A million individual acts of murder

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After visiting Rwanda, it is almost impossible to believe that this is the very country which tore itself apart just 13 years ago. I arrived here with images of machetes, bullet-ridden corpses, intertribal warfare, and societal breakdown - instead, I arrived in an efficient and orderly country, where the people are quick with a smile and a greeting, and harmonious living is the order of the day.

Now, forgive me for lapsing into teacher mode, but let me refresh you on the basics of Africa's worst genocide. Thanks to divisive rule by the Belgians, centuries of latent mistrust, various episodes of intertribal violence in the decades after independence, and a simmering civil war, by 1994 Rwanda was a country set to explode. Members of the majority Hutu tribe were just looking for an excuse to eliminate the minority Tutsis. The assassination of the Hutu president in April was the spark that set off the killing. Hutu militias had already drawn up detailed lists of who was to be executed - and, thanks to some disgustingly virulent anti-Tutsi propaganda on the state media, plus the blatant involvement of the largely-Hutu Rwandan army and government, the murders kicked off with a speed and brutality few could have predicted. In the course of 100 days, around a million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were massacred, usually with machetes or clubs, occasionally with guns or grenades. Roadblocks were set up, and identity cards - a hangover from the Belgian days - were checked. Tutsis, of all ages, were murdered simply for being Tutsi. Those that fled to places of refuge - churches, schools, hotels - were hunted down and finished off. Rwanda fell apart while the world looked on, largely unmoved, and certainly not willing to step in and help out. The UN peacekeepers already in the country, hopelessly undermanned (there were a few hundred only), were ordered to evacuate foreign nationals first. UN Commander Romeo Dallaire asked for 5000 troops, asserting that with this many blue-helmets on the ground, he could avert the killing. His cries fell on deaf ears. The UN, US, UK, and France, among others, refused to call the murders a 'genocide', as such a label would have morally obliged them to come to the Tutsis' aid. It wasn't until after the frenzy of death that the UN troops finally arrived in numbers sufficient to save people - but by then, it was too late. A million people lay dead in the streets or in mass graves; seven million of Rwanda's nine million people had become refugees; 300,000 kids were orphaned; hundreds of thousands of women were left raped and infected by HIV. The heart of this tiny nation had been ripped out. Things did not look good for Rwanda's future.

Rwanda should be a case study in getting back on your feet.

Here we are, just over a decade later, and the country has moved on amazingly. The economy is fairly strong. Tribal barriers have been largely broken down - everyone is Rwandan now, and the government is trying to dissolve the labels of 'Hutu' and 'Tutsi'. War Crimes trials in Arusha, Tanzania, plod along, and many of the perpetrators - big fish and small fish - have been tried and convicted both there, and in Rwanda itself. A sense of pride and civic order has been foisted upon Rwanda, so that it is one of the only places in Africa where motorcyclists wear helmets, where the streets are clean, and where buses actually stop at marked places, and don't stuff a thousand people into the three remaining seats. They even have - and I kid you not - one Saturday a month set aside as 'Community Service Day', where no-one, bar a few security guards, is allowed to work before midday. Everything closes down, and you can spend the morning cleaning, repairing things, or helping on other projects. I read in the paper that 70 people were arrested the other day for being caught by the cops, sleeping! A great idea for fostering community spirit and keeping the country's infrastructure ticking along; a bad idea when you are a tourist who wants to change money, send letters and get some emails out.

Kigali, the capital, is a safe and friendly city, sprawling almost beautifully over several hillsides. There isn't much in the way of sights, unless you are a sick voyeur like me, determined to learn more about the brutality that occurred thirteen years ago. So it was that I ended up wandering into the Hotel des Milles Collines, the real Hotel Rwanda, where much of what is shown in that film really did take place. The one used in the movie is actually in South Africa, so the Kigali version doesn't quite live up to the Country Club image I had in my mind - it is a rather uglier, early-1980s-style building. You wouldn't believe it was the site of such horrors so recently - there is not a mention of the genocide, or the film, anywhere in the hotel, and the onus now is on enticing rich Belgian businessmen to enjoy the swimming pool, the bar, and the 4-star rooms. One night, I did meet up with some fellow travellers there, to take advantage of the Hotel Rwanda's happy hour next to the pool - which is a very weird experience, when you remember that this very pool was the only supply of water to the genocide victims sheltering in the establishment back then.

The main 'attraction' - I use the term guardedly - in Kigali is the recently-built Genocide Memorial. The centre consists of a museum, education centre, and garden of memory. The museum has three galleries - one on Rwanda, one on other genocides of the 20th century, and one devoted to the children of the Rwandan genocide. The information is in Kinyarwanda, French, and English, and is presented matter-of-factly, yet not in an unsentimental way. A visit to the memorial is guaranteed to be confronting and emotional - especially when you realise that, in the gardens outside, are buried 250 thousand victims of the violence. Numbers like that make my head spin.

Rwanda is a tiny place, yet chock-full of natural beauty. It isn't called Le Pays de Milles Collines - the Land of a Thousand Hills - for nothing. Yet I wasn't here to stroll in the forests, or sit with the mountain gorillas. I was here to try and discover Rwanda's heart of darkness, and so I devoted my time to visiting everything genocide-related. There are three main 'sites', as they're known, around the country. I will try to summarise their stories and what I saw.

Massacre Site 1 - Nyamata Church, 30kms south of Kigali
The story: Somewhere between 2500 and 10,000 Tutsis fled from villages south of the capital, and sought shelter in the one place they believed would be safe - the local Catholic church. The masses were huddled in the church and nearby buildings. On April 10th, 1994, members of the Interahamwe militia surrounded the church. They forced the padlocked door down, and, using machetes, grenades and guns, killed nearly everyone inside, and thousands more in the area. The dead were left littered around the church to rot in the tropical heat.

Now: The church has been preserved as a monument to the dead. The bodies have been buried in mass graves, and many of the skulls and femurs of the victims are on display in underground chambers, as a grisly reminder of what happened that day. The pure number of skeletal remains left me feeling physically weak. Inside the church, bullet holes blister the walls and iron roof. The blood-soaked altar-cloth has been kept in place.

Massacre Site 2 - Ntarama Church, 25kms south of Kigali
The story: Not far from Nyamata, this was another church where people sought shelter during the first days of the genocide. They did not believe that their pursuers would dare murder them on sacred ground. They were wrong. On April 15th, the killers knocked holes in the church walls, and threw in grenades, before clubbing, chopping and shooting those who tried to escape. Most of those inside were killed.

Now: Again, the church has been preserved as a monument. Some of the victim's skulls have been put on display, but more moving is the massive amount of bloodstained clothing that has been hung from the walls of the nave. Near the altar, the victims' possessions have been collected - uneaten food, rotting books, ID cards, shoes, blood-soaked mattresses. A list of the victim's names is being created on a huge wall in the grounds - only 260 names have been confirmed, of over 5000 victims.

Massacre Site 3 - Murambi Technical School, 150kms south-west of Kigali
The southwest of Rwanda largely avoided the violence that flared in the north from April 6th, but within ten days the Rwandan army and the anti-Tutsi militias had arrived in the area. 50,000 people left their villages and took refuge in the uncompleted buildings of this high school. On April 16th, the murderers descended. There was no escape, as the Tutsis were surrounded on all sides. Nearly everyone there was killed, with wepaons ranging from grenades and guns, to clubs and garden hoes. The 50,000 victims were dumped in four mass graves.

Now: A year later, the bodies of the dead were exhumed. Most were reburied in proper graves, but 1200 of the partially-decomposed corpses were preserved with lime powder. These gruesome remains have been put on display in 24 former classrooms. The musty smell of death and lime is quite overpowering. The twisted, contorted shapes of the dead, the overwhelming number of children, and the injuries they received, are the most confronting sight I have ever seen. This is not for the faint-hearted. As I numbly moved from room to room, the janitor pointed things out to me. He showed me a person with their torso torn apart, and calmly said, 'Grenade'. Then he showed me someone whose leg had been sliced through the bone in three places. 'Machete'. A wave of nausea hit me. Powerful, appalling stuff.

***
There is a quotation that stands out from the Genocide Memorial. 'Genocide is not a single act of murder, it is millions of acts of murder'. It is easy to lump the million dead together as one amorphous mass of victims. Sometimes, in the presence of such numbers, it is the individual stories that affect us more. One story that affected me deeply was that of Hubert. Here it is:

Hubert Kirenga was just two years old when he died. He was a sweet-looking kid, and he loved to play with his toy car. His favourite food was riz sauce - rice, with veggie sauce. He had a best friend - his sister.

In 1994, this child - innocent and full of hope - watched some men kill his mother. they shot her dead. Then, with that last horrific memory fresh in his mind, he was shot dead too.

There are a million more stories that are equally as tragic.

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Visiting Rwanda has been an emotionally confronting experience. I have never felt such shame and anger at what human beings are capable of doing. Yet, seeing how far the Rwandan people have come, I have never felt such hope.

Let us pray that such horrors will never happen again, anywhere on this planet.

Did someone say Darfur?

Tom's Top Four of Rwanda

1. The Genocide Memorial, in Kigali. This is not your average tourist attraction - it is a museum, education centre, memorial, and tomb, all in one. It will leave you shocked and saddened, but also determined to not let such horrors happen again.

2. Crash helmets on the motorbike taxis. In Africa! Can you believe it!!

3. The genocide churches. Again, not for the faint-hearted, but a visit is necessary to appreciate the true awfulness of what happened here in 1994.

4. Kigali. A very funky little capital city - safe, easy to get around, and plenty of cool bars. You can even have a beer at the Hotel Rwanda!

Tom's Bottom Three of Rwanda

1. The genocide. A lot of the evidence of the apocalypse is no longer visible, but the psychological rifts are deep, and the tragic history of this tiny nation is something you can't avoid. A few visits to genocide sites leaves you drained emotionally, and despairing for humanity's chances.

2. Community Service Day. Trust me to be in Kigali on the one day each month where EVERY business closes for half a day.

3. The price of accommodation. After being spoiled for cheap rooms in Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda, Rwanda has been a bit of a shock to the wallet.

*****


Africa Country Count: 13

Rwanda Overland Kilometre Count: 575km

Africa Overland Kilometre Count: 22,640km

Next Country: Tanzania

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Photos

The aftermath of genocide
Just a few of the skulls of victims of the Nyamata church massacre, during the Rwandan Genocide of 1994. The remains of the 2500 victims are on display as a permanent reminder of the awful events that occurred.

Rwandans and Rwanda
Two kids standing in front of a map of their country, at a school in Nyamata

Tragic remains
A huge pile of thigh bones, from some of the 2500 genocide victims at the Nyamata church.

The real Hotel Rwanda
The real deal, the Hotel des Mille Collines, where thousands of people sought refuge during the genocide. There is not a mention of this history in the hotel, and now it serves as a restaurant, lodging and hangout for rich Europeans.

Bloody genocide
The blood-soaked altar cloth at the church in Nyamata, where 2500 people were massacred in 1994. Now the church is a preserved genocide memorial, where you can get an idea of the scale of the violence. Sad, tragic stuff.

Ntarama church
The wall of the Ntarama church, where 5000 people were massacred in 1994. The hole was made by the genocidaires, who proceeded to throw grenades into the crowded church. You can see some of the bloodstained clothing of the victims, hung along the inside of the nave as a visual memorial to those who died.

Pure evil
More skulls of massacre victims at Nyamata church. The name 'Patrice', written on one skull, lends a personal touch to the anonymous remains of the victims.

Carte d'Afrique
A map of Africa on the wall of a Rwandan school, Nyamata

Welcome to Rwanda!
The first thing you see in Rwanda - a beer ad

Genocide Memorial
Flowers sit atop one of the mass graves at the Kigali Genocide Memorial, where 250,000 victims are buried. The city centre is visible on the hill in the background.

Bike guy
View from the back of a bicycle taxi, on the way to the Ntarama church genocide memorial.

Cheese!
Me, my Scottish mate Douglas, and a crowd of Rwandan chaps that we played pool with, at a bar in Kigali. There were some beers consumed before this photograph was taken...

Comments

[Nigel]

Hotel Rwanda
Did you manage to see Don Cheadle at happy hour?

[Briana]

Wow
A very powerful posting...I have seen the movie adaptation of the Rwanda massacre starring Don Cheadle, and there is no way that Hollywood film can ever come so close to the truth of all that happened. It's amazing how humans can carry out such brutal acts towards fellow beings. Thank you for sharing all of those eye-opening pictures of our world's history.

[deleted_15735]

Well measured blog
Great blog mate, emotional yet not dramatic. Those Massacre Sites sound even more intense than Auschwitz, which ive been to and i find that place pretty hard to comprehend. Its strange how you visit places like these and realise the evils man can do, and you come out hoping that man has learnt from that and never does it again. But then you get Cambodia, then Rwanda, then Kosovo; and we forget that we already had made those mistakes before and had that we already had promised to never do it again. But yeah, you now look at Darfur and realise we still havent learnt, and that all those promises to prevent such tragedies seem to be empty promises. Pretty sad stuff.

[Sam]

My God
Still can't believe this all happened in 1994. This post gave me chills from a thousand miles away. Once again, never again eh? Sigh.

[History]

Hi Tom
Ian said your a bludger! Where is your registration from last term? we want it now!!!! The only reason you went to Africa is to avoid all the paper work :) We hope your having an awesome time still and we're all thinking of you! have a couple of drinks for us. Love History

[Joe]

Just what I needed
I've just seen the movie recently and was looking for follow-up info on Rwanda, how (if) people moved on. Your travellog answered all my questions even including what the hotel's name meant. Thank you.