15th anniversary of the genocide
When you look to Rwanda these days you will see the yearly time of mourning about the genocide of 1994. Only 15 years ago one of the darkest chapters in human history happend in this little country in East Africa with the world looking away. 100 days of killings, 800.000 people dead, killed in the most brutal ways you can imagine with the most primitive weapons like clubs or machetes. And the killings only stopped when the rebels invaded from the north and fought the Hutu militias to flee into nearby Tanzania or Congo, where many of them died shortly afterwards because of starvation and cholera. While the international community stood by and watched at the time the genocide happend, shortly afterwards everyone said only one sentence: Never again!
Rwanda today on the surface feels like a really peaceful country. Nothing what reminds you of the horrific things happend here only 15 years ago, but under this surface you will find a lack of psychological processing. Most of the money which came into Rwanda after the genocide was used to build up infrastructure and get the country going. Where there are no social injustices there is no hate was the thought of the new goverment. And they made great work to fix a country which was so much divided. But under the surface the people tried to forget something which could not be forgotten. It is part of our history, but not part of our future is what you’ll hear when you talk to the people, but after some time you will also hear that they have to suffer about it and some will even say that there is a possibility that something like that could happen again. A example for that is what happend yesterday near Butare, where three survivors of the genocide were killed brutaly, with mutilating their faces. A suspicion is that it was done by one of the many prisoners, responsible for the genocide and now coming out of jail slowly. Maybe it’s the act of a few, maybe it’s a sign which should not be forgotten.
When we remember the people today who died in 1994, we should also think about what is going on in Darfur right now. We should think about what was said after the genocide: Never again! And how the international community fails again… We should also as an act of respect to the people who died, let this truthfully never happen again!
Pictures here.
