The roots of violence in Rwanda are ‘more complex than most people had imagined’ and the terms Hutus and Tutsis refer to constructed categories of different socio-economic positions within Rwandan society (Jennings 2001:65). Melvern (2000:11) states that these two ethnic groups shared the same language, culture and lived in the same village with intermarrying and people exchanging identities. A ‘pure ethnic divide is a myth’ (Melvern 2000:11). According to Mamdani (2001:9–20), it was the Belgian reform of the colonial State in the decade from the mid-1920s to the mid-1930s that established Hutusas indigenous Bantu and Tutsis as alien Hamites. This Hamitic hypothesis, he argues, explained away every sign of civilisation in tropical Africa as a foreign import. Hutu and Tutsi became political identities connected to the origins of the violence (Mamdani 2001:9–20).
The Rwandan genocide ‘was not a simple matter of mutual hatred between tribes erupting into irrational violence’ (Keane 1995:7). Documentary evidence shows that the killings were planned in advance by a clique (family and in-laws) close to President Habyarimana who resented power-sharing with the Tutsi (Melvern 2000:42–43; Keane 1995:10). According to Pottier (2002:9), ‘Rwanda’s bloodbath was not tribal. It was rather a distinctly modern tragedy, a degenerated class conflict minutely prepared and callously executed’ which the world failed to see. This indicates the complexity of the genocide in Rwanda and suggests that if class (related to resource access as well) issues are not adequately addressed, the prospect of another genocide exists.