The machete, the cow and the rugo: rurality and genocide in Rwanda, 2004

01/04/2004

Some of the keys to understanding the Rwandan genocide are rooted in a rural area in crisis that has become highly manipulable. Indeed, while agriculture has made significant gains in productivity over the past century, demographic pressure (the population doubles every thirty years), the evolution of regional economies, the establishment of an increasingly authoritarian regime and the World Bank's structural adjustment policy have endangered certain precarious balances.