a book on
Rwanda’s gacaca process; Thierry Cruvellier, a journalist and justice
expert who has written a book on the ICTR; and Lee Ann Fujii, a
political scientist at George Washington University, who is in the
process of writing a book on the Rwandan Genocide-noting key strengths,
any weaknesses and gaps, and the likely ramifications of the findings.
This issue includes a commentary, "Rwanda (and Other Genocides) in
Perspective," by long-time Africanist Gerry Caplan, which examines the
reluctance of the international community to prevent mass suffering and
genocide, and demonstrates that not to do so is a conscious choice, a
choice citizens need not accept.
Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal was co-founded
by the International Association of Genocide Scholars and the
International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (A
Division of the Zoryan Institute) and is published by the University of
Toronto Press. The journal’s mission is to understand the phenomenon of
genocide, create an awareness of it as an ongoing scourge, and promote
the necessity of preventing it. For more information, contact the
IIGHRS, [email protected], Tel: 416-250-9807.