Description
Book SynopsisIn 1994, almost one million ethnic Tutsis were killed in the genocide in Rwanda. In the aftermath of the genocide, some of the top-echelon Hutu officers who had organized it fled Rwanda to the eastern Congo (DRC) and set up a new base for military operation, with the goal of retaking power in Kigali, Rwanda. More than twenty years later, these rebel forces comprise a diverse group of refugees, rebel fighters, and civilian dependents who operate from mountain areas in the Congo forests and have a long and complex history of war and violence. While media and human rights reports typically portray this rebel group as one of the most brutal rebel factions operating in the eastern Congo region, Hutu Rebels paints a more complex picture.
Having conducted ethnographic fieldwork in a rebel camp located deep in the Congo forest, Anna Hedlund explores the micropolitics and practices of everyday life among a community of Hutu rebel fighters and their families, living under the hars
Trade Review
"[A]n authoritative ethnographic study of life in a military camp controlled by the Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda...Important in its scope, empirics, and insight." * H-Genocide *
"A fabulous book. Hutu Rebels is the first to provide an in-depth analysis of Hutu rebels and to present their own perspectives on the war and on their own situations. Anna Hedlund handily refutes stereotypes of rebel life as one defined by chaos and violence while also highlighting the boredom, normalcy, and everydayness that accompanies such a life. It is based on extraordinary ethnographic research and firsthand material, and the analysis is as nuanced as it is convincing and insightful." * Séverine Autesserre, author of The Trouble with the Congo: Local Violence and the Failure of International Peacebuilding *
Table of Contents
List of Abbreviations
Preface
Introduction. Conflict and Violence in the Congo
Chapter 1. Rwandan Rebels in the Congo War: Power, Politics, and Exile
Chapter 2. Rainbow Brigade: Life in a Rebel Camp
Chapter 3. Politics in the Forest: Retelling History in Exile
Chapter 4. Captivity and Commitment
Chapter 5. The Forest of Volcanoes: Rebel-Civilian Interactions
Chapter 6. From Bare Life to Bare Violence
References
Notes
Index
Acknowledgments
