Aiding Violence

Development Enterprise in Rwanda
Offers a boldly critical look at structural violence relating to the 1994 Rwanda genocide. Focusing on the 1990s dynamics of militarization and polarization that resulted in genocide, Uvin reveals how aid enterprises reacted, or failed to react, to those dynamics.
Winner of the African Studies Association’s 1999 Herskovits Award

A boldly critical look at structural violence relating to the 1994 Rwanda genocide

Aiding Violence expresses outrage at the contradiction of massive genocide in a country considered by Western aid agencies to be a model of development. Focusing on the 1990s dynamics of militarization and polarization that resulted in genocide, Uvin reveals how aid enterprises reacted, or failed to react, to those dynamics. By outlining the profound structural basis on which the genocidal edifice was built, the book exposes practices of inequality, exclusion, and humiliation throughout Rwanda.