INTRODUCTION
On the tenth anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, April 7, 2004, the United Nations established the Office of the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide (OSAPG). Its mandate, a corrective to the United Nations’ failure to intervene in Rwanda and in the former Yugoslavia, is to focus on “prevention and punishment” via the activities of two Special Advisers: one on the Prevention of Genocide and another on the Responsibility to Protect—also commonly known as R2P.Footnote 1 The former serves to raise awareness, advocate for action, and mobilize a reaction to genocide; the latter to develop and refine R2P in dialogue with UN Member States. Both positions are important; both goals deserve praise. However, missing from the OSAPG mandate is any focus on genocide intervention beyond a call for “diplomatic, humanitarian, and other peaceful means” to stop genocide, including “collective action” if necessary.Footnote 2 This is imprecise when precise tools are needed.
The OSAPG’s emphasis on prevention and punishment without a specific strategy for intervention is glaring; the United Nations’ past inaction is what spurred then-Secretary General of the United Nations Kofi Annan to create the OSAPG in the first place.Footnote 3 Hence, this essay, inspired by John Hagan’s pathbreaking research linking sociological theory to international law concerning genocide,Footnote 4 considers how to theorize behavioral variation in genocide as one strategy to develop mechanisms of intervention that will helpfully extend the OSAPG’s mandate. I draw from my own and others’ work in Rwanda to make my case and connect this work to findings from research on other genocides where possible.
MAKING SENSE OF BEHAVIORAL VARIATION
Research on genocide tends to pregroup actors as perpetrators, victims, bystanders, and rescuers and to study each as a cohesive unit identifiable by their social category (Fujii Reference Fujii2009, Reference Fujii2021; Luft Reference Luft2015, Reference Luft2020a; Williams Reference Williams, Williams and Buckley-Zistel2018, Reference Williams2020; Jessee Reference Jessee, Smeulers, Weerdesteijn and Hola2019; Nyseth Brehm, O’Brien, and Wahutu Reference Nyseth Brehm, O’Brien and Wahutu2021). In Rwanda, for example, the term “Hutu” is often conflated with the term “perpetrators,” even though, as research increasingly shows, many Hutu resisted participation in genocidal violence, helped rescue Tutsi, or were victimized themselves (Des Forges Reference Forges and Liebhafsky1999; Fuji Reference Fujii2009; McDoom Reference McDoom2013; Luft Reference Luft2015; Fox and Brehm Reference Fox and Brehm2018; Thomson Reference Thomson2018; Jessee Reference Jessee, Smeulers, Weerdesteijn and Hola2019; Luft and Thomson Reference Luft and Thomson2021). Some even engaged in all four behaviors at different moments in time (Fujii Reference Fujii2009; Luft Reference Luft2015; Thomson Reference Thomson2018; Jessee Reference Jessee, Smeulers, Weerdesteijn and Hola2019). In the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, the Cambodian genocide, and in mass violence against Bosnian Muslims following the breakup of Yugoslavia, research has also found evidence of participants who shifted stances from killing to not killing and vice versa, from killing to rescuing, and from killing to being victimized as well (Hovannisian Reference Hovannisian, Oliner, Oliner, Baron, Blum, Krebs and Smolenska1992; Hukanovic Reference Hukanovic1996; Browning Reference Browning1998; Gushee Reference Gushee2003; Campbell Reference Campbell2010; Press Reference Press2012; Williams Reference Williams, Williams and Buckley-Zistel2018, Reference Williams2020). What explains this behavioral variation in genocide and what are its implications for developing practical opportunities for intervention?
FOUR EXPLANATIONS; TWO INTERVENTIONS
My research on behavioral variation in the Rwandan genocide identifies four mechanisms—transactional, relational, social psychological (here, vertical-observational), and cognitive—that explain when an individual with no preexisting history of violence is more or less likely to kill (Luft Reference Luft2015). The transactional and vertical-observational mechanisms speak directly to the question of genocide intervention, while the relational and cognitive mechanisms raise complex questions for future work that seeks to link theories of participation in genocide to legal and political tactics.
Transactions: Economic Capital and Agency
Per capita income is one of the best-known predictors of violent conflict (Elbadawi and Sambanis Reference Elbadawi and Sambanis2000, Reference Elbadawi and Sambanis2002; Stewart, Holdstock, and Jarquin Reference Stewart, Holdstock and Jarquin2002; Fearon and Laitin Reference Fearon and Laitin2003; Collier and Hoeffler Reference Collier and Hoeffler2004; Fearon Reference Fearon2004; Doyle and Sambanis Reference Doyle and Sambanis2006; Justino Reference Justino2009; Justino et al. Reference Justino, Brück and Verwimp2013). However, existing research offers few accounts of the micro-channels through which high poverty levels affect the likelihood that an individual will join in or desist from participation in genocide. One assumption is that low per capita income correlates with group-based grievances and low economic opportunity costs to fighting—that is, poorer people have less to lose and more to gain through perpetrating violence. Yet interviews with Hutu who both killed and saved Tutsi in the Rwandan genocide or who observed peers trying to resist participation at some points while killing at others indicate another possibility: sometimes poverty means not having the resources to desist.Footnote 5
Consider the following story recounted by Alison Des Forges (Reference Forges and Liebhafsky1999) in her masterful Human Rights Watch report on the Rwandan genocide, Leave None to Tell the Story: two militiamen came upon a Tutsi girl who had been pushed into a hole by a sergeant who had intended to kill her later. One wanted to kill her; the other knew the girl—Marthe—and told him not to. He gave the other man 5,000 Rwandan francs (about US $25) and pushed him away. This same soldier killed many other people during the genocide—he was a longtime leader of the extremist MRND political party and an important figure in the Hutu “civilian self-defense program.” But when it came time to save someone he knew, the soldier used monetary resources to bribe his partner, saving a girl marked for death and ensuring that he would not be killed in turn (404).
Similarly, a Tutsi woman interviewed by Jean Hatzfeld (Reference Hatzfeld2005) for the book Machete Season spoke of local “violent entrepreneurs” and how only those with resources could resist them: “The farmers were not rich enough, like the well-to-do city people, to buy themselves relief from the killing. Some doctors and teachers in Kigali paid their servants or their employees so as not to dirty themselves” (74). Validating this woman’s statement, ordinary Rwandans with less economic capital who participated in the genocide explained in a separate series of interviews, “[a]nyone who sneaked off behind his house [to avoid participating] was denounced by a neighbor and punished with a fine” and “[w]hoever got caught shirking was punished with a fine. Ordinarily it cost two thousand francs, but it depended on the seriousness” (72–73). Hence, as in times of peace, those with capital have options and opportunities that others lack. In a genocide, this means rich people can sometimes “buy off” participation in violence while poor people are more likely to kill.
This finding suggests that it is not always poverty per se that causes participation in genocide, but that inequality between social groups as well as inequality within them shapes who does and does not participate in violence.Footnote 6 Thus, one strategy for intervention is to even the playing field: to lower the capital of violent entrepreneurs while increasing that of potential recruits. In this two-pronged approach, one tactic would use targeted financial measures such as economic sanctions and asset freezing, divestment from firms that fund genocidal governments, or the removal or neutralization of third-party economic actors.Footnote 7 Second, relief efforts might focus not only on food, medicine, and housing for the displaced, but also on creating economic opportunities that can reduce the potential for exploitation among those whom violent entrepreneurs would recruit as foot soldiers in their wars.Footnote 8
For example, in Democratic Republic of Congo—where more than six million civilians have been killed since 1996 and mass rape has been described as an “epidemic” and “a fact of life”—violent militias control vast amounts of the country’s mineral resources, especially Coltan, and mining companies in the East and West directly and indirectly fund violence by establishing lucrative contracts with local warlords who regularly “employ” child soldiers in their operations. The “Conflict-Free Coltan” US law of 2010 has helped to slow down mining production in DRC and weaken violent militias, but without a policy to structurally integrate the poor otherwise, or to create a regulated resource industry where workers are paid living wages, many impoverished Congolese, especially youth, continue to flee to where the militias still operate with funding from abroad. Still others engage in Coltan smuggling, including over the border to Rwanda, with the support of warlords and winking border police, creating a clandestine market for the metal that reproduces lawlessness and violence in turn.Footnote 9 Better tracing practices for corporations that benefit from Coltan is needed, coupled with firmer regulation, redistribution, and integration of civilians into the formal economy to disrupt the link between metals, money, and murder in DRC.Footnote 10
Vertical Observations: The Influence of Local Authorities
Another way to plausibly intervene in ongoing violence is to recruit and support moderate local authorities that oppose the intentions of genocidal governments. The cases of Butare and Giti, in South and North Rwanda respectively, are illustrative. Butare remained peaceful for two weeks after President Habyarimana was assassinated.Footnote 11 It was initially seen as a safe haven for Tutsi due to its high levels of integration before the genocide (about 25 percent of the population was Tutsi) and its status as a way station en route to Burundi. However, once extremists took over the commune, violence engulfed Butare.
The swift change came not because people suddenly believed in extremists’ ideas and burst into bloody warfare. Rather, moderate local authorities were publicly killed for resisting the violence and this sent a powerful signal to civilians who were behaving similarly. The prefect of Butare was branded an enemy of the state in a ceremony organized by the genocidal government, dismissed from his position, then murdered. Civilian Hutus in Butare became aware of the cost of resistance through such concrete examples, and it increased their likelihood of joining in the violence when asked (Des Forges Reference Forges and Liebhafsky1999, 167; Luft Reference Luft2015, 160–62).
By contrast, in Giti, most Tutsi survived the genocide and there were no Hutu-led organized massacres.Footnote 12 The Interahamwe never entered the area to instigate the violence Giti’s leaders argued against, nor were there public executions or violent targeting of resisters. Giti’s burgomaster explained that violence could have occurred as it had in Butare had “neighboring invaders” entered the commune, but because they stayed away and RPF opposition forces conquered Giti so quickly, he was able to prevent organized killings of Tutsi. A former deputy governor recalled, “leaders did not give a go-ahead,” and the burgomaster traveled throughout the region to deter attacks (Bangwanubusa Reference Bangwanubusa2009, 138). Where moderates remained in power and resisters witnessed no negative consequences for such behaviors, genocide did not take place.
This finding speaks to the ability of moderate local authorities to powerfully influence trajectories of violence. Particularly in high-risk contexts, the decision to support or resist calls for violence emanating from a genocidal government can be incredibly impactful: when local leaders take a stance, their public signals have the potential to shift collective alignments (Ermakoff Reference Ermakoff2008, 205–09). This is not just the case in Rwanda: during the genocide in East Timor perpetrated by the Indonesian New Order Government, local bishops, priests, and nuns risked their lives to defend East Timorese citizens, while the Catholic Church served as a “moral center of resistance to Indonesian rule” (Robinson Reference Robinson2009, 86). In developing a religious practice rooted in social justice and service, the Church also united East Timorese of different social, regional, and political backgrounds, thus strengthening their defense against Jakarta’s violent rule (87).Footnote 13
Subsequently, one very important but underexplored way to peacefully but powerfully intervene in mass violence is to recruit local leaders to help signal that killing is unacceptable. In any genocide, we find a state organizing mass violence and civilians struggling to figure out what to do. Identifying moderate local authorities, working with them to call for a halt to violence, and protecting them from the wrath of genocidal extremists is one way in which the OSAPG can help put an end to ongoing violence. Moderate religious authorities may be especially powerful by virtue of their moral authority (Grzymala-Busse Reference Grzymala-Busse2015, Reference Grzymala-Busse2016) and unique ability to transcend a state and its leaders by judging a regime’s activities as righteous or wrong by a higher deity’s standards (Luft Reference Luft2020b, 74).Footnote 14
As but one example, though still in a postconflict context, the United States Institute for Peace (USIP) has been working with a coalition of two hundred Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, and Muslim faith leaders to help mitigate local conflicts through the Centre for Peacebuilding and Reconciliation.Footnote 15 In Colombia, USIP helped establish the Ecumenical Women Peacebuilders Network, which likewise connected women religious leaders across the country to advocate locally for the 2016 peace accords and to promote reconciliation among civilians and former combatants.Footnote 16 In Nigeria more recently, religious leaders have been found to influence perceptions of norms and attitudes toward the reintegration for former Boko Haram combatants, a crucial aspect of resolving the conflict: their high levels of social trust, ability to legitimately use and interpret religious themes about peace and forgiveness, and unique ability to influence those with strong religious beliefs have all contributed to their positive impact (Blair et al. Reference Blair, Littman, Nugent, Wolfe, Bukar, Crisman, Etim, Hazlett and Kim2021). Finally, the OSAPG has been exploring similar mechanisms of working with local religious authorities to prevent violence through its forum, in April 2015, on “the role of religious leaders in preventing incitement that could lead to atrocity crimes,” its drafting of the Fez Declaration following this forum,Footnote 17 and its launching of the plan two years later.Footnote 18 The Fez Plan of Action emphasizes the role of religious authorities in preventing genocide, but research on behavioral variation in genocide suggests that similar tools can be used for peaceful intervention and mitigation of ongoing violence as well.
LESSONS AND MOVING FORWARD
Scholars and policymakers frequently observe that civilians’ responses to violent mobilization vary: some become murderers, others become victims, and many become both. Still, most research on genocide assumes that individuals are organized into perpetrator and victim groups prior to the onset of violence. This error—an artifact of how we group subjects for research purposes—mires our understandings of how people make decisions to participate in violence. In remedying this error, we can better explain processes of decision-making and pinpoint places and moments when these decisions can be reversed. Specifically, this essay argues that reducing inequality both between and within social groups, and harnessing the voices of moderate local authorities while protecting them from genocidal governments, can offer two alternatives to the “extreme” solution of military intervention that is currently the norm.
In turn, the ideas proposed here, and the findings of the analysis, are consequential not only for theory but also for politics and policy. Knowing what prompts a person to kill or not kill as a genocide unfolds has powerful implications for intervention. This is because moments when individuals decide to kill or not kill, or to rescue a victimized neighbor, can reveal influences on decision-making that are missed when only perpetrating behaviors are examined. In breaking apart categories from actions, new questions about genocide become possible, new theories can emerge, and new prescriptions for intervening in ongoing violence can follow.
CONCLUSION
The study of behavioral variation in genocide can help the United Nations develop a comprehensive plan that links genocide prevention and punishment to intervention. Especially for the OSAPG, social scientific exploration of behavioral variation during genocide might prove not only illuminating, but also lifesaving. Where people make choices, other choices are possible.
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