Debunking Charles Onana's negationism on the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda

Genocides take place in specific contexts, where international and national systems of justice and security often fail to intervene and protect the victims. The international community took important steps towards preventing and punishing such crimes by recognizing them as genocide. More individuals have been judged by national or international tribunals for the crime of genocide in the last 20 years than in the previous 50 years. Discussing these events today is all the more important because when it is denied, a perpetrator and his ideology are protected. Confronting negationism is thus one of the key steps to stand against historical revisionism. It takes away the trauma and its importance by minimizing it and dilutes our collective memory. Negationism silences the survivors. How can we convey the feeling of the victim to the vacuum created by deniers in society? How can we accept that others skip the importance of collected facts and the suffering experienced? In the case of Rwanda, a certain man known as Charles Onana has been consistently spreading dangerous messages, trying to rewrite the history of the genocide against the Tutsi, reducing it to a mere political conflict between two ethnic groups, misleading people concerning the cause of the genocide and pretending it has never been prepared . He has been recently very vocal in spreading his revisionism theories apparently supported by the Congolese government.

Acknowledging historical facts is an important step for any society to understand and remember humane values and the darkest moments of human history and avoid their repetition. Some "scholars", however, have occasionally negated these facts or been paid to deny them. It seems to be the case of Charles Onana who is propably trying to use his french citizenship to spread negationism and incite the people of the great lakes region, especially the Congolese, to hate Tutsis.

Definition of Negationism

Negationism can be described as an attempt to deny or distort established facts. It aims to replace demonstrable historical knowledge with systematic falsifications in the form of misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation. In other words, negationism is a misrepresentation of historical reality. In the context of this guide, denial or minimization is studied mostly in situations of genocide. Scholars differentiate negationism from legitimate historical interpretations, which are based on new, well-researched evidence, analysis, and consensus. No historical truth is final, but negationism is an attempt to divert the existing historical truth from established facts. Psychological studies show that the denial mechanism operates at a political level when it feeds into a particular narrative or deliberately seeks to cover up past wrongdoing.

Negationism is denial with a purpose, a political denial or an ideological denial, because it falsely wishes the established historical events to be untrue. The reasons for negationism are various and include ideology, religion, political commitments, ignorance, or terror. The negationist does not look for the truth; they look for 'another view.'

Brief Overview of how the Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda was planned

The genocide against the Tutsi, mainly executed in 1994, resulted in a loss of life of more than a million Tutsi and some moderate Hutus who were against the genocide. It was organized and well planned by the governments in place since 1959 and more especially in the 1990s. The interahamwe militia was created and the ideology of genocide well polished. The Tutsis were easily identifiable using the identity cards and lists of people to kill were established way before 1994. The committed genocide in 1994 was not a spontaneous event like Onana seems to suggest. The Habyarimana plane that was shut down is not the cause of the genocide. The genocide or final solution as Bagosora called it, was planned taught and polished way before. Reducing the Genocide against the Tutsi to Habyarimana's death, is ignoring history for someone who pretends to be "a scholar". The devastating events that took place in Rwanda during 1994 genocide against the Tutsi came at the end of an extended period of violence against Tutsis. Occurring after years of crisis, war, oppression, and exclusion, this final "Solution" as they called it, is a continuation of what was started before and what they still want to do even today.

In the years leading up to the genocide, major turning points reshaped the entire country, leading to atrocities that effectively exterminated the Tutsi population in Rwanda. Integration policies implemented from 1990, served to radicalize the grassroots Hutu population, leading to actions seeking the final solution to the Tutsi "problem". Tired of being in exile, the RPF struggle started, with the aim of bringing back home millions of Tutsis after many years in exile. Onana dares to say that the RPF struggle was just a plan of the USA to invade Congo. This is unacceptable, such a person should not be given platforms to spread this poison.

Since being brought to Rwanda by European colonial powers at the end of the 19th century, the incompatibility of racial and political boundaries with the social organization of the population has been argued to have distanced Rwandans in this era from their own pre-existing societal hierarchies and political networks. The most far-reaching change was the codification of society into three distinct racial groups, Hutu, Tutsi and Twa. Right before the "independence", Colonial authorities favored the cultivation of relationships with the majority Hutu population. This, alongside related policies, culminated in the 1959 Social Revolution which began a process that led to Tutsis being forced to exile.

These are the unfortunate precursors to most genocides. In Rwanda, the precursors to the genocide are no different, and they include ethnic and political instability that were de facto policy for the government of Rwanda of that time. After the so called Hutu "revolution" in 1959 and the "independence" in 1962, the Hutu power movement gained control of Rwanda, and the call for killings soon escalated into widespread, calculated exterminations against the Tutsi. There were many acts of genocide leading up to the real genocide, including the massacres of Tutsis.

The intensity of deep-seated hate leading up to the genocide against the Tutsi was due in part to the pre- existing systematic hate towards the Tutsis, as evident by the hate propaganda in numerous cartoons, political cartoons, and newspaper articles. This continues to incite massive amounts of hate that were further imagined, crafted, and carried out by the media as well as radio and the government. Official dehumanization of Tutsis by the state as 'cockroaches' and the increasingly aggressive anti-Tutsi propaganda were but two of the final incitements that tipped the genocidal scale. By encouraging tension, planning to eliminate a group, playing a central role in discrimination or hate, and gracefully presenting the multi-folded state propaganda machine, the state can often formulate events and result in participating in genocide, a dehumanizing state policy that escalates disgustingly, as was the case in the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. The announcements on public radio stations towards the end of 1993 was another step in the march toward genocide. The radio made it clear to the Hutus that the Tutsis were their enemy, and that they must be destroyed for the good of the Hutu race. In the months leading up to the genocide, the RTLM radio, which was run and financed by the government people, urged civilians to kill their neighbours and to purify the country. The anti-Tutsi propaganda, aside from the radio, included a constant flow of the printed word in newspapers .

This hatred was further fuelled by the discriminatory policies implemented by the government, which marginalised the Tutsi population and created an environment ripe for violence.

The Hutu Ten Commandments

Hutu Power, a political movement that held the racist ideal of Rwanda as a Hutu nation, proclaimed its founding principles in the Hutu Ten Commandments.​ This document was published in the December 1990 edition of Kangura, an anti-Tutsi, Hutu Power newspaper in Kigali Rwanda.

1. Every Hutu should know that a Tutsi woman, whoever she is, works for the interest of her Tutsi ethnic group. As a result, we shall consider a traitor any Hutu who

marries a Tutsi woman, employs a Tutsi woman as concubine, employs a Tutsi woman as a secretary or takes her under protection.

2. Every Hutu should know that our Hutu daughters are more suitable and conscientious in their role as woman, wife and mother of the family. Are they not beautiful, good secretaries and more honest?3. Hutu women, be vigilant and try to bring your husbands, brothers and sons back to reason.4. Every Hutu should know that every Tutsi is dishonest in business. His only aim is the supremacy of his ethnic group. As a result, any Hutu who does the following is a traitor:

makes a partnership with Tutsi in business, invests his money or the government's money in a Tutsi enterprise lends or borrows money from a Tutsi

gives favours to Tutsi in business (obtaining import licenses, bank loans, construction sites, public markets, etc.).

5. All strategic positions, political, administrative, economic, military and security should be entrusted only to Hutu.

6. The education sector (school pupils, students, teachers) must be majority Hutu.

7. The Rwandan Armed Forces should be exclusively Hutu. The experience of the October 1990 war has taught us a lesson. No member of the military shall marry a Tutsi.

8. The Hutu should stop having mercy on the Tutsi.

9. The Hutu, wherever they are, must have unity and solidarity and be concerned with the fate of their Hutu brothers.

The Hutu inside and outside Rwanda must constantly look for friends and allies for the Hutu cause, starting with their Hutu brothers. They must constantly counteract Tutsi propaganda.

The Hutu must be firm and vigilant against their common Tutsi enemy.

10. The Social Revolution of 1959, the Referendum of 1961, and the Hutu Ideology, must be taught to every Hutu at every level. Every Hutu must spread this ideology widely. Any Hutu who persecutes his brother Hutu for having read, spread, and taught this ideology is a traitor.

How can Charles Onana say that the Genocide against the Tutsi was not planned in the face of all these evidences ? How can Onana poison the world with his theories of a spontaneous massacre just because of the Habyarimana's death?

Charles Onana: Background and work

Onana, a Cameroonian with French citizenship, is frequently associated with endorsing interpretations that downplay or reject the genocide against the Tutsi. His academic work has significantly contributed to the proliferation of conspiracy theories surrounding Rwanda. To provide clarity and facilitate analysis, it is important to highlight Onana's negationist views:

- Disputing facts: Onana refutes the occurrence of the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, arguing that there is insufficient evidence to support it and dismissing it as a mere conspiracy theory.

- Manipulation of statistics: He casts doubt on the number of Tutsi victims and fabricates allegations about a supposed second genocide carried out by the Rwandan Patriotic Front.

- Rejection of culpability: Onana denies any French involvement in the genocide and lends support to the revisionist group France Turquoise.

- Propagation of conspiracy theories: He propagates unfounded conspiracy theories alleging Rwanda's pursuit of dominance through the use of Tutsi women as weapons, while also manipulating language to shift blame.

- Association with deniers: Onana aligns himself with individuals who deny the genocide, mirror accusations, and dispute the premeditated nature of the atrocity.

- Misleading assertions: He portrays the genocide as a decontextualized tragedy orchestrated by the Tutsi and Anglo-Saxons for economic motives, perpetuating damaging stereotypes and spreading misinformation.

Conclusion

There is absolutely no doubt that the massacres on Rwandan soil between 1990 and 1994 were genocidal in nature against Tutsis. This position is substantiated by both the report and the initial report submitted by the Office of the Special Rapporteur on Rwanda, and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda-recognized victim testifying that the militias who murdered Tutsi in that period actively self-identified as genocidaires ideologically in agreement with a private radio station that largely fuelled the genocidal massacres.

In his negationism, Charles Onana attempted to revise both the findings of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and many archival research. Primary sources conclusively attest to the fact that the genocide against the Tutsi began on 7 April 1994, and that Habyarimana and his elite planned to massacre Tutsi in advance. Moreover, Onana's conspiracy theories about who shot down Habyarimana's plane and about the role of various entities are not based on archival documents and witness statements but on hearsay, and are therefore not worthy of any consideration. He should rather be severely punished for fuelling hate in the great lakes region and  causing more harm to a society that has been trying to rebuild herself.

@PoliScoop editorial team