The Rwandan genocide sparked a horrific bloodbath that swept across sub-Saharan Africa, ultimately leading to the deaths of some four million people. In this extraordinary history of the recent wars in Central Africa, Gerard Prunier offers a gripping account of how one grisly episode laid the groundwork for a sweeping and disastrous upheaval. Prunier vividly describes the grisly aftermath of the Rwandan genocide, when some two million refugees--a third of Rwanda's population--fled to exile in Zaire in 1996. The new Rwandan regime then crossed into Zaire and attacked the refugees, slaughtering upwards of 400,000 people. The Rwandan forces then turned on Zaire's despotic President Mobutu and, with the help of a number of allied African countries, overthrew him. But as Prunier shows, the collapse of the Mobutu regime and the ascension of the corrupt and erratic Laurent-D�sir� Kabila created a power vacuum that drew Rwanda, Uganda, Angola, Zimbabwe, Sudan, and other African nations into an extended and chaotic war. The heart of the book documents how the whole core of the African continent became engulfed in an intractible and bloody conflict after 1998, a devastating war that only wound down following the assassination of Kabila in 2001. Prunier not only captures all this in his riveting narrative, but he also indicts the international community for its utter lack of interest in what was then the largest conflict in the world. Praise for the hardcover: "The most ambitious of several remarkable new books that reexamine the extraordinary tragedy of Congo and Central Africa since the Rwandan genocide of 1994." --New York Review of Books "One of the first books to lay bare the complex dynamic between Rwanda and Congo that has been driving this disaster." --Jeffrey Gettleman, New York Times Book Review "Lucid, meticulously researched and incisive, Prunier's will likely become the standard account of this under-reported tragedy." --Publishers Weekly

Africa's World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe

History

Prunier, Gérard

Africa

Oxford University Press

In the spring of 1994 the tiny African nation of Rwanda exploded onto the international media stage, as internal strife reached genocidal proportions. But the horror that unfolded before our eyes had been building steadily for years before it captured the attention of the world. In The Rwanda Crisis, journalist and Africa scholar Gérard Prunier provides a historical perspective that Western readers need to understand how and why the brutal massacres of 800,000 Rwandese came to pass. Prunier shows how the events in Rwanda were part of a deadly logic, a plan that served central political and economic interests, rather than a result of ancient tribal hatreds―a notion often invoked by the media to dramatize the fighting. The Rwanda Crisis makes great strides in dispelling the racist cultural myths surrounding the people of Rwanda, views propogated by European colonialists in the nineteenth century and carved into "history" by Western influence. Prunier demonstrates how the struggle for cultural dominance and subjugation among the Hutu and Tutsi―the central players in the recent massacres―was exploited by racially obsessed Europeans. He shows how Western colonialists helped to construct a Tutsi identity as a superior racial type because of their distinctly "non-Negro" features in order to facilitate greater control over the Rwandese. Expertly leading readers on a journey through the troubled history of the country and its surroundings, Prunier moves from the pre-colonial Kingdom of Rwanda, though German and Belgian colonial regimes, to the 1973 coup. The book chronicles the developing refugee crisis in Rwanda and neighboring Uganda in the 1970s and 1980s and offers the most comprehensive account available of the manipulations of popular sentiment that led to the genocide and the events that have followed. In the aftermath of this devastating tragedy, The Rwanda Crisis is the first clear-eyed analysis available to American readers. From the massacres to the subsequent cholera epidemic and emerging refugee crisis, Prunier details the horrifying events of recent years and considers propsects for the future of Rwanda.

The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide (American Moment)

Columbia University Press

The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide

Prunier (U. of Paris) aims to uncover the complexities of the violence in the Darfur region of Sudan and to that end discusses the history of the region, analyzes the political motivations of the contending political parties and militia groups, seeks to assess the actual numbers of deaths in the region, and explores the international response to what is undeniably a humanitarian crisis, even if it remains an "ambiguous genocide" in the eyes of Prunier. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Darfur: The Ambiguous Genocide, Revised and Updated Edition

Cornell University Press

In mid-2004 the Darfur crisis in Western Sudan forced itself onto the center stage of world affairs. Arab Janjaweed militias, who support the Khartoum government, have engaged in a campaign of violence against the residents of Western Sudan. A formerly obscure tribal conflict in the heart of Africa has escalated into the first genocide of the twenty-first century. In sharp contrast to official reaction to the Rwandan massacres, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell called the situation in Darfur a genocide in September 2004. Its characteristics Arabism, Islamism, famine as a weapon of war, mass rape, international obfuscation, and a refusal to look evil squarely in the face reflect many of the problems of the global South in general and of Africa in particular.
Journalistic explanations of the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe have been given to hurried generalizations and inaccuracies: the genocide has been portrayed as an ethnic clash marked by Arab-on-African violence, with the Janjaweed militias under strict government control, but neither of these impressions is strictly true. Darfur: The Ambiguous Genocide explains what lies behind the conflict, how it came about, why it should not be oversimplified, and why it is so relevant to the future of the continent. 
G rard Prunier sets out the ethnopolitical makeup of the Sudan and explains why the Darfur rebellion is regarded as a key threat to Arab power in the country much more so than secessionism in the Christian South. This, he argues, accounts for the government s deployment of exemplary violence by the Janjaweed militias in order to intimidate other African Muslims into subservience. As the world watches, governments decide if, when, and how to intervene, and international organizations struggle to distribute aid, the knowledge in Prunier's book will provide crucial assistance.

Darfur: A 21st Century Genocide

The Somali people are fiercely nationalistic. Colonialism split them into five segments divided between four different powers. Thus decolonization and pan-Somalism became synonymous.\nIn 1960 a partial reunification took place between British Somaliland and Somalia Italiana. Africa Confidential wrote at the time that the new Somali state would never be beset by tribal division but this discounted the existence of powerful clans within Somali society and the persistence of 
colonial administrative cultures. The collapse of parliamentary democracy in 1969 and the resulting army--and clanic--dictatorship that followed led to a civil war in the 'perfect' national state. It lasted fourteen years in the "British" North and is still raging today in the 'Italian' South.\nSomaliland "re-birthed" itself through an enormous solo effort but the viable nation so recreated within its former colonial borders was never internationally recognized and still struggles to exist economically and diplomatically.\nThis book recounts an African success story where the peace so widely acclaimed by the international community has had no reward but its own lonely achievement.

The Country That Does Not Exist: A History of Somaliland

Hurst

When we think of Ethiopia we tend to think in cliches: Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, the Falasha Jews, the epic reign of Emperor Haile Selassie, the Communist Revolution, famine and civil war. Among the countries of Africa it has a high profile yet is poorly known. How- ever all cliches contain within them a kernel of truth, and occlude much more. Today's Ethiopia (and its painfully liberated sister state of Eritrea) are largely obscured by these mythical views and a secondary literature that is partial or propagandist. Moreover there have been few attempts to offer readers a comprehensive overview of the country's recent history, politics and culture that goes beyond the usual guidebook fare. Understanding Contemporary Ethiopia seeks to do just that, presenting a measured, detailed and systematic analysis of the main features of this unique country, now building on the foundations of a magical and tumultuous past as it struggles to emerge in the modern world on its own terms.

Understanding Contemporary Ethiopia: Monarchy, Revolution and the Legacy of Meles Zenawi

Ficquet, Éloi

Following the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, the largely Tutsi RPF government built a repressive regime after a short pretence at national reconciliation, while hundreds of thousands of Hutu, many of whom had perpetrated the genocide, fled to Zaire. The two parties clashed when the Rwandan government attacked the refugee camps in September 1996, forcing some of the refugees back home and killing others. Their military success led the victorious Rwandan forces to push their advantage and overthrow President Mobutu with the help of several African allies and the discreet support of the United States. The collapse of the Zairian regime marked the passing of an era and the implosion of the Cold War postcolonial order in Africa. As a result the heart of the African continent has been engulfed in a low intensity but high civilian casualty conflict involving seven countries directly and another seven indirectly. The international community has shown little interest, yet this massive conflict will probably play a key role in reshaping the continent's future in terms of border definition, governance and economic change, all of which are addressed in this work.

From Genocide to Continental War: The Congolese Conflict and the Crisis of Contemporary Africa

C. Hurst & Co. Publishers Ltd.

Darfur: The Ambiguous Genocide

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Prunier, Gérard. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Prunier, Gérard

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Prunier, Gérard. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Africa's World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe

Africa's World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe

The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide (American Moment)

The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide

Darfur: The Ambiguous Genocide, Revised and Updated Edition

Darfur: A 21st Century Genocide

The Country That Does Not Exist: A History of Somaliland

Understanding Contemporary Ethiopia: Monarchy, Revolution and the Legacy of Meles Zenawi

From Genocide to Continental War: The Congolese Conflict and the Crisis of Contemporary Africa

Darfur: The Ambiguous Genocide