Such a Long Journey: Peacebuilding After Genocide in Rwanda

Abstract Until its 1994 genocide, Rwanda was among the world’s most obscure countries: a tiny dot on the map of Africa, rarely studied, even more rarely in the news. Today, no country in Africa divides opinion among scholars and commentators as fiercely as Rwanda. A development success, rising from the ashes of mass ethnic slaughter? Or a case of autocratic recidivism, masked by a bogus narrative of national unity? This chapter breaks Rwanda’s highly contested peacebuilding into four main parts—military, society, economy, and youth & women—to put some distance between its tangible gains and failings, on one hand, and the presumed aims and personality of President Paul Kagame, on the other. It finds that Rwanda is a complex—but by no means secure—success.