--- title: Rwanda: How the 1994 Genocide Affects the 2010 Vote | TIME description: The 1994 genocide loomed over the voting in Rwanda, where President Paul Kagame won re-election (Produced by The Bureau of International Reporting) canonical: https://time.com/video/B7vfFcCL/ og:title: Rwanda: How the 1994 Genocide Affects the 2010 Vote og:description: The 1994 genocide loomed over the voting in Rwanda, where President Paul Kagame won re-election (Produced by The Bureau of International Reporting) og:url: https://time.com/video/B7vfFcCL/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/B7vfFcCL/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Rwanda: How the 1994 Genocide Affects the 2010 Vote twitter:description: The 1994 genocide loomed over the voting in Rwanda, where President Paul Kagame won re-election (Produced by The Bureau of International Reporting) twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/B7vfFcCL/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # Rwanda: How the 1994 Genocide Affects the 2010 Vote > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Rwanda: How the 1994 Genocide Affects the 2010 Vote [Watch (HLS stream): Rwanda: How the 1994 Genocide Affects the 2010 Vote](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/B7vfFcCL.m3u8) (7:10)  _Published 2010-08-09. The 1994 genocide loomed over the voting in Rwanda, where President Paul Kagame won re-election (Produced by The Bureau of International Reporting)_ --- Jul 27, 2023 2:24 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [TIME Interviews Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda](/video/CtfjEydg/) ### TIME Interviews Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda [Rwanda Somberly Commemorates 25 Years Since Genocide Began](/video/g3GhCRDN/) ### Rwanda Somberly Commemorates 25 Years Since Genocide Began [The Ghosts of the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda's Churches](/video/B9BBJqnq/) ### The Ghosts of the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda's Churches --- ## Transcript >> In the rural hills of Rwanda, thousands of people have come to pledge allegiance to their president, Paul Kagame, who is running for a second seven- year term. -[ Foreign language ] >> In 1994, Kagame was a Tutsi rebel leader in exile when Hutu extremists began the organized massacre of 800, 000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. The world didn't intervene to stop Rwanda's genocide, so Kagame and his troops did. >> We are still burying the bones of some people who got killed during the genocide. We are still judging the criminals and the murderers who took part in the genocide. >> Pastor Antoine Rutayisire says the first step to putting his fractured nation back together was to find some justice for the victims. >> The justice system couldn't cope with the pressure of the 150, 000 people in jail at the same time. So, finally, we opted to go back to our traditional system where the community who saw people committing the crimes will do the investigations. >> This experiment in community justice, called gacaca, led to over 400, 000 prosecutions over the past eight years. The most of those convicted have been released back into society. Today, people of both ethnicities live side by side, perhaps more as a matter of necessity than in real forgiveness. And beyond justice, the government's big hope is that y improving the quality of life of its 11 million citizens as quickly as possible, a return to violence can be further averted. >> To look at the country now, it's really not something one would have imagined. >> Philip Gourevitch is a journalist who first came to the country one year after the genocide, trying to make sense of how neighbor could turn against neighbor. >> The order from above was to kill. And now, the order from above is to live together and to build, and to be proud, and make purpose, and to construct a nation. >> A key priority is building up the country's infrastructure and encouraging international investment. Rwanda has the reputation of being one of the least corrupt nations in Africa. There is free education up through the 9th grade-- >> Is this correct? >> No. >> Now taught in English instead of French, a sign of where this former Belgian colony sees its future. There is also national health care. Even the poorest in the country have access to a plan priced at $ 2 a year. >> There's a total transformation. >> Donald Ndahiro was overseeing a project that is bringing electricity to an entire village. Each family pays an $ 80 fee to wire their house up to the main line. >> They know to get economic benefits like here, you have to join with your neighbor. You have to contribute together to tap this electricity, then, I think there is more stability and social cohesion among people. >> But recently, especially in the month leading up to this presidential election, this carefully- managed development has also led to an increasing political clampdown, says Human Rights Watch's director, Kenneth Roth. >> Basically, there's three parties that most Rwandans consider genuine opposition. Two of them were never allowed to register. A couple of their leaders, their presidential candidates are facing criminal charges. A vice president of one of the parties was murdered. If you look at the written press, there were two very prominent papers that are seen as opposition. Both have been suspended during the entire pre- election period, their editors have fled the country. A major journalist, one of them was murdered. >> People are not free to do what they want. People are not free to say what they-- they wanted to say. >> Victoire Ingabire is one of those opposition candidates not allowed to run in this presidential election. >> We are excluded in this process. And this is why we say the Rwandese people today don't have no choice. >> The government insists Ingabire's party, and another one failed to comply with filing requirements. The leader of the third party is in jail for illegal protests and other charges. >> We wanted to make sure that we create systems, we create institutions. Yet when it comes to elections, for example, the outside world wants us to skip the rules and to ignore the laws and allow people to do things. >> Foreign minister, Louise Mushikiwabo denies the government as guilty of political violence or repression, and says the country's progress is more important than its image. >> Do we forego some of the important things we have to do as a nation so that we please the outside world? Or are we accountable to the people of this country, and we should do what we have agreed to do for the people of this country. >> Ingabire is a controversial figure. A Hutu, she is reintroducing ethnic language to the political arena, and was recently charged under the country's genocide ideology laws for accusing Kagame's troops of war crimes during 1994. >> We don't accept that the government of Kagame used the genocide for-- and political, because you can see that everything you propose and they don't agree, they use the genocide as reason why they refused the proposal. >> We look and we say, there's no freedom of-- there's not real freedom of political contest, and there's not real freedom of speech. There's not freedom of expression. You can't just say anything you want. And why not just let people make the most extreme statements and take them on? But you know, in Europe, after World War II-- not just in Nazi Germany with Holocaust denial, but with many places-- parties get banned. Even we have speech loss. And in a country that's been this polarized, that's the debate. >> But Human Rights Watch's Kenneth Roth worries. >> You don't achieve genuine reconciliation by simply suppressing discussion of the problems. That's a way that you build fear and you build divisiveness, which may look fine at the moment. Things may look temporarily stable. But there is a brewing discontent which one can feel when you take to Rwandans. And there's a real fear I have, that at some point, that will explode. >> It is clear from this current presidential election season that Rwanda, despite its great economic progress, remains a fragile nation. >> We live together at peace, but we are together at peace in our hearts. There is still a lot of suspicion, there is still a lot of fear, there is still a lot of frustration. And it's quite understandable. The genocide happened just 16 years ago. You don't heal a nation in one generation. 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