On April 6,1994, President Juvenal Habyarimana's plane exploded in the skies
above the Kigali region of Rwanda. Violence gripped the country. Between
April and August of 1994, as many as 1 million people were killed and more
than 2 million people became refugees. Until this recent violence, Rwanda had
a population of 7.5 million, a population growth rate estimated at about 3%,
and a population density among the highest in Africa. Ninety-five percent of
the population resided in the countryside, and 90% relied on agriculture to
sustain themselves. Land scarcity and degradation threatened the ability of
food production to keep pace with population growth. Rwanda can be described
as a country with severe demographic stress, relying for subsistence on a
limited resource base. Although environmental factors were significant development issues, environmental scarcity had at most a limited, aggravating role
in the recent conflict.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Abbot, E. (1991, September/October). Where waters run brown. Equinox, 10, 59.
2.
Berschorer, N. (1992). Water and instability in the Middle East. London: International Institute for Strategic Studies .
3.
Bonner, R. (1994a, November 17). A church became a killing field . New York Times, p. A4.
4.
Bonner, R. (1994b, September 7). Rwanda's leaders plan democracy . New York Times, p. A10.
5.
Bonner, R. (1994c, August 14). Rwandans in death squad say choice was kill or die. New York Times, p. A1.
6.
Brown, J.W. (1990). In the U.S. interest: Resources, growth, and security in the developing world. Boulder, CO: Westview.
7.
Brown, L., & Kane, H. (1994). Rwanda: Behind the headlines. Unpublished manuscript, Worldwatch Institute.
8.
Campbell, D. (1994). Environmental stress in Rwanda: A preliminary analysis (Working Paper No. 4. East Lansing: Rwanda Society-Environment Project, Michigan State University .
9.
Dallaire, R. (1995, March 15). Public lecture at the University of Toronto.
10.
Durham, W. (1979). Scarcity and survival in central America: The ecological origins of the soccer war. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.
11.
From Rwanda to Cairo. (1994, August 25). Washington Post, p. A18.
12.
Gaffney, P.C. (1994). Rwanda: A crisis of humanitarian security. Report: The Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies (Issue 7), pp. 1-4.
13.
Geographic Research Paper. (1994). Rwanda: A geographic profile.
14.
Gibbs, N. (1994, May 16). Why? The killing fields of Rwanda. Time, pp. 21-27.
15.
Gizewski, P. & Homer-Dixon, T. (1996). Environmental scarcity and violent conflict: The case of Pakistan (Occasional Paper. Toronto: Project on Environment, Population, and Security Links, University of Toronto.
16.
Gleick, P. (1989, October). The implications of global climate change for international security. Climatic Change, 21(1/2), 309-325.
17.
Gordon-Bates, K. (1994, October). The hard lessons of Rwanda. Crosslines, 2(4-5), 1-6.
18.
Grosse, S. (1994a, November 16). More people, more trouble. Unpublished manuscript, Department of Population Planning and International Health, University of Michigan.
19.
Grosse, S. (1994b, November 15). The roots of conflicted state failure in Rwanda: The political exacerbation of social cleavages in a situation of growing resource scarcity. Unpublished manuscript, Department of Population Planning and International Health, University of Michigan.
20.
Hilsum, L. (1994, May/June). Settling scores. Africa Report, pp. 14-17.
21.
Homer-Dixon, T. (1991, Fall). On the threshold: Environmental changes as causes of acute conflict. International Security, 16(2), 76-116.
22.
Homer-Dixon, T. (1994, Summer). Environmental scarcities and violent conflict: Evidence from cases. International Security, 19(1), 5-40.
23.
Horowitz, D. (1990). Making moderation pay: The comparative politics of ethnic conflict management. In J. Monteville (Ed.), Conflict and peacemaking in multiethnic societies (pp. 450-465). Lexington, KY: Lexington Press.
24.
Howard, P., & Homer-Dixon, T. (1996, January). Environmental scarcity and violent conflict: The case of Chiapas, Mexico (Occasional Paper . Toronto: Project on Environment, Population, and Security.
25.
Jefferson, N. (1992, January/February). The war within. Africa Report, 62-64.
26.
Job, B. ( 1992). National, regime, and state securities in the Third World . In B. Job (Ed.), The insecurity dilemma (pp. 11-35). Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.
27.
Kaplan, R. (1994, February). The coming anarchy. Atlantic Monthly, pp. 44-75.
28.
Kelly, K., & Homer-Dixon, T. (1996, January). Environmental scarcity and violent conflict: The case of Gaza (Occasional paper. Toronto: Project on Environment, Population, and Security .
29.
Lorch, D. (1994a, May 3). In the upheaval in Rwanda, few answers yet. New York Times, p. A3.
30.
Lorch, D. (1994b, May 20). World turns its attention. New York Times, p. A10.
31.
Lowi, M. (1992, September). West Bank water resources and the resolution of conflict in the Middle East (Occasional paper 1. Toronto : Project on Environmental Change and Acute Conflict .
May, J. ( 1995, March). Policies on population, land use, and environment in Rwanda. Population and Environment, 16(4), 321-324.
34.
McClintock, C. (1984, October). Why peasants rebel. World Politics, 48-84.
35.
McClintock, C. (1989). Peru's Sendero Luminoso rebellion: Origins and trajectory. In Susan Eckstein (Ed.), Power and popular protest: Latin American social movements (pp. 61-92). Berkeley : University of California Press.
36.
Newbury, C. (1988). The cohesion of oppression. New York: Columbia University Press.
37.
Newbury, C. (1994, November 5). A Rwanda roundtable discussion. Dicussion held at the Association for African Studies Annual Meeting , Toronto.
38.
Olson, J. (1994, September). Demographic responses to resource constraints in Rwanda (Working paper no. 7. East Lansing: Rwanda Society-Environment Project, Michigan State University.
39.
Olson, J. (1995). Factors behind the recent tragedy in Rwanda. East Lansing: Rwanda Society-Environment Project, Michigan State University.
40.
Percival, V., & Homer-Dixon, T. (1995, October). Environmental scarcity and violent conflict: The case of South Africa (Occasional paper . Toronto: Project on Environment, Population, and Security.
41.
Picard, A. (1994, July 19). Rwandan rebels declare victory. Globe and Mail, p. A1.
42.
Porter, G., & Ganapin D., Jr. (1988). Resources, population, and the Philippines' future: A case study (Paper 4. Washington, DC: World Resources Institute.
43.
Przeworski, A. (1991). Democracy and the market. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
44.
Rule, J. (1988). Theories of civil violence. Berkeley: University of California Press.
45.
Shin, D.C. (1994). On the third wave of democratization. World Politics, 47,135-170.
46.
Tutsi forces to occupy Rwandan zone where Hutu fled. (1994, August 17). New York Times, p. A12.
47.
Ullman, R. (1983). Redefining security. International Security, 8(1), 129-153.
48.
United Nations Environment Program. (1993). United Nations Environment Program environment data report 1993-1994 . Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers .
49.
Waller, D. (1993). Rwanda: Which way now? Oxford , UK: Oxfam Country Studies.
50.
Watson, C. (1992, November/December). War and waiting. Africa Report, pp. 51-55.
51.
Watson, P. (1994, February 23). Tribal feuds throw Rwanda in crisis . Toronto Star, p. A2.
52.
World Resources Institute. (1994). World Resources 1994-95. New York: Oxford University Press.
