Christian Davenport's groundbreaking study of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide at the Kroc Institute - University of Notre Dame (April 8, 2010).
Sixteen years ago, the world watched as Rwanda descended into large-scale violence that left up to a million people dead. This was followed by massive out-migration (nearly half the country), untold amounts of internal displacement, and a deluge of articles, TV news features, movies, and commentary from human rights activists, political leaders, and ordinary people from around the world.
Exactly what happened during Rwanda's hundred days of horror? Christian Davenport has spent more than a decade researching this question. His answer takes all the elements of what has become the conventional story — civil war, genocide, ethnic conflict, refugees, French UN missions, Tutsi rebels, the Hutu army — and combines them in unexpected ways. His research turns on its head the way we understand Rwanda, political violence, intervention, and the study of conflict itself.
This talk represents his thinking or rethinking of the topic after 12 years worth of research
