In the context of the genocide against the Tutsis , the Rwanda Patriotic Army ( RPA ) has been at the centre of this denialist discourse . Its 1990 military offensive to repatriate the 1959 refugees who were scattered in different countries in the region is used as justification for the genocide . The RPA is also blamed for the downing of the presidential plane that “ made people avenge their president .” But vengeance would have made sense if it targeted the RPA . A “ double genocide ” in the DRC in 1996 is also invoked to retroactively justify the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi .
These are denialist arguments because they attempt to defend the indefensible . In normal circumstances , the moral difference that separates genocide from other crimes safeguards it from any form of justification . For instance , war can be , and is often , justified . By definition , war pits adversaries against each other , designated as enemy combatants . Genocide has no adversaries and enemies ; it only has perpetrators and victims .
For instance , the principle of “ just war ” makes war morally acceptable , whereas genocide can never be morally acceptable – the idea of “ just genocide ” is unimaginable . For this reason , rules of war have been established under the Geneva Convention and the violation of such carries a lower order of moral opprobrium than genocide . It is therefore denialist to speak about war and genocide as though they are one and the same .
Genocide deniers have intentionally conflated war and genocide as carrying the same moral reprehension and in so doing they have replaced the Genocide Convention with the Geneva Convention . This is a common tactic when talking about the RPA war in the then Zaire in 1996 where deniers elevate alleged violations of rules of war to the moral order of genocide as a means of creating the equivalence that belittles and justifies the genocide against the Tutsis since , after all , “ both sides killed .”
Consider this . The new post genocide government in Kigali perceived as a security threat the situation where the genocidal army was right across its border – reorganizing , rearming and reassuring the refugees in the camps and the people inside Rwanda that it would return to “ complete the job ”, as one of the Ex-FAR ( former Rwandan army ) commanders put it while expressing regret that Tutsis were not entirely wiped out . The government also viewed with suspicion both the support ( military and diplomatic ) that the Mobutu and French governments were providing to the defeated army and the misdirection of international humanitarian aid for genocide survivors in Rwanda to the refugee camps under the control of genocidal forces .
This context – the mixture of the genocidal army ( Ex-FAR ) and genuine refugees in the same camps had the former use the latter as a human shield , itself a violation of the Geneva Convention – warrants the question of whether the RPA ’ s decision to force its way into the camps to rescue the refugees from the genocidal forces , as well as the removal of Mobutu from power , was a just war .
There ’ s rarely a rational argument that denies that this was a just war . The “ What ” is generally accepted as warranted and , in fact , necessary . Some debate is often around “ How ” the operation was conducted with allegations that in the process the RPA methods contravened the Geneva Convention . However , to elevate this allegation of the “ How ” to the status of genocide cannot stand scrutiny after conceding the part of the “ What ”. One , a just war cannot have an intent to commit genocide . These are competing imperatives .
Second , the repatriation of more than a million people ( estimated at 1.5 million ) to Rwanda following the operation negates the motive for genocide because there would be no point to repatriate refugees to Rwanda if the intent was to exterminate them . In other words , for a genocidal intent there would be no repatriation ; moreover , there were already Hutus living in Rwanda and going about their lives and a genocidal intent would have started with their execution . For similar reasons , the genocidal government didn ' t go into the neighbouring countries looking for Tutsis to kill ; it started with those in its close proximity . Furthermore , at the time of the operations , the RPA had integrated members of the former army to the tune of at least
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