Plot
The story centers around Augustin Muganza, a Hutu who struggles to find closure after bearing witness to the killing of nearly 1 million Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 100 days, while becoming divided by politics and losing some of their own family. The plot intersperses between the genocide in 1994, and April 2004, when Augustin is invited by his brother, Honoré Butera, to visit him as he stands trial for his involvement in the genocide.
In addition to Augustin's tribulations, the film depicts the attitudes and circumstances leading up to the outbreak of brutal violence, the intertwining stories of people struggling to survive the genocide, and the aftermath as the people try to find justice and reconciliation. The plot is also intercut with scenes of Prudence Bushnell, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs for American President Bill Clinton, and her failed attempts to stop the genocide and advise the American government and public to acknowledge the unfolding genocide.
1994
Augustin, a captain in the Rwandan Armed Forces, lives in Kigali with his wife Jeanne, a Tutsi hospital worker with whom they have two sons, Yves-André and Marcus, and a daughter, Anne-Marie, who is staying in an all-girls Catholic boarding school 150 kilometres from Kigali. Despite constant political disagreement, he remains in close contact with Honoré, a pro-Hutu Power radio personality working for Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM). Augustin is also friends with Xavier Muyango, a fellow Hutu officer and fiancé to Felicie, a Tutsi.
By April 1994, the power-sharing agreement between the Hutu-dominated Rwandan government and Paul Kagame's Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) is breaking down as President Juvénal Habyarimana is viewed by Hutus to be conceding too far in favor of the Tutsis. Despite history of anti-Tutsi violence by hardline Hutus earlier in the Rwandan Civil War and warnings from Honoré and the Hutu ranks in the government that violent action from Hutu extremists may recur, Augustin insists on taking the position of a moderate and remaining in the country to Jeanne's disapproval. On the night of April 6, Habyarimana is killed when his plane is shot down and Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana is assassinated by government soldiers the following morning, reigniting the civil war and signaling the start of mass killings of Tutsis and moderate Hutus by génocidaires comprising pro-Hutu government soldiers and militiamen backed by Hutu extremists, who were prior civilians, indoctrinated by Hutu Power propaganda.
In response to the outbreak of violence, Xavier and Felicie seek refuge at Augustin's home. Fearing danger to his family, Augustin calls on Honoré to use his influence in the community to safely transport his family and Felicie to the Hôtel des Mille Collines, which is harboring refugees, while confident that Anne-Marie is out of harm's way. As Augustin learns from Honoré that he is documented as a Tutsi sympathizer by the government, he elects to stay at home alongside Xavier until it is safe to head to the hotel. On route, Honoré manages to slip his passengers through génocidaire roadblocks, but is stopped at an unexpected military checkpoint, where the group is detained and a scuffle ensues.
After a few days of hiding, Augustin and Xavier escape the house and trail a UNAMIR convoy evacuating expatriates, but are separated from the convoy at a militia roadblock when the officer in charge of the convoy refuses to help. Augustin's life is spared but Xavier is executed as he has been branded a traitor on the radio. Augustin eventually reaches the hotel but is unable to locate his family, and remains there for the rest of the genocide. Meanwhile, Jeanne awakens in shock without her sons at the Sainte-Famille Church over a week after the altercation at the checkpoint. Felicie is later seen lined up for execution by the church building.
Génocidaires eventually breach the school Anne-Marie resides at to screen for Tutsi elements, confronting Martine, a teacher at the school sheltering a group of students, including Anne-Marie, in a dormitory. The students rally behind Martine in solidarity as Martine refuses to divide them into Hutus and Tutsis, only for the group to be indiscriminately slaughtered by gunfire from government soldiers. Martine and Victorine, a fellow student, survive and find Anne-Marie alive but mortally wounded; as they escape, Anne-Marie eventually dies. The two soon find safety among the thick vegetation of the Kayumba swamps, where they are rescued by advancing RPF soldiers.
Towards late-July, the RPF has scored massive territorial gains while members of the Hutu political and military elite and Hutu civilians flee the country out of fear of reprisal from the RPF, ending the civil war and the genocide. Augustin seeks out Anne-Marie at her school, only to find Martine and another woman tending to bodies in the dormitory where the massacre occurred. He grieves when Martine confirms that Anne-Marie is dead.
2004
Haunted by the events in 1994 and resigning to never learn of what had become of Jeanne and his sons, Augustin finds work as a school teacher and lives unmarried with Martine, who remains traumatized by her experience at her old school. Around the tenth anniversary of the start of the genocide, Augustin receives a letter from Honoré expressing interest to discuss in person the fates of Jeanne and his first sons. Honoré has been detained in Arusha in Tanzania, where he is tried by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda for his role at RTLM, after being on the run until his arrest in Italy in 1997.
On Martine's insistence, Augustin reluctantly flies to Tanzania to attend the trial hearings as a visitor, dithering to meet Honoré. Furious to learn that those charged for inciting the genocide live in relative luxury with ample medication and meals while regular Rwandans struggle to survive, Augustin doubts remaining in Tanzania. His stance softens when he befriends Valentine, another genocide survivor. She invites him to listen to her testify in court as an anonymous witness, where he hears of the constant rape she endured in the hands of Interahamwe militiamen while as a mother of a baby. Augustin eventually learns that Valentine is caring for two young sons.
Inspired by Valentine's courage to testify, Augustin is motivated to meet Honoré. At the meeting, Honoré recounts the events that unfolded at the checkpoint to the hotel in 1994: The soldiers were ordered to kill Jeanne, Yves-André and Marcus due to their Tutsi lineage. Augustin's sons were promptly shot dead, but in their excitement, the soldiers presumed Jeanne was also dead despite only being knocked unconscious by a rifle butt. Honoré hid Jeanne in a ditch, before carrying her to the safety of the church at night. For objecting to the kill order, Honoré was listed as a traitor and lost his privilege for safety, forcing him into exile and being unable to aid Jeanne any further. Honoré would later learn that while Jeanne was initially safe and pleaded to join Augustin at the hotel, she was raped by soldiers after the military began to probe the church for Tutsis. With the imminent threat of being killed, Jeanne sacrificed herself with a grenade to save a few rape victims and inflict injury on her aggressors.
Reflecting on Honoré's revelation, Augustin finally finds peace and returns to Rwanda to raise his new family with Martine, who is now expecting a son. The film closes with Martine reconciling with her past by laying flowers at the remains of the school dormitory before attending a nearby Gacaca court to recount her experiences in the genocide.
The United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) was established by United Nations Security Council Resolution 872 on 5 October 1993. It was intended to assist in the implementation of the Arusha Accords, signed on 4 August 1993, which was meant to end the Rwandan Civil War. The mission lasted from October 1993 to March 1996. Its activities were meant to aid the peace process between the Hutu-dominated Rwandese government and the Tutsi-dominated rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). The UNAMIR has received much attention for its role in failing, due to the limitations of its rules of engagement, to prevent the Rwandan genocide and outbreak of fighting. Its mandate extended past the RPF overthrow of the government and into the Great Lakes refugee crisis. The mission is thus regarded as a major failure.
The Rwandan genocide occurred between 7 April and 15 July 1994 during the Rwandan Civil War. During this period of around 100 days, members of the Tutsi minority ethnic group, as well as some moderate Hutu and Twa, were killed by armed Hutu militias. The most widely accepted scholarly estimates are around 500,000 to 662,000 Tutsi deaths.
Opération Turquoise was a French-led military operation in Rwanda in 1994 under the mandate of the United Nations. The "multilateral" force consisted of 2,500 troops, 32 from Senegal and the rest French. The equipment included 100 APCs, 10 helicopters, a battery of 120 mm mortars, 4 Jaguar fighter bombers, 8 Mirage fighters, and reconnaissance aircraft. The helicopters laid a trail of food, water and medicine enabling refugees to escape into eastern Zaire. Opération Turquoise is controversial for at least two reasons: accusations that it was an attempt to prop up the genocidal Hutu regime, and that its mandate undermined the UNAMIR. By facilitating 2 million Rwandan refugees to travel to Kivu provinces in Zaire, Turquoise setup the causes of the First Congo War.
Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM) was a Rwandan radio station which broadcast from July 8, 1993 to July 31, 1994. It played a significant role in inciting the Rwandan genocide that took place from April to July 1994, and has been described by some scholars as having been a de facto arm of the Hutu government.
The assassination of presidents Juvénal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira in the evening of April 6, 1994 was the proximate trigger for the Rwandan genocide, which resulted in the murder of approximately 800,000 Tutsi and a smaller number of moderate Hutu. The first few days following the assassinations included a number of key events that shaped the subsequent course of the genocide. These included: the seizing of power by an interim government directed by the hard-line Akazu clique; the liquidation of opposition Hutu politicians; the implementation of plans to carry out a genocide throughout the country; and the murder of United Nations peacekeepers, contributing to the impulse of the international community to refrain from intervention.
Paul Rusesabagina is a Rwandan human rights activist. He worked as the manager of the Hôtel des Mille Collines in Kigali, during a period in which it housed 1,268 Hutu and Tutsi refugees fleeing the Interahamwe militia during the Rwandan genocide. None of these refugees were hurt or killed during the attacks.
The Rwandan Civil War was a large-scale civil war in Rwanda which was fought between the Rwandan Armed Forces, representing the country's government, and the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) from 1 October 1990 to 18 July 1994. The war arose from the long-running dispute between the Hutu and Tutsi groups within the Rwandan population. A 1959–1962 revolution had replaced the Tutsi monarchy with a Hutu-led republic, forcing more than 336,000 Tutsi to seek refuge in neighbouring countries. A group of these refugees in Uganda founded the RPF which, under the leadership of Fred Rwigyema and Paul Kagame, became a battle-ready army by the late 1980s.
Mbaye Diagne was a Senegalese military officer who served in Rwanda as a United Nations military observer from 1993 to 1994. During the Rwandan genocide he undertook many missions on his own initiative to save the lives of civilians.
The Amahoro Stadium, officially known as Amahoro National Stadium, is a multi-purpose stadium in the Gasabo district of Kigali, Rwanda. With a capacity of 25,000, it is the largest stadium in Rwanda and hosts football matches, concerts, and public events. The football clubs Armée Patriotique Rwandaise F.C. and Rayon Sports F.C. are the tenants. The venue is also sometimes used for rugby union.
Shooting Dogs, released in the United States as Beyond the Gates, is a 2005 film, directed by Michael Caton-Jones and starring John Hurt, Hugh Dancy and Clare-Hope Ashitey. It is based on the experiences of BBC news producer David Belton, who worked in Rwanda during the Rwandan genocide. Belton is the film's co-writer and one of its producers.
Kangura was a Kinyarwanda and French-language magazine in Rwanda that served to stoke ethnic hatred in the run-up to the Rwandan genocide. The magazine was established in 1990, following the invasion of the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), and continued publishing up to the genocide. Edited by Hassan Ngeze, the magazine was a response to the RPF-sponsored Kanguka, adopting a similar informal style. "Kangura" was a Rwandan word meaning "wake others up", as opposed to "Kanguka", which meant "wake up". The journal was based in Gisenyi.
The following is a partial chronology of significant events surrounding the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
Seth Sendashonga was the Minister of the Interior in the government of national unity in Rwanda, following the military victory of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) after the 1994 genocide. One of the politically moderate Hutus in the National Unity Cabinet, he became increasingly disenchanted with the RPF and was eventually forced from office in 1995 after criticizing government policies. After surviving a 1996 assassination attempt while in exile in Kenya, he launched a new opposition movement, the Forces de Résistance pour la Démocratie (FRD). Sendashonga was killed by unidentified gunmen in May 1998. The Rwandan government is widely believed to be responsible for the assassination.
Stefan Steć was a major of the Polish Armed Forces. In 1994, he served as a peacekeeper in the UNAMIR forces in Rwanda under general Roméo Dallaire. For his dedication in saving lives during Rwandan genocide at the risk to his own, he was awarded the Cross of Merit for Bravery by Polish President Lech Wałęsa. He died at the age of 40 due to complications from posttraumatic stress disorder.
These are some of the articles related to Rwanda on the English Wikipedia pages:
Jerry Robert Kajuga was national president of the Interahamwe, the group largely responsible for perpetrating the Rwandan genocide against the Tutsi people in 1994. Born to a Tutsi father and a Hutu mother, Kajuga concealed his background and presented himself as being of pure Hutu descent. It was said that being Tutsi, he nearly collaborated with Paul Kagame by helping the RPF Inkotanyi soldiers to infiltrate his Interahamwe for exterminating many Tutsis. This is notable as Hutu Power extremist groups considered Hutus who married Tutsis to be race traitors, and Kajuga went to great lengths to conceal his identity.
Violence during the Rwandan genocide of 1994 took a gender-specific form when, over the course of 100 days, up to half a million women and children were raped, sexually mutilated, or murdered. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) handed down the first conviction for the use of rape as a weapon of war during the civil conflict, and, because the intent of the mass violence against Rwandan women and children was to destroy, in whole or in part, a particular ethnic group, it was the first time that mass rape during wartime was found to be an act of genocidal rape.
Tatiana Rusesabagina is a Rwandan who with her husband Paul Rusesabagina, survived in Hôtel des Mille Collines during the 1994 Rwandan genocide, and saved over a thousand people from being murdered. This story was used as the basis for the 2004 film Hotel Rwanda, in which Tatiana was portrayed by Sophie Okonedo, who was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Tatiana.
In Praise of Blood: The Crimes of the Rwandan Patriotic Front is a 2018 non-fiction book by Canadian journalist Judi Rever and published by Random House of Canada; it has also been translated into Dutch and French. The book describes alleged war crimes by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), Rwanda's ruling political party, during its ascent to power in the 1990s.
