Genocide involves actions committed with the intent to destroy in whole or a part of a nation’s ethnic, racial or religious group. Such actions include mass killings, torture, and imposing measures to prevent reproduction in the victim group. The Rwandan case was s cultural genocide officially imposed by the government (terrorism from above) to remove or repress the Tutsi. But it was also terrorism from below as the Tutsis rose to fight for their political, social and economic rights. The Hutus were callous when they raised their machetes against men, women and children of the minority Tutsi tribe and even against moderate Hutus who sought to protect them or were associated with them, and sliced open their arms and chests, stuck blades into their mouths and genitals and lopped off their heads.

Terrorists commonly employ different rhetorical structures, all used to justify their reliance on violence. The first one is the claim that the terrorists have no choice other than to turn to violence. Violence inform of genocide was presented as a necessity in one case by the Hutus in Rwanda to impose upon the weak (Tutsis) and by the Tutsis as the only means with which to respond to an oppressive enemy.

The Tutsis were depicted as constantly persecuted, its leaders subject to assassination attempts and its supporters massacred, its freedom of expression curtailed, and its adherents arrested. This tactic, which portrays the organization as small, weak, and hunted down by a strong power or a strong state, turns the terrorists into the underdog.

In relation to the above, the legitimacy of the use of genocide by one tribe to demonize the enemy (another tribe) was a counter terrorism measure. The members of the Tutsi movement are presented as freedom fighters, forced against their will to use violence because a ruthless enemy is crushing the rights and dignity of their people or group. The enemy of the movement is the real terrorist: “Our violence is tiny in comparison to his aggression” is a common argument. In this case, the Tutsis shift the responsibility for violence from themselves to the adversary (Hutus), which is accused of displaying its brutality, inhumanity, and immorality.