Neither Settler nor Native: The Making and Unmaking of Permanent Minorities

by Mahmood Mamdani

Southern independence points to another constructive comparison, a contrast rather than a parallel. In the aftermath of genocide, Rwanda followed the Nuremberg model by criminalizing perpetrators, but it also bucked that model by maintaining state unity—something that didn’t happen in Sudan. In Rwanda, Hutu were equated with perpetrators and Tutsi with victims, even though both sides spilled copious blood—but they were not separated in two different political communities. Hutu were marginalized in the subsequent political process, and the new power ruled in the name of survivors, which meant Tutsi. This was a consequence of the community-level reconciliation process, known as Gacaca, in which alleged perpetrators were forgiven in return for speaking the truth—that is, for implicating others who would not come forward voluntarily, so that they might be dealt with by the law. In Sudan, of course, the Troika called for the creation of a separate state for victims—that is, for ethnic cleansing. South Sudan is the outcome.