Gérard Prunier

Examines the horrific wars and political changes that have taken place in sub-Saharan Africa upon the end of the Rwandan genocide in 1996 through a detailed guide of the events that have taken place in recent years, along with profiles of some its most important figures and leaders.

Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe

Africa's World War

In the spring of 1994 the tiny African nation of Rwanda exploded onto the international media stage, as internal strife reached genocidal proportions. But the horror that unfolded before our eyes had been building steadily for years before it captured the attention of the world. In The Rwanda Crisis, journalist and Africa scholar Gérard Prunier provides a historical perspective that Western readers need to understand how and why the brutal massacres of 800,000 Rwandese came to pass. Prunier shows how the events in Rwanda were part of a deadly logic, a plan that served central political and economic interests, rather than a result of ancient tribal hatreds -- a notion often invoked by the media to dramatize the fighting. The Rwanda Crisis makes great strides in dispelling the racist cultural myths surrounding the people of Rwanda, views propogated by European colonialists in the nineteenth century and carved into "history" by Western influence. Prunier demonstrates how the struggle for cultural dominance and subjugation among the Hutu and Tutsi -- the central players in the recent massacres -- was exploited by racially obsessed Europeans. He shows how Western colonialists helped to construct a Tutsi identity as a superior racial type because of their distinctly "non-Negro" features in order to facilitate greater control over the Rwandese. Expertly leading readers on a journey through the troubled history of the country and its surroundings, Prunier moves from the pre-colonial Kingdom of Rwanda, though German and Belgian colonial regimes, to the 1973 coup. The book chronicles the developing refugee crisis in Rwanda and neighboring Uganda in the 1970s and 1980s and offers the most comprehensive account available of the manipulations of popular sentiment that led to the genocide and the events that have followed. In the aftermath of this devastating tragedy, The Rwanda Crisis is the first clear-eyed analysis available to American readers. From the massacres to the subsequent cholera epidemic and emerging refugee crisis, Prunier details the horrifying events of recent years and considers propsects for the future of Rwanda.

History of a Genocide

The Rwanda Crisis

Afrikan maailmansota. Kongo, Ruandan kansanmurha ja koko mantereen laajuisen katastrofin ainekset

Explains what lies behind the conflict in Western Sudan, how it came about, why it should not be oversimplified, and why it is so relevant to the future of the continent.

The Ambiguous Genocide

Darfur

This text analyzes the events leading up to genocidal conflicts in Rwanda during 1994 and discusses the country's prospects in their aftermath. In tracing the political machinations that preceded the genocide, the author argues that there was a carefully orchestrated plan which set the killings in motion. For Prunier, therefore, the Hutu-Tutsi conflict was not the result of insatiable bloodlust and ancestral hatreds, but an act of political mass murder. Accordingly, he delineates the leading political actors and explains their role in events of 1991-1994.

The Rwanda Crisis, 1959-1994

The Somali people are fiercely nationalistic. Colonialism split them into five segments divided between four different powers. Thus decolonization and pan-Somalism became synonymous. In 1960 a partial reunification took place between British Somaliland and Somalia Italiana. Africa Confidential wrote at the time that the new Somali state would never be beset by tribal division but this discounted the existence of powerful clans within Somali society and the persistence of colonial administrative cultures. The collapse of parliamentary democracy in 1969 and the resulting army--and clanic--dictatorship that followed led to a civil war in the 'perfect' national state. It lasted fourteen years in the British North and is still raging today in the 'Italian' South. Somaliland re-birthed itself through an enormous solo effort but the viable nation so recreated within its former colonial borders was never internationally recognized and still struggles to exist economically and diplomatically. This book recounts an African success story where the peace so widely acclaimed by the international community has had no reward but its own lonely achievement.

A History of Somaliland

The Country that Does Not Exist

Ce livre a été écrit fin 1994, au lendemain du massacre des Tutsis par les Hutus, et de la prise de pouvoir par le Front patriotique rwandais, par un éminent spécialiste de l'histoire africaine. Il s'agit d'un essai, très approfondi, mais également particulièrement engagé, qui analyse les causes du génocide rwandais selon deux axes : le principal, traité par le corps du texte, étudie la mécanique rwandaise, il est complété, sous forme de notes en bas de page, par des remarques concernant l'implication française dans l'avènement de ce drame. Société rwandaise et impact de la colonisation ou la construction d'une mythologie culturelle, La république hutu, Guerre civile et intervention étrangère, A reculons vers la démocratie, Le marathon pour la paix d'Arusha, Chronique d'un massacre annoncé, Génocide et reprise de la guerre, opération Turquoise et "Crépuscule des dieux" en Afrique Centrale, Epilogue ou nouveau départ?, Vivre dans un monde brisé

histoire d'un génocide

Rwanda, 1959-1996

Éloi Ficquet

"Seeks to dispel the myths and clichaes surrounding contemporary perceptions of Ethiopia by providing a rare overview of the country's recent history, politics and culture. Explores the unique features of this often misrepresented country as it strives to make itself heard in the modern world"-- Publisher description.

Understanding Contemporary Ethiopia

The Somali people are fiercely nationalistic. Colonialism split them into five segments divided between four different powers. Thus decolonization and pan-Somalism became synonymous. In 1960 a partial reunification took place between British Somaliland and Somalia Italiana. Africa Confidential wrote at the time that the new Somali state would never be beset by tribal division but this discounted the existence of powerful clans within Somali society and the persistence of colonial administrative cultures. The collapse of parliamentary democracy in 1969 and the resulting army--and clanic--dictatorship that followed led to a civil war in the 'perfect' national state. It lasted fourteen years in the "British" North and is still raging today in the 'Italian' South. Somaliland "re-birthed" itself through an enormous solo effort but the viable nation so recreated within its former colonial borders was never internationally recognized and still struggles to exist economically and diplomatically. This book recounts an African success story where the peace so widely acclaimed by the international community has had no reward but its own lonely achievement.

Gérard Prunier

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