| Date | November 2021 | Marks available | 4 | Reference code | 21N.1.BP.TZ0.18 |
| Level | Both SL and HL | Paper | Paper 1 - first exams 2017 | Time zone | TZ0 |
| Command term | Analyse | Question number | 18 | Adapted from | N/A |
Question
Source Q Scott Straus, a professor of political science, interviewing a former supporter of Hutu extremists who had also confessed to killing civilians, in the collection of accounts Intimate Enemy. Images and Voices of the Rwandan Genocide (2006).
[President] Habyarimana was the parent of Rwanda. Habyarimana did nothing bad to Tutsis … No person in Rwanda thought “I am Hutu. You are Tutsi.” Habyarimana prevented all that. We intermarried. All that was disturbed by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) war …
We, the peasants, believed that the person who had killed the president was an enemy … they were Tutsis, so we believed the solution was to kill the Tutsi… We said we were defending ourselves against the enemy… All the things that happened in Rwanda were caused by the war between the RPF and the Rwandan government, and the people who are dead and the things that were destroyed, it was the RPF and the government in place that must answer for that.
[Source: Lyons, R. and Straus, S., 2006. Intimate Enemy. Images and Voices of the Rwandan Genocide. New York:
Zone Books, pp. 81–82. Adapted.]
With reference to its origin, purpose and content, analyse the value and limitations of Source Q for an historian studying the conflict in Rwanda in 1994.
Markscheme
Value:
- The source offers a first-hand account from a witness of the conflict.
- The interview was given to explain the motives for participation in the violence.
- It suggests that both the RPF and the government were responsible for what happened in Rwanda.
Limitations:
- The witness had confessed to killing civilians and may want to justify his actions.
- It only offers insight into a pro-government position.
- The account is vague and does not offer specific details on events in 1994.
The focus of the question is on the value and limitations of the source. If only value or limitations are discussed, award a maximum of [2]. Origin, purpose and content should be used as supporting evidence to make relevant comments on the value and limitations. For [4] there must be at least one reference to each of them in either the value or the limitations.
Examiners report
As highlighted above, and in previous reports, candidates demonstrated an understanding of how to identify the origin, purpose and content of a source and most were able to offer some sound analysis of value and limitation derived from these. However, there remains a tendency for lengthy descriptions of the origin, purpose and content of the source, at the expense of actual evaluation or analysis. Related to this, some candidates, for example, offered an identification of the purpose of the source without going on to explain how this was a value and/or limitation. Candidates should also be cautioned against a note-form response as these tend to lack clarity in terms of explanation of value and limitation. In addition, it was disappointing to find that a small number of candidates had analysed the wrong source, which reinforces the recommendation that questions should be read carefully.
