Breaking a Violent Cycle: Human Rights and Governance in Post-Genocide Rwanda

• Main Author: Earley, Jack
• Format: Others
• Published: Scholarship @ Claremont 2016
• Subjects: Rwanda; human rights; development; Kagame; African Studies
• Online Access: http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/1229; http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2330&context=cmc_theses

This paper explores the apparent contradiction between Rwanda’s impressive and internationally-recognized development in physical, economic and social conditions largely driven by the Kagame’s administration policies and the pervasive human rights violations also resulting from government policy. The author asks the question whether the nation – two decades removed from the 1994 genocide which resulted in the death of 800,000 people in 100 days – is ready and capable of transitioning to a political system and set of policies that value human rights and economic development equally, and whether that transition would reduce the risk of future unrest and violence.