ABSTRACT
Two of the most intriguing books written on the genocide in Rwanda are Allison Des Forges’ Leave None to Tell the Story and Peter Uvin’s Aiding Violence: the Development Enterprise in Rwanda. This chapter focuses on a neglected characteristic of the genocide, namely the underlying peasant ideology. It looks at the ideology of the Habyarimana regime. Coming to the Second Republic Mamdani argues that Habyarimana was publicly committed to a policy of reconciliation between Hutu and Tutsi within Rwanda. Most scholars writing about the Rwandan genocide are convinced that the plan to commit genocide was developed in the period between November 1991 and August 1992. When dictatorial political power is legitimized with a peasant ideology, genocide becomes a political option because a peasant society does not tolerate the existence of non-peasants, in the same way as a communist society does not tolerate the existence of a capitalist class.
