Double genocide

Double genocide is an argument that the victims of a genocide in their turn committed genocide against the perpetrators. Some suggest that it is a tool of genocide denialism. The term has been used in contexts of the Rwanda genocide and the Holocaust of European Jews in the mid-20th century.

In the context of Rwanda, the phrase "double genocide" implies an equivalence between the genocide of the Tutsis by the Hutus and the previous history of oppression of the Hutus by the Tutsis. In the context of the Holocaust, "double genocide" holds that the killings of Jews by Nazis and their collaborators during the Holocaust is comparable to the killings of non-Jews by Soviet paramilitaries.

in his controversial book Black Furies, White Liars (2005), French investigative journalist Pierre Péan alleged the existence of a "double-genocide" in Rwanda. Péan claims that the real causes of the Hutu massacre of the Tutsis were the Tutsi shooting down of Hutu President Juvénal Habyarimana's plane on April 6, 1994, and the context of the historical Tutsi oppression of the Hutus. Péan was publicly supported in this view by then-French president François Mitterrand. In 2009 an investigative team submitted a report to the UNHCHR on the Rwandan genocide. When this report was subsequently leaked, the (now Tutsi dominated) Rwandan government responded by claiming that it was a "part of a political agenda seeking to absolve those who committed the 1994 genocide and to undermine the developments that have taken place in Rwanda by claiming that there is no difference between those who committed the genocide and those who stopped it".

"Double genocide theory" as a concept about the equality of the Holocaust and Soviet crimes was critically evaluated by associate professor of political science Dovilé Budryté in 2004 in a study of Lithuanian memory politics with regard to Soviet and Nazi repression, where the view held by a segment of that country since before the restoration of independence in 1991 was that Lithuanians similarly suffered "genocide" under Soviet rule. Lithuania is one of several Eastern European countries which has embraced the "double genocide" theory; which posits that both the Nazis and Soviets committed genocides. A 2015 article of Slate magazine explained the appeal of "double genocide" for Lithuanians, where 95% of its Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, mostly by Lithuanian collaborators.

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