Ghosts of Rwanda

Completion status: this resource is ~75% complete.
Mummified Rwanda genocide victims.
Foto Sascha Grabow
Mummified victims of the Rwandan Genocide (1994) at Murambi Technical School.

Ghosts of Rwanda is a PBS documentary about the 1994 Rwandan Genocide. One way to watch this documentary is via this playlist on youtube. Also see the official Ghosts of Rwanda (PBS) website which contains a considerable amount of additional information such as interviews with key players and a full transcript.

Overview

  • This film chronicles and revisits the harrowing story of the Rwandan Genocide of 1994, one of the worst human atrocities of the 20th century.
  • This 10th anniversary, American-made documentary (and accompanying website) includes interviews with several key figures, including government officials, diplomats, and eyewitnesses accounts.
  • Warning: This documentary contains disturbing emotional and graphic content. For example, you will see dead bodies in various states of mutilation and decomposition, although it is probably the interviews and human stories that are the most emotionally disturbing.

Connections between the Rwandan Genocide and Social Psychology

Groups involved

Group Role
Belgium Former colonist of Rwanda; pulled out in the 1960s to allow Rwandan self-rule.
Hutus The most populous ethnic group in Rwanda.
Interahamwe & Impuzamugambi Paramilitary Hutu extremist groups who were involved in perpetrating genocidal acts towards Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
Tutsis The second most populous ethnic group in Rwanda.
Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) Tutsi-backed guerilla army which fought back against the Hutu-extremist government in order to end the 1994 genocide.
United Nations Controversially did not act strongly to prevent or further limit the genocide.
United States Controversially did not act strongly to prevent or further limit the genocide.

People involved

Name Role
Brent Beardsley Operations Manager for fellow Canadian Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire, Force Commander, during the Rwandan Genocide.
Roméo Dallaire Force Commander of UNAMIR, the ill-fated United Nations peacekeeping force for Rwanda between 1993 and 1994
Mbaye Diagne Senegalese Army officer and UN military observer credited with saving many lives during through rescue missions at great peril to himself.
Paul Kagame current President of Rwanda and former leader of the guerrilla Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) army, whose invasion of Rwanda is often cited as the primary reason the Rwandan Genocide came to a close.
Carl Wilkens Former head of the Adventist Development and Relief Agency International in Rwanda. He was the only American who chose to remain in the country after the genocide began.
See also Category:Rwandan Genocide people (Wikipedia) and Interviews (Ghosts of Rwanda, PBS)

Observations and comments by students

Some students observations and comments which connect aspects of GOR with principles, theories, and research in social psychology are listed here (feel free to edit/add, etc.):

  1. SteveHenry observed that the interviewed farmer who had been involved in killing explained by this as the "devil" overtaking him (perhaps because "religion" provided a salient schema). Also note the self-serving attribution bias to explain one's "undesired" behaviours externally.

See also

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