Page 2 of 2 SPEAKING
FREELY The mother of all
genocides By Murtaza Mohsin
parties harped on Hutu nationalism
and marginalized the Tutsis, forcing many to flee
to refugee camps in the following decades.
In the early 1990s, Paul Kagame's Rwandan
Patriotic Front (RPF) led a revolt from
neighboring Uganda demanding better rights for
Tutsis. The Rwandan government portrayed the
invasion as an attempt to bring the Tutsi ethnic
group back into power. Juvenal
Habyarimana, the Rwandan
president, himself reacted by immediately
repressing Tutsis.
Rhetoric continued to
rise in this period, egged on by radio, which
began a campaign of hate and fear. The main
culprit was the government-owned Radio Television
Libre de Mille Collines, which issued calls for
violence and anti-Tutsi propaganda. All that was
required was a catalyst to bring about
catastrophe.
It came with the
assassination of president Habyarimana. The
Mystere-Falcon jet carrying Habyarimana was shot
down as it prepared to land in Kigali. As though
the assassination were a signal, military and
militia groups began rounding up and killing all
the Tutsis they could capture, as well as
political moderates irrespective of their ethnic
backgrounds.
Local militias, known as
Interahamwe, organized by the government waged,
the genocide. The RPF responded by renewing the
conflict and invaded Rwanda. The Tutsi rebels
defeated the Hutu regime and ended the genocide in
July 1994, but about 2 million Hutu refugees, some
of whom had participated in the genocide and
feared Tutsi retribution, fled to neighboring
countries. This set the stage for the Congo war,
regarded as "Africa's World War", directly
involving nine African nations, as well as about
20 armed groups.
There are an alarming
number of similarities in Iraq to Rwanda. Shi'ites
have gained political power at the expense of the
traditional power elite, the Sunni Arabs, and the
demographics also directly match the situation in
Iraq if one discounts the Kurds. Although it took
decades for the concept of "Hutu power" to gain
the proportions needed for genocide to happen, the
violence currently being waged against the
Shi'ites can more easily bring about rage
equivalent to that in Rwanda.
I fear that
local media, which in Rwanda were used as a tool
of genocide, may be used in Iraq to increase
ethnic tensions. Already there are allegations
that media are increasingly widening the gap
between Sunnis and Shi'ites.
The Rwandan
genocide happened because the government created
it; it was supported at all levels. Again I fear
that Iraq may follow the same path if ever the
Americans leave Iraq in the precarious situation
it is in now and a Shi'ite-dominated government
arises that is ruthless and determined to preserve
its hold over power at any cost. It could wage
total war against Arab Sunnis in a manner similar
to the Rwandan government's war on the Tutsis.
Eventually, some political entity will
fill the gap and make brutal decisions. It will
not take the form of the civil war that Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi and his followers so ardently tried to
provoke. It will instead be a long list of
atrocities, like the two genocides discussed in
detail. It will take the form of massacres carried
out by militias that are numerically stronger,
better organized and better armed than the
insurgency.
Those who have been forced out
of their homes will return as guides for the death
squads. Iraq will succumb to violence of
unbelievable levels; whole neighborhoods will be
wiped out in a manner similar to the ethnic
cleansing carried out by the Hutus and Serbs.
Kurds will probably attempt to exploit the
violence to break away as an independent entity,
with a wary Turkey watching.
It is likely
that both the army and police, like their
counterparts in the Rwandan genocide, will
actively take part in the violence. Despite
efforts to keep both non-sectarian in nature, the
Iraqi army and police are riddled by internal
divisions. The composition of the army and police
is mainly Shi'ite and Kurd. This army may turn its
weaponry against the people of Iraq.
Civil
conflicts often have a transnational dimension, in
that neighboring states may provide support to one
party in hopes of making gains. Iraq is no
exception; the conflict there is being fueled, at
least in part, by its neighbors. Saudi Arabia
continues to be the main external source of
funding for the insurgency and provides the main
source of funding and suicide bombers.
Iran supports Shi'ite militias including
the Badr Brigade. In a civil conflict with
genocidal overtones, neighboring countries will
undoubtedly intervene; we may see what has
happened to Congo in the aftermath of the Rwandan
genocide. Religious tensions will be exacerbated
by the presence of refugees, in much the same way
as Hutu refugees exacerbated inter communal
tensions in Congo, triggering the Congo war.
Neighboring countries will no doubt
intervene using the rhetoric of protecting their
co-religionists; Jordan would claim it was
protecting western Iraq from genocide. It would
attempt to invade and hold parts of Iraq because
of its weakened state, particularly exploiting
that ever-valuable resource, oil, in much the way
that Congo was exploited by foreign invaders.
Turkey would move into northern Iraq, strenuously
claiming it was trying to prevent cross-border
Kurdish raids, and take over the northern
oilfields.
Eventually, Iraq may turn into
one massive battlefield, with the whole of the
Middle East fighting over the oil-rich country. It
is also doubtful that the First World, emerging
powers such as China, resurgent powers such as
Russia, and others will not become involved in
what may prove to be one of the largest conflicts
the world has ever seen.
While much of the
analysis given above is pure hypothesis, there
exists too much chance for this horrible sequence
of events to occur. We may be on the brink of the
"mother of all genocides", which will pale all
other genocides in comparison.
Murtaza Mohsin is a conflict
analyst specializing in conflicts in Africa and
the Middle East.
(Copyright 2007
Murtaza Mohsin.)
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