No issue has riveted international attention on and to the African continent over the past five years than the genocides in Burundi, Congo (Kinshasa), and Rwanda. As we struggled first as college teachers and then as the new editors of the ASR to come to terms with and then to explain these horrific events, we determined to inaugurate our tenure as editors with a series of essays that provide an in-depth analysis of the warfare and genocides in the Great Lakes region. To that end, we commissioned five essays, each providing a different optic for comprehending what has occurred there.

The editorial work for this collection was largely complete by November 1997, and the subsequent delay in getting the text to the printer and on to subscribers may fairly be attributed both to the move of the African Studies Association from Emory University in Atlanta to Rutgers University in New Brunswick as well as to substantial changes in the way the journal is edited and produced. In the interim, several other essays have appeared in sister journals on this same topic, and rather than being disheartened at being scooped, we welcome this broad participation by scholars, activists, and editors.

There can be no reconciliation between Hutu and Tutsi without justice, and no justice without truth. This proposition holds true for all three states of former Belgian Africa. In Rwanda and Burundi, in particular, getting at the truth will remain problematic as long as the perpetrators of genocide readily cast themselves in the role of victims, and the victims, in turn, are seen as perpetrators by their enemies. Basic disagreements between Hutu and Tutsi about who committed genocide and why are traceable in part to the uncritical use of the term genocide to describe just about any type of ethnic violence, in part to the selective sifting of the evidence with a view to exonerating one group and condemning the other. Although Hutu and Tutsi are both guilty of genocide, the tendency to substitute collective guilt for individual culpability in the planning and execution of the killings can only result in distortion of the facts. There will be no peace in the Great Lakes region unless one takes seriously the task of shedding light on the circumstances, the scale and the consequences of the genocide of Hutu by Tutsi in Burundi (1972), of Tutsi and Hutu by Hutu in Rwanda (1994), and of Hutu by Tutsi in Congo (1996–1997).

This paper explores both the plight of the vanquished Hutu refugees who have returned to Rwanda under a cloud of suspicion, or outright condemnation (for their presumed roles in carrying out the 1994 genocide against Tutsis) and the legal mechanisms that could foster the reconstruction of a more inclusive political community. The author uses the term “social memory,” rather than “culture” or “tradition,” to elucidate the idea that social hatreds and inclusions arise and fall historically in conditions where political power is consolidated and deployed. Thus the re-integration of the Hutu into Rwanda civil society rests more on political will rather than foundering on implacable mystical or primal antagonisms. The author outlines several legal steps that might be followed to implement that political will.

Since the military coup d'état of October 21, 1993 Burundi is experiencing a genocide, albeit at a slow pace, while the leaders engage in a series of ‘dialogue of the deaf.’ Meanwhile, half-truths are being told about the causes of the crisis and inappropriate solutions are being proposed for an incorrectly diagnosed structural social malaise. This paper examines the causes of ethnic violence by emphasizing the impact of institutional failure. The ‘privatization’ of key institutions such as the military, the judiciary, and the education system by ethnic and regional entities, has resulted in a divorce between state institutions and the population. Violence is created and maintained in a vicious cycle of frustration–claims and counterclaims–and repression as the rulers try to hold on to power while the oppressed categories of the population claim for their fair share in national resources. Restoration of peace and stability will require an extensive reform of key institutions to ensure equity and protection of rights and property for all citizens.

Christian churches play sharply contradictory roles in African societies, both helping the ruling classes maintain their domination of the masses and helping the masses resist domination. An analysis of Rwanda, Burundi, and Congo reveals that various social groups vie to use the churches to support their political programs. In Rwanda, for example, both supporters and targets of the genocide received assistance from the churches. Churches have no predetermined relationship to structures of power, but represent important sites of political contestation, a fact that challenges the view that civil society, in which churches are a vital segment, necessarily serves the interests of the society as a whole.

This essay is intended for teachers. It is not seen as simply setting out the history of the genocide in Rwanda; that has been done elsewhere. Instead, this article addresses four conceptual fields associated with the genocide, and asks two questions of them: how do these issues become important in understanding the genocide, and how does understanding the genocide illuminate these themes? The themes explored include ethnicity, outside influences, gender issues, and ecological issues. None of these issues are unique to Rwanda; therefore, there is a danger in “distancing” genocide to some remote, “exotic” locale: it has occurred in North America, Europe, and Asia, as well as Africa. Because it results from the conjunction of influences and actions widely present in the world today, genocide needs to be addressed direcdy, and understood, not neglected. This article is intended as a step in this process.

This study examines ways that political leaders influence the development of the unofficial economy in Congo. Using aggregate data as well as data from observation and two surveys conducted in 1991–1992, it demonstrates that the unofficial economy develops not only as a reaction against an over-regulated state, but also because of a market segmentation along gender lines, state policy in defining property rights, and networks of relationships that partly shape the behavior of bureaucrats who act to satisfy their own preferences. Although the unofficial economy creates institutions that can challenge state hegemony, it neither allocates resources equally among the participants nor provides an equal access to high-profit activities to all. The findings suggest that women are more likely to be involved in low-value profit sectors of the unofficial economy than men. Because the unofficial economy reinforces mutual trust and reciprocity, it tends to create a new idea of social order and interactions.