Introduction
Ethno-political mass violence constitutes one of the most harrowing phenomena exposing the structural limitations of the international human rights regime. The extermination of approximately one million individuals within a mere hundred-day window in Rwanda in 1994 underscores the alarming pace, systematic organization, and cataclysmic impact with which such violence can materialize. A retrospective analysis of this tragedy reveals that, despite the Hutu and Tutsi communities having shared a common language, religion, and socio-cultural practices for centuries, they were diametrically polarized through the strategic interventions of colonial administrations. Consequently, the Rwandan case serves as a vital field of inquiry, illustrating that ethnic identity is a socially constructed category and demonstrating how these identities can be instrumentalized to fuel a mechanism of systemic destruction.
The primary objective of this article is to elucidate the social, political, and ideological trajectories through which ethnic conflict in Rwanda evolved into genocide, while evaluating this process through the prism of human rights. The study is structured around a central research inquiry: exploring the mechanisms by which the state-led historical construction of ethnic identities laid the social groundwork for the genocide, and how this progression can be critiqued within the framework of fundamental human rights norms.
