Mother of atrocities: Pauline Nyiramasuhuko's role in the Rwandan genocide.

• Author: Sperling, Carrie

In the courtroom she prefers "plain high-necked dresses that show off a gleaming gold crucifix she usually wears." (1) "[H]er appearance in court suggest[s] a school teacher." (2) "With her hair pulled neatly back, her heavy glasses beside her on the table, she looks more like someone's dear great aunt than what she is alleged to be: a high-level organizer of Rwanda's 1994 genocide who authorized the rape and murder of countless men and women." (3)

As Pauline Nyiramasuhuko stands trial before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) (4) for crimes against humanity and genocide, (5) crimes shocking in their depravity, the press seems more fixated on her gender than the significance of her crimes and her prosecution. (6) The press asks: how could a woman, a mother, a female that looks so feminine commit such atrocities? (7) To ask the question is to assume that women are not capable of committing acts of violence and depravity such as rape, mass murder, and genocide. In reality, "[i]t is probably the case that women's peacefulness is as mythical as men's violence." (8) Women throughout history have equaled their male counterparts in their cruelty and in their willingness to plan, orchestrate, and participate in mass atrocities. (9) Women, girls, and mothers also willingly and enthusiastically played important roles in the Rwandan genocide. (10) As a female perpetrator of mass violence, Pauline is not an anomaly.

Those who view Pauline's actions during the genocide as somehow inexplicable because of her gender engage in the stereotypical thinking that perpetuates the special victimization of women. History demonstrates that women suffer especially heinous sexual violence in almost every armed conflict. (11) Women become such targets for many reasons, all connected to their otherness, their difference from the patriarchy that perpetuates the conflict. (12) As one writer noted, "if ... war is the continuation of politics by other means, it has been constructed out of hostility towards the female 'other.'" (13)

The Tutsi women of Rwanda, like women in countless other conflicts, were sexually violated to denigrate Tutsi men or the Tutsi race, to attack their purity, and to serve as a warrior's reward. (14) To successfully carry out a campaign of sexual terror, the perpetrators had to embrace the myth that sees women as merely an extension of the Tutsi man, merely a tool for the troops' pleasure, or merely a vessel of procreation. (15) This myth also sees rape as a defilement of the woman and her family, her man, and often her entire ethnic group. (16) And because of adherence to this myth, crimes specifically targeting women during armed conflict are rarely prosecuted. (17)

Pauline's case challenges the other side of the myth: that women, by their nature, are incapable of being warriors--somehow their roles as women and mothers prohibit them from planning or participating in depraved violence. (18) Pauline's case says more about our continued resistance to view women as equals than it says about her uniqueness among her female peers. Because we continue to view women as less capable than men, as less worthy than men, and as confined to the roles of sexual objects or mothers, women continue to bear the painful scars of sexual violence in times of conflict. Pauline's case will hopefully prove to the world, once again, that women are equally human, even in their capacity for violence. When women begin to be seen as equals, sexual violence against women may lose its purpose. And though we may not live to see that day, we may live to see the day when crimes against women are treated as crimes against humanity, because women are equal participants in humanity.

The ICTR, where Pauline currently sits on trial for her crimes, has made significant progress towards ending impunity for the crimes carried out almost exclusively against Rwandan women. (19) The next step toward ending impunity for crimes of sexual violence during conflict is to demystify the nature of women. In this regard, Pauline's case may become that important step in the process.

1. THE RWANDAN GENOCIDE: HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

   Between April and July 1994, Rwanda suffered the most efficient and brutal genocide in recorded history. Best estimates calculate the dead between five hundred thousand and one million people, (20) decimating the pre-genocide population of eight million. (21) Tutsis made up less than fifteen percent of the population before 1994, (22) and the genocide eradicated approximately seventy-seven percent of that population. (23) Nearly all the victims were killed in the first ninety days of the Rwandan genocide, making the rate of the genocide five times as swift as the Nazi's extermination of the Jews in the Holocaust. (24)

   Genocide of that magnitude takes planning. (25) Hutu extremists were able to carry out massacres on such a large and rapid scale because they had been preparing for years. (26) They arranged for massive shipments of arms, trained thousands of militia members, and engaged in a propaganda campaign demonizing the Tutsis. (27) The media campaign targeted Tutsis as not only sub-human but also as a threat to the Hutu existence. (28) The arms shipments made it possible for the militia to commandeer large portions of the Hutu civilian population in killing their Tutsi neighbors. (29)

   Many historians trace the roots of the genocide back to colonial times, when Belgian colonizers created distinct racial classes in Rwanda. (30) Belgians deemed the Tutsis, who were taller and had more narrow facial features, more European and thus a more advanced "race" than the Hutu. (31) The Belgian colonizers required citizens to carry identity cards listing the racial group to which they belonged. (32) Tutsis were given positions of power within the government, much of the country's land, and exclusive access to education, while Hutus were excluded from political power, obligated to work for Tutsis, and denied access to education. (33) The fact that the European colonizers were able to create such a chasm between two groups of Rwandans is remarkable considering the fact that the Rwandan people were so homogenous. In fact, Rwandans shared commonalities rarely found in other nations: one language (Kinyarwanda), one faith (Catholicism), and one law. (34)

   This system created extreme hostilities between Hutus and Tutsis, and it existed until the Hutu majority began to make demands for self-determination and self-government. (35) Sensing a possible uprising, the colonizers reversed field, supporting the Hutu uprising in 1959. (36) During this uprising, the Hutus targeted Tutsis, killing and displacing large numbers of Tutsis. (37) Many of the displaced Tutsis crossed into neighboring countries, including Uganda and Burundi. (38)

   Following this Hutu uprising, the Hutu majority held most of the political power in Rwanda (39) and denied Tutsis equal access to education, government office, and military service. (40) The Hutus succeeded in completely turning the tables in this new political reality. (41)

   In the few years preceding the 1994 genocide, many of the Tutsis who had fled to Uganda formed a rebel force, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), (42) originated to regain some political control in Rwanda. (43) Meanwhile, Hutu politics became radicalized. Many Hutus supported the total annihilation of the Tutsi population to rid Rwanda of the threat of another period of Tutsi domination--a political movement known as Hutu Power. (44) The dominant Hutu political party began to train youth militia, known as Interahamwe, (45) who would eventually carry out the genocidal plans. (46)

   As tensions built, foreign aid to Rwanda's Hutu president, Juvenal Habyarimana, and his government, continued to pour in, and weapons shipments continued to arrive from France, Egypt and South Africa. (47) In 1990, the RPF launched an invasion of Rwanda from Uganda, occupying the northeast portion of Rwanda. (48) Hutu Power responded by carrying out "dress rehearsals" for the genocide that would later overtake the entire country. (49) For example, in response to the RPF invasion, the state-owned Rwanda Radio falsely announced a "Tutsi plan" to massacre the Hutus. (50) This state-sponsored misinformation was used to encourage members of the militia in the Bugesera region to attack and kill Tutsi citizens. (51) Militia members and villagers reacted by killing over three hundred Tutsis in the region in three days. (52)

   Fearing the outbreak of a devastating civil war, the international community brokered a peace agreement between President Habyarimana's government and the RPF. (53) The Arusha Accords, signed on August 4, 1993, (54) gave the RPF a share of political power in the government and the military. (55)

   The Arusha Accords may have soothed international concern and placated the RPF, but the concessions made by Habyarimana to the RPF only fueled the Hutu extremists, inciting them to action. (56) Plans for a complete annihilation of the Tutsis began as early as 1992: the Hutu Power had prepared for it, the Interahamwe had trained for it, the arms had been gathered for it. (57) All were simply waiting for a spark that would ignite the killing. That spark was ignited on April 6, 1994, when the plane carrying President Habyarimana was shot down while on approach to Kigali, Rwanda. (58) Almost immediately, state-controlled media blamed the RPF for downing the plane. (59) And almost immediately the Interahamwe set up road blocks around Kigali. (60) By midnight that same evening, the Interahamwe began killing Tutsis at the roadblocks and began to hunt down Tutsis and moderate Hutus throughout the neighborhoods of Kigali based on lists that had been prepared in advance. (61)

   A mere two weeks later, approximately two hundred and fifty thousand Tutsis and moderate Hutus had been murdered. (62) The genocide's massive scale necessitated participation by the masses...