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CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE CAUSES AND DYNAMICS OF THE CONFLICT: THE MAIN PARADIGMS OF 
INTERPRETATION 
It is important to understand the unfolding of the genocide in small, face-to-face 
communities, since the bulk of the transitional justice work is being done at this level through the 
Gacaca courts. Though, consensus has arisen to some large extent in the vast literature available 
on the Rwandan tragedy on the fact that the genocide had little to do with apolitical 'tribal warfare' 
between ethnic groups. Nevertheless, the main paradigm used by observers to interpret the 1994 
genocide is the ethnic character of the conflict: the majority ethnic group the Bahutu-attempted 
to achieve the complete extermination of the minority ethnic group the Batutsi (IDEA, 2008).
Other paradigms focus on elite manipulation; ecological resource scarcity; the socio 
psychological features of the perpetrators; and the role of the international community. The elite 
manipulation paradigm' explores the desire of the Rwandan elite to stay in power. The RPF 
invasion and the following war, the international power sharing agreement and the pressure for 
democratization followed by the birth of the political opposition all threatened the monopoly of 
power and the privileges of Rwanda's elite. This elite was ready to use all means to survive 
politically and keep a hold on the privileges associated with state power (Uvin, 2001). This 'elite 
manipulation paradigm' fits neatly with the 'socio-cultural features of Rwandan society paradigm'. 
A powerful elite, desperate to stay in power, makes use of the highly centralized state structure, 
with command lines that go deep into rural life, to mobilize an 'obedient', 'conformist' and 
'uncritical' army of peasants, even if this means slaughtering their neighbors. Another paradigm 
focuses on the importance of 'ecological resources'. The argument is that Rwanda's resource 
scarcity, combined with the highest population density in Africa and high population growth rates, 
was fertile soil for genocidal violence. 
The role of the international community has also received a great deal of attention in the 
past few years. The focus is mostly on the months preceding and during the genocide. The 
argument is that the nature of the (in) action of international stakeholders paved the path towards 
genocide, either intentionally-implicitly-or unintentionally. It is also argued that the long-standing 
presence of the international community in Rwanda in the form of development enterprise fuelled 
the momentum of the genocide through its apolitical and socially and culturally ignorant presence 
in the country. Macro-level paradigms for explanation fail to capture the dynamics and experience 
of violence at the local level. Apart from the need to understand the general causes of the conflict. 

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In order to prevent a recurrence, it is equally important to explore the conflict dynamics 
at the lowest levels of society (Gabir02002). We have already mentioned the degree of 
involvement of ordinary citizens in the looting and killing. The court system is designed to operate 
at the lowest units of society, Comparative micro-analysis of the genocide demonstrates that the 
violence unleashed at the macro level was appropriated and fundamentally shaped by the micro-
political matrixes and social formations in which it took hold. Genocide, although shaped from 
above, was significantly reshaped in a highly differentiated terrain of local social tensions and 
cleavages, regional differences and communal or individual particularities. The genocidal 
violence reflected both the goals of the supra-local forces and factors-mainly the Hutu- Tutsi 
cleavage mobilized by political actors for political purposes-and their local shadows-struggles for 
power, fear, (intra-group) coercion, the quest for economic resources and personal gain, vendettas 
and the settling of old scores (Ingelaere 2066).