Third World Quarterly
The Global Coffee Economy and the Production of Genocide in Rwanda
Author(s): Isaac A. Kamola
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Third World Quarterly, Vol. 28, No. 3 (2007), pp. 571-592
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R Routedge
ThirdWorld Quarterly, Vol. 28, No. 3, 2007, pp 571-592
The Global
and the
Coffee Economy
in Rwanda
of Genocide
Production
ISAAC A KAMOLA
ABSTRACTMost academic work on thegenocide inRwanda uses either a
methodologically social scientific or historical approach to explain the
genocide's root causes. These causal storiesmost oftenfocus on ethnicity
and, indoing so, understatehow structuredeconomic-materialrelationsmade
theconditionsfor genocide possible. Turning toLouis Althusser's concept of
structuralcausality, Iform an alternativemethod for narrating thegenocide
which treats thegenocide as the resultof highlycomplex and over-determined
social relations. The paper then re-examines the structuralcausality of the
genocide, focusing on how the coffeeeconomy intersectedwith theeconomic,
cultural, state, and ideological registersat which thegenocide was produced.
Representing thegenocide in termsof structuralcausality addresses how over
determinedexploitative relationships betweenHutu, Tutsi, coloniser, colo
nised, rich,poor, farmer,evolue, northerner,southerner,coffeeproducer, coffee
consumer,etc-produced thegenocide.
requires
more thansimply
Therefore,dealingwithAfricansocieties''historicity'
giving an account of what occurs on the continent itself... It also presupposes a
critical delving intoWestern history and the theories that claim to interpret it.
(AchilleMbembe)
The 1994 genocide inRwanda was, and continues to be, a global event.While
the vast majority of wounds were sustained within Rwanda's national
borders, the violence was actually produced at many differentlocations
material relationships.1Pre- and post
throughcomplex and highly stratified
independence colonial practices institutionalised in foreign aid donors,
commodity markets, and international lending institutions formed the
economic-material base on which a deadly mixture of ethnic ideology,
arms exports, foreignmilitary support, forceddemocratisation, an invading
army, impotent international institutions,hate radio, elite manipulation,
individual complicity and regional instabilitycreated a nexus of precarious,
perverse and ultimatelygenocidal social relationships.The genocide's effects
are also global and continue to reverberatein the formof refugeecamps, a
Isaac
A Kamola
Building,
TISN
is in the Department
19th Avenue
0143-6597
of Political
South, Minneapolis,
print/1TIN
1360-2241
MN
Science,
55455, USA.
online/07/030571-22
University of Minnesota,
Email:
?
1414 Social
Sciences
[email protected].
2007 Third World
DOI: 10.1080/01436590701192975
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Quarterly
571
ISAAC A KAMOLA
war crimes tribunal, regionalmilitary realignments,and massively deadly
conflicts throughout the region. In addition, the genocide continues to be
discursively reproduced through the mass media, NGO reports, acts of
remembrance,confessions, testimony,documentaries,motion pictures and
numerous academic books, articlesand conferences.While many instancesof
mass violence thewar in Congo, for example are relativelyobscure to
Western audiences, the 'Rwandan genocide' is continually reproduced as a
global sign which continually intersectsdisciplined academic debates and
public discourses alike.
For many in theWestern academy likemyself-the genocide isunknown
in its immediacy and exists only as mediated through apparatuses of
representation.Most of these representationalpractices seek to explain the
incomprehensiblycomplex social relationshipswhich coalesced in genocide.
Journalistswere the firstto circulate explanations forwhy the genocide was
takingplace, framingtheviolence in the language of 'ancienthatreds'.2 The
ubiquity of these often racist, primordialist accounts troubled many
academics who, in turn,dedicated themselves to providingmore sophisti
cated causal narratives. Johan Pottier contends that, since April 1994,
'numerous journalists, aid and reliefworkers, diplomats, politicians and
academics... [have] embarked on a mental crusade to make sense of a
situation seeminglydrained of every formof logic and morality'. As a result,
Rwanda has become 're-imagined ... througha synchronizedproduction of
knowledge' as a local site of 'ethnicconflict'.3
Most academics who have responded to these 'ancient hatreds' accounts
have framed the genocide in primarily ethnic terms.Catharine Newbury
warns that 'obsessively' focusing on ethnicity leads scholars to 'overlook
questions of power and class' . Despite thiswarning, however, scholars of the
genocide continue to leave 'class' largelyunexplored, even while producing
increasingly sophisticated understandings of ethnicity and its political
manipulation. While this lack of class analysis undoubtedly reflectsa post
cold war academic environment inwhich rational individualism, economic
liberalism and identitypolitics have become hegemonic, it also indicates a
failure of critical scholars to explain how economic-material analyses are
still relevant,given that economic deterministaccounts of 'class conflict'no
longer seem to apply.5
While many academics recognise that the genocide occurred during an
economic crisisbrought on by thecollapse of internationalcoffeeprices, they
often treat this crisismerely as a backdrop against which essentially ethnic
violence played out. They contend that,even ifeconomic crisishelped spark
theviolence, 'politicalmanipulation' of ethnicity iswhat really transformed
economic resentment 'into an engine of violence'.6 In placing Rwanda's
century-longintegrationinto thecoffeeeconomy at thecentreofmy analysis,
I illustratehow ethnicityand class can be understood as over-determined
registerswhich overlap, blurring into and reorderingeach other in complex
and often contradictoryways. While ethnicity is never synonymouswith
'class', these two registersof social relationalityconstantly reproduce each
other. Over the course of a hundred years, ethnic and class relations had
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THE GLOBAL COFFEE ECONOMY
over-determinedeach other such that by 1994 the conditions for genocide
were present inRwanda.
This article begins by explaining how the twomajor trends in scholarship
on the genocide one using social scientificmethodology, one narrating
historical contingency share similar causal assumptions. I then introduce
Althusser's concept of structured causality as a way to explore the
economic-material dimension of the genocide without falling back on an
economically determinedunderstandingof 'class conflict'.The second part of
thisarticle re-narratesthehistoryof thegenocide by arranging thehistorical
evidence around coffee,as opposed to ethnicity.In so doing, I show how what
is commonly understood as a local 'ethnicconflict' can simultaneously be
described as an over-determinedsymptomof a particularlyviolent neoliberal
restructuringof theglobal capitalist economy.
Narrating thegenocide's causality
Numerous scholars have attempted to identifygenocide's root causes. These
accounts can be divided crudely into two categories: one thatemploys social
sciencesmethodology and one thatnarrates historical events as contingent.
Most methodologically social scientificaccounts develop models that
simplifythe genocide into a series of variables operatingwithin a definable
chain of causality.7Other social scientistsuse thegenocide as one case study
useful in proving a general set of hypotheses about 'ethnic conflict' in
general.8 Taking the world as objectively given, these 'problem-solving
theorists' tryto isolate a conflict's root cause believing thatdoing so enables
informeddecision-makers to prevent such violence in the future.9
Achille Mbembe forcefullycriticises such social science as uninterested in
'comprehending the political inAfrica' and instead concerned exclusively
with 'what is immediatelyuseful' for thepurpose of 'social engineering'. In
his view such scholarship is 'dogmatically programmatic', 'cavalier' and
'reductionist'; it eviscerates history by replacing the lived practices of
particularRwandans with a timelessnessand placelessness which can only be
made meaningful by academics uniquely poised to decipher otherwise
'senseless'violence.10These approaches also imply that theWestern audience
forwhom the social scientistwrites is objective, benevolent and interestedin
preventing theviolence conducted by the 'local' Rwandan population.
If one acceptsMbembe's critique, as I do, one turns to scholarship on the
genocide offeredby historians, regional specialists and social scientistswho
explicitly situate the violence as embedded within its deeply historical,
political, economic and social contexts. Catharine and David Newbury's
exemplar article, 'A Catholic Mass inKigali', is successful as a historically
rich,contingentlycausal account. They argue that,while thegenocide isoften
considered an 'ethnicconflict' it is important to recognise that ethnicity is
neither 'an enduring, unchanging element of social formation' nor 'an
instantaneous, recent invention'. Instead, political leaders carefullyplanned
the genocide by mobilising ethnic divisions during a timewhen 'Rwanda's
state and societywere in severe crisis' as a resultof 'changingconfiguration[s]
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ISAAC A KAMOLA
of regional, class, and ethnic divisions in Rwanda' and 'the growing
militarization of state and society', which coincided with failed 'political
liberalization and multipartyism'.They conclude theirarticle by recognising
that,while the genocide was planned by individual actors, it had 'strong
overtones of class conflict',even ifethnicity 'served as the language through
which these fears and ambitions were expressed'. Unlike methodologically
social scientificapproaches, this account (and others of a similar style)
recognises thegenocide as resultingfromcomplex, historical and contingent
causes, and refuses to reduce the genocide to underlying logics or sets of
variables.11 Narrating the genocide as historically contingent, however,
means that it is presented as specific to Rwanda, where, it is implied, the
particular combination of causes only existed in one particular location and
at one particularmoment. In otherwords, in theseaccounts, thegenocide is
often narrated as an exceptional exercise of violence, unprecedented in its
magnitude, velocity and personal cruelty.
While thesehistoricallyrichaccounts are immenselyvaluable, we must also
ask what is lost in viewing thehorror of thegenocide inRwanda as entirely
unique. This is an especially importantquestion given that ethnicised and
decentralisedmass violence isbecoming an increasinglycommon condition in
much of the previously colonised world.12 It is, therefore,necessary to
develop techniques fornarrating instances of postcolonial violence inways
which recognise theirparticular, yet over-determined,causality. This can be
accomplished by focusingon the conditionswhich produced thegenocide as
opposed to the threshold13at which over-determined relations became
uniquely organised intogenocide. The genocide's threshold,however, did not
materialise fromnowhere; it tookmore than a centuryof social arrangement
and rearrangement,production and reproduction, and class and ethnic re
articulation to over-determine the genocide. In thisway, the genocide in
Rwanda is neither reductively(causally) determined nor merely the sum of
contingent social discontent, evil individuals, political calculation, and
institutional failure.To develop this point furtherI introduceAlthusser's
concept of structuralcausality.
Structural causality
Most accounts of thegenocide, including those detailed above, assume what
Althusser calls 'transitivecausality', inwhich cause and effectoperate like
billiard balls: 'homogeneous but atomized elementsbounce offeach other in
a linear and unique sequence lacking any general structure beyond the
cumulative effects'of their individual interactions.14It presupposes a 'planar
space' in which all phenomena have 'an object-cause' and play out
homogeneously in a 'linear' fashion.15 In the methodologically social
scientificaccounts the genocide's cause(s) are understood as discrete, but
abstracted, variables ('population density', 'ethnicity', 'regime type', etc).
Historical narratives, even thosewhich assume a contingent rather than a
homogenously linear logicof causality, also explain theactivityof individuals
or groups in termsof transitivecausality ('X did A and Y responded B). In
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THE GLOBAL COFFEE ECONOMY
many of these accounts, an essential cause-an abstraction like 'class' or
'ethnicity'-stands in for the 'real objects', ie the infinitely
complex totality
which actually produced thegenocide.
Marx, Althusser argues, imploded the empiricist theory of transitive
causality by contending that only real objects exist.While every representa
tion necessarily abstracts real objects, these abstractions (which are
themselvesreal objects) are placed within a narrative structureinwhich true
complexity is reduced to its essential components. As a result, the act of
attributing transitivecausality is always political, and produces new social
relationshipswith theirown material effects.For example, a narrativeof the
genocide which focuses on 'ancient hatreds' effectivelyrenders economic
material relationships invisible.
Althusser offers 'structuralcausality', also known as over-determination,
as an alternative to transitivecausality. For Althusser, change does not take
place when unchanging objects co-occur at a discernible and understandable
moment. Instead change is theperpetual condition of immanentproduction
and reproduction within a structured totality, a mode of production
consisting of a base and a semi-autonomous superstructure.Unlike
economically deterministMarxist accounts, which view the base as solely
determinant of the superstructure,Althusser contends that the semi
autonomous superstructurecontains differentregions, registersand levels
which are often in contradiction.The structureis not, therefore,'an essence
outside' (ie 'capitalism', 'ethnicity',etc) but is instead 'immanent in its
effects.., thewhole existenceof thestructureconsistsof itseffects'.Structured
regions 'deep and complex' sets of relationships produce different,and
often contradictory,effects.16
For example, in some ways the ideologies of
ethnicity,development, and liberalisationaided theextractionofwealth from
Rwanda while, simultaneously, in otherways theycontradicted colonial or
capitalist accumulation.
Within the structuredtotality,therefore,over-determinedcontradiction is
neither the unfolding of contingent transitivelycausal events nor the
manifestation of an overarching 'general contradiction' (ie proletariat/
bourgeoisie or Hutu/Tutsi), but always a unique set of overlapping,
intersectingand irreduciblecontradictions at multiple registers,which are
organised under a particular global mode of production.My account of the
genocide, therefore,does not look for the genocide's true root cause but
instead attempts to explicate one aspect of thegenocide's production.
Narrating thegenocide in termsof structuralcausality
Given the limitationsof both methodologically social scientificapproaches
and those accounts focusing on historical contingency, I attempt here to
narrate thehistoryof thegenocide in termsof structural,or over-determined,
causality.How does one write a historical narrative of thegenocide as over
determined?First and foremostsuch a narrative recognises thatno historical
representationcan ever completelycapture the incomprehensiblecomplexity
of thegenocide. Instead, one startswith the recognition that thegenocide's
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ISAAC A KAMOLA
real cause is an infinitelycomplex totalityproduced by millions of people
who, over an extended period of time, occupied different and over
determined ethnic, class, institutional, regional, global and ideological
positions. A narrative predicated on structural causality, therefore,
recognises that the particularityof the genocide's 'real' causality can never
be known in its totality.One also acknowledges that theveryparticular social
relationswhich existed at the thresholdof the genocide have continued to
undergo transformationand, as a result, even the representationsof the
genocide produced by Rwandans and Western academics alike are also
continually over-determined,constantly being re-inscribedwith new mean
ing.As a result,a narration committed to over-determinationshould never
be read as an authoritative causal explanation, but rather as a real object
situatedwithin its own structured relationships and productive of its own
effects.
Second, narrating the genocide in terms of over-determinationmeans
remainingattentive to economic -material relationshipswithout fallingback
on economically deterministicaccounts. I do not, forexample, argue that the
genocide was essentiallya conflictbetween richand poor or caused by global
capitalism (commodity traders,the IMF,etc). Instead,my narration illustrates
how the coffeeeconomy was productive of the conditions forgenocide and
how subjectswith differentclass, ethnic, regional, educational, etc position
ality were, at differenthistorical moments, influencedby institutionsand
ideologies that both constrained them and created the very possibilities for
action. In thisway thenarrative isnot about relativelyconstant relationships
and often
between unchanging classes and ethnicitiesbut about how different,
conflicting,registersof human activityand subjectivitycoalesce inparticular
moments to form social relationshipswhich are simultaneouslyunique and
structuredby theglobal mode of production. For example, unlikemuch of the
scholarship which would look at ethnicity in Rwanda as a relatively
unchanged colonial artifact,an account wedded to over-determinationwould
see ethnicityas an ordered set of social relationswhich, in contactwith other
relations such as class, is constantly changing over time,making new
relationshipspossible.
Finally, a narrationwhich starts from the premise of over-determination
identifieshow thegenocide inRwanda isnot an isolated case of unthinkable
ethnic violence but instead a singular example of the violence produced
mode of productionwhich isglobal in scope. Unlike
within a highlystratified
narratives that depend upon transitive causality, an over-determined
narrative allows us to see how actors at differentregistersand at different
historical moment-colonialists,
colonised, Hutus, Tutsis, northerners,
southerners, farmers, evolues (see below), refugees, commodity traders,
coffee drinkers, arms manufacturers, development agents, IMF officials,
foreign diplomats, guerrilla fighters,etc-all produced the possibility for
genocide. This is done by, on theone hand, recognising thathuman activity
at many differentregisterswas necessary to produce the conditions for the
genocide while, on theother hand, illustratinghow not all activity is equally
situatedwithin structuredrelationships.An over-determinedanalysis looks
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THE GLOBAL COFFEE ECONOMY
at those moments at which contradictions at different, hierarchical
registers-economic or otherwise overlay each other in ways thatmake
theconditions forviolence possible. For example,while ethnic identities
may
facilitateeconomic exchange during a timeof relativeprosperity,during an
economic crisis theycan be re-articulatedas ways of organising violence.
Coffee and theproductionof genocide
In thissection I re-narratetheproduction of genocide inRwanda in termsof
structuredcausality.While I could approach this task from any one of a
number of angles, I have chosen Rwanda's century-longintegrationinto the
coffeeeconomy and the austeritymeasures resultingfrom the 1989 collapse
of internationalcoffeeprices as my organisingprinciple.Despite considerable
evidence that thecoffeeeconomywas a major aspect of life inRwanda, very
little scholarship has attempted to explain how particular social relations
organised around thecoffeeeconomymay have produced theconditions for
genocide. By focusingon thecoffeeeconomy and re-narratingthegenocide in
termsof structuralcausality, I hope to 1)move beyond the limitationsof the
social scientificand historically contingent approaches summarised above;
and 2) show that the genocide is over-determinedwithin a global mode of
production.
In narrating thegenocide in termsof thecoffeeeconomy I am not arguing
that ethnicity is unimportant to understanding it,nor do I dispute the fact
that ethnicity is a definitive lived reality formany Rwandans victims and
genocidaires alike. I am suggesting,rather, that focusing solely on ethnicity
can have the unintended effectof obscuring the importantways inwhich
ethnicity is over-determined within asymmetrically structuredmaterial
conditions.While I see my contribution as complementing the historical
accounts of the genocide, elevating the coffeeeconomy to the centre ofmy
analysis allows me to emphasisemoments inwhich it isparticularlyapparent
how thegenocide was not a contingentanomaly but instead situatedwithin
material relationships.
structured,yet over-determined,
Colonialism to independence
Before contact with theGermans, theRwandan kingdom became increas
inglycentralisedunder the reignof Rwabugiri (c 1860-95). As itdid, 'Tutsi'
came to denote lineagesof cattle-wealthychiefsclose to thekingwhile 'Hutu'
referredto everyone else. The German, and laterBelgian, colonialists used
theirmilitary superiority to remake these economic and political signifiers
into 'ethnic' identities in order to ease the extraction of wealth from the
kingdom. Under pressure to erect an 'economically solvent colonial state',
the colonial administration established indirect rule in which Tutsi chiefs
served as 'intermediaries'between theEuropean and native populations. The
chiefs receivedmilitary support to help solidify their political control.17
Many Tutsi chiefs and sub-chiefsprofited substantially from this effortto
'integrateRwanda into theworld economy'.18
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ISAAC A KAMOLA
German imperialistswere originally attracted to Rwanda because of its
good agricultural conditions and well organised political structure.Around
the turn of the centurymissionaries began experimentingwith small-scale
coffeecultivation inGerman East Africa, bringingcoffeetoRwanda in 1905.19
During the 1920s European countries feltthreatenedby Brazil's commanding
control over world coffeeproduction and began actively encouraging large
scale coffeeproduction in theirAfrican colonies,20with the resultthatAfrican
coffeeproduction increaseddramaticallyby themid-1950s.2'
In 1927 colonial authorities in Rwanda began aggressively promoting
coffeeproduction.22By 1931 theyadopted officialpolicies enabling chiefsand
sub-chiefs to force their subjects to cultivate coffee for export. Tutsi chiefs
were encouraged to use their 'traditionalauthority' to levy labour tribute,or
ubureetwa,forcingthepeasantry to both work on thechiefs plantations and
build colonial infrastructure.
Because Tutsis were excluded fromubureetwa,
theburden to pay tributefellon thenon-Tutsi,which gradually consolidated
theHutu intoan increasinglyidentifiableand impoverishedagriculturalclass.
Eventually ubureetwa became codified into colonial law,which gave chiefs
furtherbacking from thecolonial state and made paying tributeincreasingly
difficultforHutus to avoid. In 1949 ubureetwawas officiallyabolished and
replaced with taxation which was justified as more humane than forced
labour. In practice, however,Hutus were forced to pay taxes and work on
private plantations owned by local chiefs.23Supported by colonial powers,
chiefs and sub-chiefs increasingly consolidated control over land, tax
revenue, agriculturalproducts, and labour.24 In addition, the colonial state
began enforcing coffeecultivation including specificpruning, spraying and
mulching procedures thereby bringing farmers increasingly under the
colonial state's authority.25
European indirect rule was justified using the Hamitic Myth, which
asserted that theTutsi, as Hamites, were naturally superior to theNegroid
Hutu.26 The Hamitic hypothesis was taught to Tutsis in schools and
seminaries throughoutcolonial Rwanda, helping to create a culture of Tutsi
superiority. In addition to disseminating and moralising theHutu/Tutsi
division, the Catholic Church served as a powerful apparatus for the
ideological justificationof indirectrule.For example, Leon Classe, a German
priest influential in advising the Belgian take-over of Rwanda, vocally
supported 'medieval-style' land ownership,with a Tutsi aristocracy ruling
over themajority of landless Hutus. In 1933 this ideological separation
betweenHutu and Tutsi was reinforcedwhen the colonial state distributed
ethnic identitycards to systematisethe restrictionof administrativejobs and
higher education to Tutsis.27
By mid-century the inequalities caused by forced labour, asymmetrical
accumulation, and ethnic segregation became impossible to ignore.Many
Hutus especially in regions brought under Belgian and Tutsi control
relatively late began vocally opposing Tutsi chiefs. In the southwest
(Kinyaga) and northwest (Gisenyi and Ruhengeri) Hutu leaders,with the
help of a newly sympathetic Catholic Church, openly expressed their
dissatisfactionwith Tutsi rule.28By the early 1950s the increasinglyvisible
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THE GLOBAL COFFEE ECONOMY
ultra-exploitation of the Hutus, coupled with the expansion of the cash
economy, made 'neo-traditional' clientship both less legitimate and less
profitable.
Amid increased domestic criticism, UN pressure and the growing
economic infeasibilityof colonial rule, thecolonial administrationand local
missionaries expanded educational and political opportunities for theHutu
population. The newly educated class of Hutu, evolues, continued to pub
licise theeconomic and political oppression to audiences inEurope, theUN
and throughout the greater Catholic Church. They consolidated mass
support domestically by establishing political parities, social groups and
periodicals.
In 1956, to aid impoverishedHutu farmers,Father Louis Pien donated a
hectare of land to establish thecoffeeco-operativeTrafipro (Travail, Fidelite,
Progres) inGitarama, which provided importanteconomic and leadership
opportunities for the emerging Hutu counter-elite. In 1957 Gregoire
Kayibanda, a southernHutu businessman and eventual firstpresident of
Rwanda, became head of Trafipro. From thisposition,Kayibanda launched
theMouvement Social Muhutu (MsM) the precursor to the Parti du
Mouvement et l'Emancipation Hutu (Parmethutu) and established an elite
circlewhich became the ruling clique at independence. It was within this
emerging social formation that Kayibanda and others wrote the widely
circulatedHutu Manifesto, which contended that the 'problem is above all a
problem of politicalmonopoly... held by one race, themututsi'.30
Some politicians, however, attempted to organise Rwandans around class
as opposed to ethnicity.A fewmonths after signing theHutu Manifesto,
JosephHabyarimana Gitera, broke with MSM to form l'Association pour la
Promotion Sociale de la Masse (Aprosoma). Gitera, unlike Kayibanda,
advocated a common cause between Hutu and poor Tutsi. While Gitera's
a 'teacher and leader of
potential audience was larger,Kayibanda-being
several organizations' includingTrafipro had the skill and opportunity to
build a grassroots organisation 'based on a structureof local cells,with a
party organizer on each local hill'. In addition,Kayibanda created strategic
'linkages'between theHutu evolue and the ruralpopulation. As colonial rule
waned, ethnicityemerged as themost viable basis forpolitical and economic
mobilisation, and accordingly,MSM, Aprosoma and otherHutu organisa
tionsbegan to re-articulatenational Hutu identityunder thecommon banner
of Hutu Power.31
However, while the Hutu educated class was successfullymobilising
around ethnicity, economic and political inequality remained largely
unchanged. For example, by 1958 the success of Rwandan coffee sales
transformedTrafipro into a prosperous organisation worth half a million
more than 100members. However, despite originally
francsand representing
being an organisation forHutu farmers,the 1958membership and board of
directorswas dominated by Tutsis.32
By the timeofKing Mutara Rudahigwa's death in 1959, the transitionto
democracy was becoming increasinglyethnicised. Parties which organised
both Hutus and Tutsis lost ground to Parmehutu and the royalistTutsi
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ISAAC A KAMOLA
party, Union Nationale Rwandaise (UNAR).33 In January 1961 80% of
Rwandans voted to end theTutsi monarchy, therebyopening thedoor for a
transitiontowards independence.A year laterKayibanda's Parmehutu party
won a largemajority and declared a 'HutuRevolution'. During thisperiod a
series of failed invasions by Tutsi refugees sparked pogroms against the
domestic Rwandan Tutsi population inwhich tensof thousandswere killed
and hundreds of thousands displaced.34These attackswere used by thenewly
minted Hutu politicians to create themyths of 'a Hutu revolution'.During
these re3prisals
many Hutus received goods and land seized from Tutsi
victims.
The riseof Parmehutu to power, however, did littleto ease thedeprivation
experienced by the impoverishedHutu majority. The European population
and Tutsi aristocracy retained the 'well-paid jobs, foreign education
opportunities, cars and fuel,brick houses, telephones,and other instruments
of development and power'. In fact, themajority rural population saw little
economic transformation.The only difference
was feltby thenewHutu 'state
class', which enjoyed the 'political and economic benefits once reserved
exclusively for Tutsi elites. 6During this period, coffee became Rwanda's
major export and theprimary source of foreigncurrency.37
As itdid so, the
Hutu ruling class began to centralise control over its production and
exportation.
The InternationalCoffeeAgreement
Even as coffeebecame increasinglyimportant to theRwandan economy, by
themid- 1950s the internationalcoffeeeconomywas largelyin crisis. Immense
stockpiles,38 over-production39 and the growing popularity of African
robusta varietals40 sent the coffee commodity market into a tailspin. In
1957 seven Latin American nations signed theAgreement of Mexico, in
which theyagreed towithhold coffee from themarket in an attempt to raise
prices. However, this plan failed in the face of continued African coffee
production. During the early 1960s the US government, the US coffee
industry,Latin American coffeeproducers and recentlyindependentAfrican
nations like Rwanda all advocated for global regulation of the coffee
economy, culminating in the signingof the InternationalCoffee Agreement
(ICA).41Arranged during a 1962 UN conference, the ICA attempted to
stabilise theglobal coffeemarket by imposing quotas and price controls on
the 43 exporting and 24 importingcountrieswhich comprised 9900 of the
world coffeemarket.
The ICAwas also designed to consolidate the coffeeeconomy in thehands
of theUSA, western Europe and the largeSouth American coffeeproducers,
however.Votes within theoverseeing body were distributed inproportion to
thevolume of coffeeexported or imported.For example, in 1968 Brazil (the
largest exporter) received 332 votes while theUSA (the largest importer)
received 400 votes; Rwanda received six votes.42Most African countries
received fewvotes, despite having largerpercentages of their total economy
dependent on coffee.
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THE GLOBAL COFFEE ECONOMY
The ICA was a mixed blessing formany African countries. On the one
hand, fixedprices insuredpriceswell above 1962 levels.43On theother hand,
quotas lockedmany African countries into small, inflexiblemarket shares
during a period of increased internationaldemand. Many African countries
signed the ICA, fearing that,without a treaty,Brazil would sell itsmassive
coffee reserves, effectivelybottoming out international coffee prices and
destroying fledglingAfrican producers.44
As the internationalprice of coffee increased, theRwandan Hutu elite
sought to consolidate control over this increasinglyvaluable commodity.
Starting in 1962, the same yearRwanda signed the ICA,PresidentKayibanda
transformedTrafipro into a state-runmarketing board which, by 1966,
maintained 27 national shops and 70 coffeepurchasing points throughoutthe
country.Northern Hutu eliteswere highly sceptical of Trafipro, arguing that
it was a monopoly operating in favour of southern businessmen from
Gitarama at the expense of those from thenorth. By the late 1960s Trafipro
was responsible for fostering 'regional bias, corruption and [a] climate of
terror' as it became 'the backbone of an authoritarian regime' in which
'northernbusinessmen found themselvespushed out of business and out of
politics'.45Such intenseinter-eliteregionalismcreated a considerable political
problem forKayibanda, who claimed to rule in thename of the entireHutu
majority. Kayibanda's regime deflected regionalist divisions by repeatedly
articulating theTutsi as a common enemy.Tutsis were denied jobs, education
and military service.By 1973 'Public Safety Committees' routinelycarried
out violence against Tutsis. The resultingviolence, however, could not be
contained along ethnic lines as Hutu politicians fromboth the north and
south used thecommittees to settlepersonal disputes, oftenof a regional, as
opposed to ethnic, nature. The resulting tit-for-tatviolence created the
conditions of instability in which Major-General Juvenal Habyarimana,
supported by northernHutu business elites, seized power in July1973.
While Habyarimana initiallyeased the ethnic and regional conflictwhich
had become the hallmark of Rwandan politics during the 1960s and early
1970s,46 the contradictionsbetween the impoverishedrural and thewealthy
urban populations were increasinglyexacerbated byHabyarimana's effortsto
gain thesupportofWestern capitalistcountries.Trafipro-one ofKayibanda's
major sourcesof political control-was abolished and Habyarimana instituted
a seriesof economic reforms,known as 'planned liberalism',which pushed for
greater privatisation under the banner of rural prosperity.47To attract
internationalinvestors,Habyarimana renamed the rulingparty theMouve
ment RevolutionaireNational pour leDeveloppement (MRND) and parliament
was termed the Conseil National du Developpement. During this period,
Rwanda received large sums of foreigndevelopment aid, witnessed consider
able economic growth,and was heralded as an African success story.48
While Habyarimana's policies helped increase Rwanda's GDP and its
Human Development Index (HDI) rating,massive class inequalitycontinued
to exist. Privatisation policies resulted in greater destitution as rural stores,
farmingequipment, sources of creditand transportationwere bought bywell
connected individuals.Under Habyarimana's liberalisationplatformwealthy
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ISAAC A KAMOLA
farmersbought up land owned by small-scale farmersat such a pace that,by
themid-1980s, nearly 26% of thepopulation was landless.49By 1991 43% of
the landwas held by 16% of the landowners.The urban elite shielded itself
from rural discontent by re-enforcingcolonial restrictionson movement,
preventing the growing landless population frommoving to urban centrs.
During this time theurban class inKigali prospered, enjoyingunprecedented
wealth, paved roads, increased car ownership, and plentiful fuel, building
materials and food. On the eve of the genocide thewealthiest Rwandans
consumed 51% of rural revenuescompared with only 10% in 1982.50By 1986
coffee exports had reachedmore than 42 000 tons and comprised 82% of
Rwanda's total income fromexports.51
As coffeebecame an increasinglyimportantpart of Rwanda's economy,
Habyarimana restructuredthedomestic coffeeeconomy such that itbenefited
theurban and northernHutu elites.He also simultaneouslyofferedboth non
coercive and coercive incentives formembers of the rural farmingclass to
convertmore of their land to coffeeproduction. The governmentpurchased
coffee from the rural population through itsmarketing board, Rwandex.
During the coffee boom in the 1970s and 1980s, Rwandex increased the
purchasing price from 60 Rwandan Francs (RwF2 to 12ORwF, thus
providing substantial incentive for coffee cultivation. Given that overall
incomeswere fallingand landwas becoming increasinglyscarce,many poor
farmersturned largerpercentages of their land over to coffee.53In order to
maximise the amount of coffee produced, Habyarimana also instituteda
series of policies which included restrictingfertiliseruse to coffee and tea,
penalising those who intercropped or damaged coffee trees, and vilifying
those growing competing commodities.54
During this time, coffeemade up the vast majority of Rwanda's exports
and funded increasinglylargerpercentages of the state budget. As the rural
population grewmore coffee, thepolitical elite prospered. The considerable
gains, however, were never reinvested as the rulingHutu class recklessly
spent coffee profits. In fact, themoney from the price stabilisation fund
(Fond d'egalisation)-established to collect boom-time profitsand secure the
purchasing price during bust years was channelled back to government
coffers,leaving no securitynet.55One example of thisprofound corruption
was the fact thatSeraphin Rwabukumba brotherofHabyarimana's wife
ran both La Centrale (the officialimporterof high-end consumer goods) and
theNational Bank's foreigncurrencydivision, allowing him to easily divert
coffeeprofits into thehands of thewell connectedHutu class.56
Such reckless economic policies, however, should not be dismissed as
merely grossmismanagement. On theone hand,Habyarimana's policies were
designed to secure the loyaltiesof the ruralpopulation by purchasing coffee
at increasinglyhigher prices while, on the other hand, using the surplus to
mute theconflictswithin the rulingHutu class which routinelyflaredup when
financial lubrications'
the internationalprice of coffeedipped and 'sufficient
were found lacking.57
Increased coffeeproduction also traded offwith food production and jeo
pardised Rwanda's food security.Habyarimana's National Food Strategy,
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THE GLOBAL COFFEE ECONOMY
unveiled in the early 1980s, claimed to provide food securityby promoting
inter-regionaltrade and food aid marketing by limitingthe foreigncurrency
spenton food-stuffs.In 1988 thegovernmentbanned all food imports.These
policies-officially justified as a strategy for increasing Rwanda's self
sufficiency-squeezed the rural population even furtherand left the regime
with sole control over the outflow of foreign currency,which it used to
import luxurygoods consumed by tourists,thenational elite and the small
urban population.58Also during thisperiod, theOfficepour la Promotion, la
Vente et l'Importation des Produits Agricoles (Oprovia)-established in a
joint venturewith theEuropean Community to help stabilise theprice of key
foodstuffs-was bankruptedwhen thegovernment failed to reimburse it for
thehuge financial losses it suffered.59
The relativelyrapid deterioration of rural lifetook place along ethnic and
regional lines,with districts supportive of thepro-Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic
Front (RPF) and former
Hutu presidentKayibanda being hit hardest. In 1989
Rwanda was hit simultaneouslyby drought and fallingcoffeepriceswhich, in
theabsence of food reserves,culminated in thedeadly ruriganizafamine that
killed hundreds and forcedmore than 10 000 refugees-primarilyTutsi-to
Burundi and Tanzania. Because the famine occurred in the southern
Gikongoro prefecture a region considered 'quasi-lost' to the RPF
Habyarimana withheld food aid, choosing instead to horde the limitedfood
reserves formilitary use should the RPF invade (see below). Many in the
rulingHutu class responded to the famineby seizing land from those fleeing,
possibly usingWorld Bank development funds to buy up land and cattle for
personal gain.
During the same period theprefecturesof Gitarama and Butare, despite
possessing 20% of the population, received only 1% of the government's
funding,while most of thedevelopment aid was channelled into thehands of
the northernHutu elite and the northernprovinces of Ruhengeri, Gisenyi
and Cyangugu.61
During the 1970s and 1980sRwandan political, social and economic life
rested increasinglyupon a complicated setof over-determinedcontradictions.
The strained agricultural class was expected to be both self-sufficient
and to
provide increasingamounts of national wealth. As more landwas converted
to coffee production, the system became increasinglydependent on high
internationalcoffeeprices,which allowed thegovernment to buy coffeefrom
farmersat rates high enough to offset lost food production. Despite these
growing contradictions, theRwandan economy was such that some classes
with particular ethnic and regional connections reaped considerable benefits
fromhigh internationalcoffeeprices.62
Austerity and thepost- ICARwanda
In 1986 global over-productionof coffeebegan drivingprices down. Between
1986 and 1987 Rwanda's sales of coffeeplummeted from 14 billion RwF to
five billion RwF. As a result, the government started to accrue con
siderable debt.63 In 1988 theWorld Bank suggested that Rwanda adopt
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ISAAC A KAMOLA
macroeconomic reforms,including trade liberalisation,currencydevaluation,
liftingagricultural subsidies, privatising state enterprises and reducing the
number of civil servants.64Intent on boosting coffeeexports, theRwandan
government, followingWorld Bank advice, devalued theRwandan francby
40% inNovember 1990 and by another 15% the following June.The first
devaluation, however, took place just sixweeks after the RPF invaded and
sparked massive inflation,a collapse of real earnings and dramatic price
increases forconsumer goods.65
In 1989 theworld's largest coffeeexporters and importerstorpedoed the
renegotiationof the InternationalCoffeeAgreement. Many ICA opponents
argued that abandoning the agreementwould boost market liberalisation in
linewith the newly hegemonicWashington consensus. In June 1989, amid
fears that the ICAwould fall apart,massive sell-offsbegan and international
coffee prices dropped from $1.80/pound to $1.00/pound.67 Prices dropped
another 40 cents after 4 July,when thequotas were officiallyended. As the
internationalprice of coffeelostnearly two-thirdsof itsvalue in less than two
months, internationalinstitutionsestablished to stabiliseAfrican commodity
prices failed. Falling coffeeprices were so dramatic that, in 1990,Uganda,
Rwanda and Ethiopia alone exceeded theEuropean Union's Stabilisation of
Agricultural Exports Receipts System (Stabex) fundby $847.84 million.68
Within Rwanda, the collapse of coffeeprices began to expose economic
contradictionswhich, up to that point, had been smoothed over by high
coffeeprices. In 1990 thegovernment's purchasing price for coffee fell from
125RwF to lOORwF per kilo, forcingmany farmers,despite severepenalties,
to uproot theircoffee trees in favourof food crops.69The governmenthad no
accrued savings and, tomaintain rural allegiances, adopted an increasingly
desperate policy of purchasing coffee at prices dramatically higher than
international rates. Currency devaluation, collapsed coffee prices and the
government'scontinued subsidisation of thecoffeesector resulted inRwanda
accruing $1 billion in foreigndebt by 1994.70These economic stressescreated
the conditions inwhich state-owned enterpriseswent bankrupt, health and
education services collapsed, child malnutrition surged and malaria cases
increasedby 21%. The escalating prices of consumer essentials and fuel led to
a 25% reduction in coffeeproduction as farmersswitchedback to food crops,
since coffee revenues no longer even covered inputs. This collapse in
government services affectedHutus most dramatically since, under Habyar
imana, theywere theRrimaryrecipientsof the civil service jobs which could
no longerbe funded.
As the contradictions in the economic base of theHabyarimana regime
became uncontainable, deeply embedded political contradictions surfaced.
During the late 1980s and early 1990s Habyarimana faced increased
demands internationaland domestic to democratise Rwanda. In the late
1980spoor economic conditions and increasingevidence of corruptionwithin
the government caused many Rwandan journalists, intellectuals and
politicians to agitate for an end to single party rule. In addition, foreign
governments and international aid organisations all proponents of rapid
liberalisation began pressuringHabyarimana to establish a power-sharing
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THE GLOBAL COFFEE ECONOMY
government. At the Franco-African summit in 1990 French President
Mitterrand toldHabyarimana that futureeconomic aid would be linked to
While
political democratisation and theestablishmentof amultiparty system.
Habyarimana feared thatdemocratisationwould place thenation's stability
in jeopardy, theplummeting price of coffeemeant that he was now almost
completelydependent on foreignaid to keep his fragilegovernmentafloat. In
July1991 theconstitutionwas amended tomake multiparty competition fully
legal.Within months more than 15 political parties were registered,forcing
Habyarimana to agree to a power-sharinggovernment.72
As theeconomic base unravelled and thegovernmentbecame increasingly
dependent on aid doled out by foreigngovernments,political tensionswithin
the rulingHutu class surfaced.With the legalisation of opposition parties, a
new party Coalition pour la Defense de la Republique (CDR)-began to
campaign on the platform that no party, not even Habyarimana's MRND,
representedtheHutu majority's truebeliefs.The CDR was merely a frontfor
more radical elements of the MRND, including the akazu, a group of
extremistscentred around thepresident'swife,Agathe Habyarimana.
In October 1990 the RPF-supported by theUgandan and US govern
ments as well as the European and American Tutsi diaspora-invaded
Northern Rwanda fromUganda. The RPF's initial invasionwas repelled by
the Forces Armees Rwandaises (FAR) assisted by troops sent by France,
Belgium and Zaire.74 The RPF troops, however, continued to occupy
northernRwanda, initiatingan ongoing civil war. Within this climate of
growing insecurity,northernHutu elites turned towards ethnicity to re
articulate the 'Tutsi' as including theRPF, Tutsis livingwithin Rwanda, all
opposition parties and moderate Hutus. Tutsi, inotherwords, came tomean
a common enemywhich was everywhere,both inside and outside Rwanda.
A rash of low-intensity violence accompanied the rapidly failing
democratisation efforts.New opposition parties conducted campaigns of
terror,'encouraging' local politicians to join theirparty.Opposition groups,
especially theMouvement Democratique Republicain (MDR), targetedMRND
members, their families and property, forcing some to change party
allegiance. This practice known as kubohoza, or 'liberation'-provoked
theMRND to retaliate.75In thiscontext each party developed a youthwing,
which became its primary tool for intimidation.The MRND's Interahamwe
was especially potent because of its substantial size and professionalmilitary
training.
Failing coffee prices and increased debt meant that the vast web of
patronage and the 'gentlemen'sagreements' at theheart of Habyarimana's
rulewere startingto come undone. In April 1988Habyarimana's friendand
potential futurevice-president,Colonel Stanislas Mayuya, was murdered.
His killing was followed shortly by that of a number of politicians and
journalists.76 In May 1993 themoderate Hutu, Emmanuel Gapyisi, was
assassinated, revealing thegrowingdivide betweenmultipartymoderates and
the 'new opposition' extremists.7 The CDR and its allies (akazu, theZero
Network death squad, the Interahamwe, and army extremists) employed
ethnic differenceas a way to galvanise support using newspapers, radio
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ISAAC A KAMOLA
stations and ethnicmassacres to induce fear and undermine theHabyar
imana government.The latterwas increasinglyseen by radicalisedHutus as
toomoderate in its treatmentof the 'Tutsi' enemy.78
In the face of these increasinglyuncontainable economic, political and
ethnic contradictions, theHabyarimana government and theCDR began to
organise formass violence, therebypushing Rwanda closer towards the
thresholdof genocide. However, even as plans for the genocide were being
made byHutu extremistswithin theCDR, theWorld Bank and IMF continued
to loan Rwanda considerable sums ofmoney in thehope that itcould mend
its failingeconomy. Instead of using themoney to rejuvenate theobliterated
coffee economy, the cash-strapped and embattled Habyarimana used the
funds to purchase themilitary hardware used to arm the rapidly expanding
military and paramilitary groups. During this period the Rwandan
government spent $112 million to arm thepopulation with weapons bought
from France, Egypt and South Africa. France's national bank, Credit
Lyonnais, provided the credit guarantees which made many of these
transactionspossible.
were purchased fromabroad with foreignaidmoney, major
While firearms
players in the coffee industrywere busy supplying the hoes, axes and
machetes. The largest importerofmachetes during thisperiod was Felicien
Kabuga, a friendof Habyarimana and a wealthy coffeeexporter.Rwandex
Chillington, a joint venture between the British company Plantation &
General Investmentsand the coffeeproduction company Rwandex, was the
largestdomestic producer ofmetal tools and soldmore machetes inFebruary
1994 than during the entireprevious year.
As weapons became increasinglyavailable, theMRND distributed them to
the Interahamwe,as well as to itsrural supporters,througha highlyorganised
ofprefectures,
sub-prefectures,
sectorsand cells.7Many
system
communes,
of the arms purchased during this period were later used to execute the
genocide. Foreign loans also made it possible for the ailing government to
expand itsmilitary from5000 to 40 000 soldiers in a matter ofweeks.80
Much of the foreign currency used to purchase these weapons was
deposited directly into theBanque Nationale du Rwanda by the IMF and
World Bank. These loans were ended in 1993 when itbecame clear that the
governmenthad abandoned its expressed intentionsof using themoney for
development projects and debt restructuring.The government's surplus
funds held in foreignbank accounts, however,were never frozen and, as a
result, internationally donated hard currency continued to fund the
preparations for the genocide.8'
Oblivious to the intensifying
contradictions, the internationalcommunity
to
not only continued push formultiparty democracy but also insistedupon
power sharingwith the RPF. However, after nearly a year of negotiations,
Habyarimana, fearingdomestic retaliation from theCDR, remainedunwilling
to signArusha Accords. The deadlock came to an end in July 1993 when
donors including France and theWorld Bank informed the desperate
Habyarimana that theywould withhold aid funds ifhe failed to accept the
accords.82
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THE GLOBAL COFFEE ECONOMY
On 4August, under pressure fromthe internationallendinginstitutionsand
the foreigngovernmentson whom he had become dependent,Habyarimana
signed a treatyending the civilwar with theRPF.Most of the radicalMRND
and the CDR members stronglyopposed theArusha Accords and finalised
plans tomaintain power throughviolentmeans. On 6 April 1994,with the
downing of PresidentHabyarimana's plane, Rwanda's highlyconflictualand
over-determined social relations erupted in a genocide which killed more
than a half million Tutsis and moderate Hutus. While this violence was
extraordinary,itwas neithera contingentevent transitivelycaused by specific
(ethnic)conditions nor thedeterminedresultof colonialism, 'evil' individuals,
failed institutions,or fallingcoffeeprices. Instead, over-determinedrelations
of ethnicity and class as well as region, religion, education, etc-were
reordered and reproduced by other over-determinedrelationshipsof coffee
importationand exportation, debt, foreignaid, liberalisation and democra
tisation. In April 1994 theover-determinedcontradictions reached thepoint
atwhich theexistingconditions formass violence become so intensethat they
exploded beyond theirthreshold,resultingin genocide.
While the horror of the hundred days of killing iswell documented, we
should also be reminded that the genocide is not the final culmination of
Rwandan history.Many of the social relationships,subjectivities,ideologies,
alliances, relations of extraction, and individual actors which produced the
genocide continue to produce, and reproduce,Rwandan and global social
relationships to thisday. It is important to be cautious, for example, about
unproblematically that the establishment of coffee co-operatives some
sponsored by development agencies like theUS Agency for International
Development 1,
JUSAID) is necessarily crucial to Rwanda's post-genocide
reconciliation.
Conclusion
Today most of theacademic production concerning thegenocide inRwanda
remainswedded to theconcept of 'ethnicconflict'which, while necessary to
explain the genocide, is not sufficient.Reducing the violence to an
exceptional 'ethnicconflict' threatensto depoliticise academic representation
by giving the genocide no explanation other than itself.This trend is also
pervasive in contemporary academic reproduction of conflicts in Congo,
Bosnia, Liberia, Haiti, Sudan, Palestine, Chechnya, Sierra Leone, Iraq,
Kosovo, Somalia and Afghanistan, among other places, which tends to focus
on the local ethnic, religiousor nationalist extremismas theessential cause of
violence. These accounts help insure that the complex and violent contra
dictions produced within thecapitalist global mode of production remain are
treatedas merely isolated exceptions and, therefore,invisible to critique.
However, as producers of knowledge within this global mode of
production, academicians can-as Althusser urges us to do-use our words
as 'weapons, explosives or tranquillizersand poisons' to struggleagainst the
ideological productionswhich justifyand obfuscate continued exploitation.84
A critique of neoliberal and postcolonial capital can adopt the strategyof
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ISAAC A KAMOLA
narrating particular expressions of violence as symptomatic of an over
determined global mode of production. Doing so challenges the ideological
cover academics so commonly grant to neoliberal and post-colonial capital.
Notes
like to thank Asli ?alkivik, Lisa Disch, Kevin Dunn, Bud Duvall,
Stefan Kamola,
Serena Laws,
an anonymous TWQ
Nayak, David Newbury, Kartik Raj, Mich?le Wagner, Amentahru Wahlrab,
at the 2006 Western
Political Science 2006 Illinois State University Graduate
reviewer, my co-panelists
as well as all my friends and
Student Conference Association
and 2006 International Studies Association,
in theMinnesota
International Relations Colloquium
for their kind comments and support.
colleagues
1Mamdani
external
argues that both academic and popular accounts are 'silent' about the genocide's
causes. However, while Mamdani
portrays the genocide as regional, I narrate it as produced at many
I would
Govind
locations including the sub-national,
national,
regional and international registers. To
overlapping
as opposed
to
avoid constituting the genocide as a 'local' event, I use the phrase 'genocide in Rwanda'
When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism,
'Rwandan
and the
Nativism,
genocide'. M Mamdani,
in Rwanda, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001, p 8.
Genocide
2 The Christian Science Monitor,
for example, reported that 'tribal bloodshed'
and 'savage killing' was
that 'ethnic slaughter' was
'lurking around corners among muddy trains and behind thick undergrowth',
erupting from 'latent rivalries between the Hutu and Tutsi tribes'. The New York Times claimed that
assassination
hatred' between Hutu
and Tutsi. The
Habyarimana's
'reignited the centuries-old
Washington Post referred to the violence as 'tribal bloodletting' and feared that Rwanda was 'plung[ing]
raw hatred.'
There is no ideology or religious zeal at work?just
deep, deep into the heart of darkness...
13April 1994; Peterson, 'A Rwandan
S Peterson, 'Bloody hills of Kigali', Courier-Mail,
church becomes
a fortress', Christian Science Monitor,
19April 1994, p 7; Peterson, 'Rwanda's
tragedy plays out inwar
torn capital', Christian Science Monitor,
19 April
'Rwandan
1994, p 6; D Lorch,
refugees describe
horrors after a bloody trek',New York Times, 23 April 1994, p 1;K Richburg, Rwandan
leaders struggle
to rebuild nation, UN report on revenge killings by Tutsis sets back attempts to bring refugees home',
'Fade to blood: why the international
1994, A39; and J Parmelee,
Washington Post, 24 September
answer to the Rwandan
atrocities is indifference', Washington Post, 24 April 1994, C3.
in the Late Twentieth Century,
Rwanda: Conflict, Survival and Disinformation
Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp 204, 4.
Cambridge:
4 C Newbury,
'Ethnicity and the politics of history in Rwanda',
Africa Today, 45 (1), 1998, p 19.
that class is not useful when
5 Mamdani,
the genocide
for example,
because
argues
examining
to cut 'across social classes
violence'
rather than between
them'
appears
political
'postcolonial
account to the study of 'ethnic conflict' by
(emphasis in original). I reintroduce an explicitly Marxist
concept of'structured causality' to think past the economistic determinist approaches
using Althusser's
When Victims Become Killers, p 19. See also Mamdani,
Mamdani
'African
rightly criticises. Mamdani,
state, citizenship and war: a case-study', International Affairs, 78 (3), 2002, p 498.
6 R Omaar & A de Waal, Rwanda: Death, Despair, and Defiance, London: African Rights, August
1995,
toMurder:
The Rwandan Genocide, London: Verso, 2004; P Uvin,
p 14. See also L Melvers, Conspiracy
African Studies Review, 40 (2), 1997, pp 91-115.
'Prejudice, crisis, and genocide in Rwanda',
to track how messaging
7 Bhavnani
and Backer use spiral and in-group policing
and
equilibria
and Weingast
interactions change during different 'episodes of violence', de Figueiredo
employ a
3 J Pottier, Re-Imagining
to explain why 'citizens whose primary interest is in peace choose to support
rational choice approach
resulted from low income
bloody ethnic conflict". Collier and Hoeffler argue that wars in Rwanda
densities. R Bhavnani & D Backer,
levels, the presence of natural resources, and high population
and Burundi', Journal of
'Localized ethnic conflict and genocide: accounting for differences in Rwanda
R de Figueiredo
Jr& B Weingast,
'The rationality of
Conflict Resolution, 44 (3), 2000, pp 283-306;
and ethnic conflict', in B Walter & J Snyder (eds), Civil Wars, Insecurity,
fear: political opportunism
Columbia
and P Collier &
and Intervention, New York:
Press,
1999, pp 261-302;
University
A Hoeffler, 'On economic causes of civil war', Oxford Economic Papers, 50, 1998, pp 563-573.
creates instability when hijacked by
8 Snyder uses the genocide to support his claim that d?mocratisation
case to prove that 'mass killing' is a strategic
draws from the Rwandan
nationalist elites. Valentino
policy forged by elites and executed by a small group of 'true believers' and psychopaths. For Snyder
the cause of civil wars. Gurr
shows how the security dilemma
and Jervis the genocide
explains
and politically
active minorities'
assembles
data on 116 nations with 'disadvantaged
(size of the
if present, lead to
total population,
type, etc) to compute which variables,
government
minority,
violence. J Snyder, From Voting to Violence:
B Valentino,
WW Norton,
2000, pp 296-306;
and Nationalist
Conflict, New York:
in the 20th
Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide
Democratization
Final
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THE GLOBAL COFFEE ECONOMY
J Snyder & R Jervis, 'Civil war and
Century, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004, pp 178-188;
inWalter & Snyder, Civil Wars, Insecurity, and Intervention, pp 15-37; and
the security dilemma',
at Risk in theNew Century, Washington,
DC: United Stated
T Gurr, Peoples Versus States: Minorities
Instituted of Peace Press, 2000.
9 R Cox,
'Social forces, states and world order: beyond International Relations
theory', in R Keohane
and its Critics, New York: Columbia University Press, pp 204-254.
(ed), Neorealism
On the Postcolony, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2001, p 7.
'A Catholic mass inKigali: contested views of the genocide and ethnicity in
& D Newbury,
Canadian Journal of African Studies, 33 (2-3),
1999, pp 294, 296, 316. For other examples of
Rwanda',
see A Des Forges,
to Tell the Story': Genocide
in
'Leave None
good historical contingent accounts,
10 A Mbembe,
11 C Newbury
1999; J-P Chr?tien, The Great Lakes
Rwanda, New York: Human
Rights Watch,
of Africa: Two
Thousand Years ofHistory, trans Scott Straus, New York: Zone Books, 2003; G Prunier, The Rwanda
New
York:
Columbia
Crisis: History
Press,
1995; D Newbury,
University
of a Genocide,
and P Uvin, Aiding
genocide', African Studies Review, 41 (1), April 1998, pp 73-97;
'Understanding
inRwanda, West Hartford, CT: Kumarian
Violence: The Development Enterprise
Press, 1998.
12 See, for example, K Holsti, The State, War, and the State of War, Cambridge:
Cambridge University
in a Global Era, Stanford, CA:
Violence
Press, 1996; and M Kaldor, New and Old Wars: Organized
Stanford, 1999.
a
the same way Althusser uses 'ruptural unity'. For Althusser
13 I use the term 'threshold' in much
of contradictions'
of radical
coming at the moment
'ruptural unity' is a 'vast accumulation
The threshold is also a
restructuring and revolution (as in his example of the Russian Revolution).
particular playing out of human activity whereby over-determined
relationships fail so completely that
a
the 'ruptural unity' which describes
reordered. However,
unlike
fundamentally
they become
I introduce the term threshold to mean those moments when over-determined
revolutionary moment,
of human
life.
contradictions
reorder the mode
of production
destruction
through the mass
trans Ben Brewster, New York: Vintage Books,
L Althusser, For Marx,
1970, pp 99-100.
14 R Resch, Althusser and theRenewal ofMarxist
Social Theory, Berkeley, CA: University of California
Press, 1992, p 47.
15 Note that here the term 'linear' does not necessarily mean a straight line, because the 'causal' variables
can have
on determinant
'non-linear'
effects. However,
the emphasis
interactive and
causality
nonetheless remains the same.
& E Balibar, Reading Capital, Ben Brewster, trans., London & New York: Verso,
1999,
184 (emphasis in original).
pp 188-189,
New York:
17 C Newbury, The Cohesion of Oppression: Clientship and Ethnicity inRwanda,
1860-1960,
Columbia
Rwanda: Death, Despair,
and
University Press, 1988, pp 11, 53; and Omaar & de Waal,
Defiance, pp 2-7.
to Tell the Story', p 35.
'Leave None
18 Des Forges,
16 L Althusser
in East Africa', African Historical
'The origins of commercial
arabica coffee production
Centre for
(1), 1969, p 52; and J de Graaff, The Economics
of Coffee, Wageningen:
1986, p 209.
Agricultural Publishing and Documentation,
in Africa, London:
20 B Dinham & C Hines, Agribusiness
Earth Resource Research,
1983, pp 52-53.
21 During
the postwar boom African countries grew an increasingly large portion of theworld's coffee. In
inAfrica?grew
the 1940s countries outside Central and South America?mostly
14% of the world's
the 1950s coffee production
coffee, 19% by the early 1950s and 30% by the late 1960s. During
accelerated
in Burundi and Rwanda
(jointly administered)
reaching 600 000 60-kg bags in 1959. RL
Lucier, The International Political Economy of Coffee: From Juan Valdez to Yank's Diner, New York:
and P Rourk, Coffee Production
in Africa, Washington,
DC: United States
Praeger, 1988, pp 31-33;
19 J Kieran,
Studies,
2
of Agriculture,
September
Department
22 de Graaff, The Economics
of Coffee, pp
23 Newbury,
The Cohesion
of Oppression,
pp 93-98.
24 C Newbury,
'Colonialism,
ethnicity, and
1975, p 21.
209-210.
pp
141-46;
and Mamdani,
When
Victims Become
Killers,
rural political protest: Rwanda
and Zanzibar
in comparative
15 (3), 1983, p 263.
perspective', Comparative Politics,
25 D Newbury & C Newbury,
'Bringing the peasant back in', American Historical Review, 105 (3), June
868.
2000,p
26 The Hamitic Myth
is not a coherent ideology but changed over time to justify different modes
of
to argue that Africans were
labour extraction. The story of Ham was first used by Europeans
subhuman
and therefore could be enslaved.
John Hanning
Speke's version of the myth, widely
disseminated
throughout Rwanda, was produced a half century later to explain how Africans could be
both subhuman
structures that were then being
and capable of developing
the complex political
are Hamitic
In this rendition some Africans
'discovered'
and
throughout Africa.
(half European)
therefore superior to other 'Negroid' Africans. Mamdani,
When Victims Become Killers, pp 79-87;
589
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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
ISAAC A KAMOLA
Omaar
&
de Waal,
and Defiance, pp 7-10;
and E Sanders,
Rwanda: Death, Despair,
its origin and functions in time perspective',
Journal of African History,
hypothesis:
pp 521-532.
'The Hamitic
10 (4),
1969,
'Leave None to Tell the Story', pp 36-37;
and Chr?tien, The Great Lakes of Africa, p 273.
27 Des Forges,
28 By the late 1930s the older European
Catholic Church was dying off.
leadership within the Rwandan
and Hirth?'upper
class men with rather conservative
While
figures like Fathers Classe
political
ideas'?had
been highly influential in supporting
the early policies of Tutsi superiority, the new
the
Coincidentally
generation consisted of Flemish clergy from primarily working class backgrounds.
cause. H Hintjens,
to the Hutu
in Rwanda
became
Catholic
Church
increasingly sympathetic
in Rwanda',
the 1994 genocide
Journal ofModern
'Explaining
African Studies, 37 (2), 1999, p 254;
'The disintegration of the Catholic Church of
Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis, p 44; and S Hoyweghen,
a study of the fragmentation of political and religious authority', African Affairs, 95, 1996,
Rwanda:
pp 380-381.
'Social relationships became grimmer and more full
29 Prunier writes that, after the Second World War,
the neo-traditionalist
forms of clientship...
had become
less
of conflict at a time when, paradoxically,
and less a way of making money. The War had brought with it a vast expansion of the cash economy in
which the Hutu had shared. The old clientship system, which was basically part of the non-monetary
was
obsolete...
the old oppressive
forms were
economy,
becoming
increasingly
accordingly
more harshly as they lost their real power and as their cultural legitimacy waned.'
perceived...
Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis, p 42.
in Rwanda, Oxford: Manchester
30 See I Linden, Church and Revolution
University Press, 1977, pp 239,
The Cohesion of Oppression, pp 184
When Victims Become Killers, p 118; Newbury,
258; Mamdani,
191; and Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis, p 45.
and Newbury, The Cohesion of Oppression,
31 Mamdani,
When Victims Become Killers, pp 117, 121-125;
pp 188, 192-193.
in Rwanda, p 239.
32 Linden, Church and Revolution
to Tell the Story', p 38.
'Leave None
33 Des Forges,
34 Uvin, Aiding Violence, p 20.
'Leave None to Tell
35 Des Forges,
131.
the Story', p 39; and Mamdani,
When
Victims Become Killers,
p 103
36 Uvin, Aiding Violence, pp 20-21.
37 de GraafiF, The Economics
of Coffee, p 211.
is landlocked and must transport potential
38 Because Rwanda
a particularly
for export, coffee?being
non-perishable?is
or Dar es Salaam
cash crops toMombasa
attractive crop. However,
because green
coffee lasts for years in storage, large coffee growing nations like Brazil stockpile green coffee as a way
to regulate coffee prices. As a result, even as African coffee production grew in terms of market share
between the 1950s and 1960s, this success was largely dependent on free-riding on Brazil's policy of
its large stockpiles from the market. By 1962 Brazil held stocks of
maintaining
prices by withholding
coffee which equalled 208% of its annual production. H Laurens van der Laan,
'Boosting agricultural
exports? A "marketing channel" perspective on an African dilemma', African Affairs, 92 (367), 1993,
and Lucier, The International Political Economy of Coffee, pp 118-120.
pp 176-177;
to
39 During
the 1940s and early 1950s the high international price of coffee drove many governments
as a source of earning foreign currency. However,
because coffee trees
coffee production
encourage
there was
take between
four and seven years to mature,
severe, and largely
by the mid-1950s
to $0.34/pound
unforeseen, over-production, which caused the price of coffee to fall from $0.79/pound
between 1955 and 1962. Lucier, The International Political Economy of Coffee, pp 118-120.
is bifurcated between two commercially grown species?arabica
and
40 The international coffee market
is of high quality but requires considerable
robusta. Arabica,
grown in Brazil and Colombia,
inputs
coffee ismore durable, pest-resistant, and suitable to
and can only grow at certain altitudes. Robusta
and much of Africa. Robusta
and humid conditions found in Indonesia, Vietnam
fewer inputs and less labour to produce
coffee, used
larger, lower-valued yields. Robusta
primarily in instant coffee, became increasingly valuable during the 1950s and 1960s when demand for
coffee. See SJ Carr, 'Improving cash crops in Africa:
instant coffee peaked. Rwanda
grows Arabica
factors influencing the productivity of cotton, coffee, and tea grown by smallholders', World
Bank,
the low altitudes
requires
31 August
1993, p 24, 32; Lucier, The International Political Economy
DC,
of Coffee,
Washington,
in Africa, pp 52, 54.
and Dinham & Hines, Agribusiness
pp 118-120;
came to power.
41 The US government became
interested in regulating coffee prices when Kennedy
advocated a
Unlike Eisenhower, who saw such an agreement as a 'sin against free enterprise', Kennedy
to Latin America. He also feared that the
coffee treaty as part of his 'Alliance for Progress' approach
in Latin America
caused by low coffee prices would be exploited by Cuba.
economic d?stabilisation
Kennedy was also swayed by the requests made by newly independent African countries to stabilise the
Coffee Association,
the US coffee
commodity market as a path to national development. The National
590
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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
THE GLOBAL COFFEE ECONOMY
roasting trade group, also supported the ICA, fearing that potential political instability resulting from
low prices would
threaten the coffee supply. Lucier, The International Political Economy
of Coffee,
pp 122-126.
42 'International
18 March
1968 (renegotiation
of 1962 agreement),
found at
Coffee Agreement',
Australian Treaty Series #21, Australian Government
Publishing Service, at http://www.austlii.edu.au/
.html.
au/other/dfat/treaties/1968/21
Bates, Open Economy Politics, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997, p 25.
in Africa, London:
44 B Dinham & C Hines, Agribusiness
Earth Resources
1983, p 57.
Research,
45 J Pottier, 'Taking stock: food marketing reform in Rwanda,
1982-98', African Affairs, 92 (366),
p 11; and Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis, p 58.
43 RH
1993,
When Victims Become Killers, p 140.
& Newbury,
'Bringing the peasant back in', p 872.
48 Uvin, Aiding Violence; and P Verwimp,
ideology, the peasantry and genocide: Rwanda
'Development
speeches', Journal of Genocide Research, 2 (3), 2000, pp 325-361.
represented in Habyarimana's
49 Uvin, Aiding Violence, pp 112-113.
'Leave None to Tell the Story', p 45; Newbury & Newbury,
50 Des Forges,
'Bringing the peasant back in',
46 Mamdani,
47 Newbury
pp 873 -874; Uvin, Aiding Violence, pp 112-113,
116; Verwimp,
'Development
ideology, the peasantry
and genocide', pp 328-333;
and E Toussaint,
'Rwanda: the financiers of the genocide', Committee
for
the Abolition
of Third World
12 April 2004, at http://www.cadtm.org/imprimer.php3?id_
Debt,
article=611.
51 See T
et al, 'International
Journal of Humanitarian
1/pb020c.html.
Seilstr?m
experience',
lessons from the Rwanda
response to conflict and genocide:
14 April
1996, at http://www.reliefweb.int/library/
Assistance,
nordic/book
52 Verwimp,
'The political economy of coffee, dictatorship, and genocide', European Journal of Political
19 (2), 2003, p 172.
Economy,
53 Pottier, Re-Imagining Rwanda, p 21.
54 P Verwimp,
'Agricultural policy, crop failure and the 'Ruriganiza' famine (1989) in southern Rwanda:
a prelude
to genocide?',
economic
conference,
paper presented at the 'Frontiers of Development'
Catholic University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium, 30 May
Department,
at http://www.econ.kuleuven.be/eng/ew/discussionpapers/Dps02/Dps0207.pdf.
55 Verwimp,
'The political economy of coffee, dictatorship, and genocide', p 172.
56 Verwimp,
famine', pp 23-24.
'Agricultural policy, crop failure and the 'Ruriganiza'
57 Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis, p 82.
Economics
available
2002, pp 28-29,
58 Verwimp,
famine', pp 22-24.
'Agricultural policy, crop failure and the 'Ruriganiza'
reform in Rwanda,
59 Pottier, 'Taking stock: food marketing
1982-98',
pp 21-29.
60 Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis, pp 87-88.
61 Newbury & Newbury,
'Bringing the peasant back in', p 873; and Uvin, Aiding Violence,
62 M
63
64
65
66
Chossudovsky,
(eds), Globalization,
p 122.
'Human
Human
in Rwanda',
security and economic genocide
Security and the African Experience, Boulder,
in C Thomas
CO:
p 124.
& P Wilkin
Lynne Rienner,
1999,
p 256.
Hintjens,
'Explaining the 1994 genocide in Rwanda',
'Human security and economic genocide in Rwanda',
p 120.
Chossudovsky,
Uvin, Aiding Violence, p 58.
Brazil believed it could increase itsmarket share by abandoning
the quota system and had successfully
diversified its economy such that coffee represented only 7% of its exports, as opposed to 50% in 1962.
D Blackwell,
'Bust letter stirs up world coffee market', Financial Times, 22 September 1989, p 28. The
USA
criticised the ICA for two reasons: quotas
limited the supply of increasingly popular arabica
to sell
robusta varietals and the 'two-tier market' allowed producers
coffees in favour of undesirable
coffee to non-treaty countries at half price. See 'Why commodity pacts fail', Financial Times, 4 October
'Coffee price slides to 9 Vi-month low', Financial Times, 27 June 1989, p 32.
1989, p 22; and R Mooney,
67 Bates, Open-Economy
Politics, p 25.
68 Under
IV convention?between
the Lom?
the EU and 66 African, Caribbean
and Pacific (ACP)
to help stabilise the revenue of those states
received $1.8 billion for the period 1990-94
See 'EU/ACP: Court of Auditors
criticizes Stabex system',
exporting agricultural goods to Europe.
'Commodities:
record payout from EEC
Report, 1 June 1995; and Y Sharma,
European
Export
Stabilization Fund', Inter Press Service, 20 May
1992.
states?Stabex
69 Verwimp,
'The political economy of coffee, dictatorship, and genocide', p 174.
70 Ibid, pp 174-75; and Toussaint,
'Rwanda:
the financiers of the genocide'.
71 Chossudovsky,
'Human security and economic
in Rwanda',
and Hintjens,
pp 121-122;
genocide
p 256.
'Explaining the 1994 genocide in Rwanda',
72 Des Forges,
'Leave None to Tell the Story', pp 47, 52-53; A Klinghoffer, The International Dimension
in Rwanda, New York: New York University Press, 1998, p 20; L Melvern,
A people
of Genocide
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A KAMOLA
in Rwanda's
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'A Catholic mass
inKigali',
p 305;
Newbury,
'Understanding
genocide', p 89; Newbury & Newbury,
and Uvin, Aiding Violence, p 62.
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73 Des Forges,
'Leave None
inRwanda:
74 B Jones, Peacemaking
The Dynamics
of Failure, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2001, p 29;
A Callamard,
'French policy inRwanda',
inH Adelman & A Suhrke (eds) The Path of a Genocide: The
toZaire, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction
Rwanda Crisis from Uganda
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inAfrica, 1993-1999,
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and Prunier, The Rwanda
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Crisis, pp 100-108.
to Tell the Story', pp 54-57;
men:
'Leave None
'All the Bourgmestre^
75 Des Forges,
and M Wagner,
sense of genocide in Rwanda',
making
Africa Today, 45 (1), 1998, p 32.
W Madsen,
76 Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis, pp 87-89.
to Tell the Story', p 113; and Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis, pp 185-186.
77 Des Forges,
'Leave None
78 Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis, p 182.
79 Des Forges,
'Leave None to Tell the Story', pp 41-43,
55-56; Human Rights Watch, Arming Rwanda:
The Arms Trade and Human Rights Abuses in the Rwanda War, Human Rights Watch Arms Project,
New York, January 1994, p 27; and Wagner,
80 Chossudovsky,
'Human security and economic
to Tell the Story', p 127; S Goose & F Smyth,
1994; Human Rights Watch, Arming Rwanda,
Uvin, Aiding Violence, p 88.
81 The government was able to conceal itsmisuse
'All the Bourgmestre^
genocide
men'.
in Rwanda',
'Arming genocide
pp 5, 27; Melvern,
'Leave None
p 124; Des Forges,
in Rwanda',
Foreign Policy, 75 (5),
A People Betrayed, pp 64-67;
and
of the loans by manipulating
bank records, doctoring
like vehicles, gasoline and
invoices, reselling imported gasoline, and diverting development purchases
A People Betrayed, pp 66-67;
other supplies toward the military.
See Melvern,
and Toussaint,
the financiers of the genocide'.
'Rwanda:
to Tell the Story', p 124.
82 Des Forges,
'Leave None
83 Ben Richardson,
'Coffee buzz liftswartorn Rwanda',
BBC, 10March
2004, at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/
hi/business/3498712.stm.
as
84 L Althusser,
'Philosophy
in Ben Brewster
Macciocchi',
Review
Press,
2001, p 8.
a
interview conducted
Antonietta
revolutionary weapon:
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