New Books In Genocide Studies

In 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. 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 harshest of conditions. She describes the Hutu fighters not only as a military unit with a vision of return to Rwanda but also as a community engaged in the present Congo conflicts. Hutu Rebels: Exile Warriors in the Eastern Congo (U Penn