The Debris of Ham: Ethnicity, Regionalism, and the 1994 Rwandan Genocide

In the attempt to explain the mass killings of the Tutsi of Rwanda in April-July 1994, books written about the 1994 Rwandan genocide have focused on ethnicity at the expense of other factors, including the acrimonious history of regional politics in Rwanda since the turn of the twentieth century. In The Debris of Ham, Aimable Twagilimana argues that while ethnic ideology provided the materials for the relentless propaganda against the Tutsi and the Hutu of the political opposition in 1990-1994, in a parallel mode, regional politics provided the sine qua non that made the 1994 Rwandan genocide possible. This book investigates the juxtaposition of ethnicity and regionalism in Rwandan politics, and the unfolding of the worst mass murder at the end of the twentieth century.