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Published: September 11th 2013
"At my signal, unleash Hell"
On April 6 1994 Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira were assassinated when the plane they flew in was shot down while approaching Kigali Airport. That event was the signal that started the Rwandan Genocide. Over a period of only 100 days, from April 6 to mid July, between 500,000 and 1,000,000 Rwandans, mostly of the "ethnic group" Tutsis, were systematically murdered. In recent years the Rwandans have started to call the genocide "the Genocide Against the Tutsis". This change of name clearly points out the Tutsis as the victims and consequently the Hutus accept the responsibility for the mass murder.
The reason we write "ethnic group" in quotation marks is that Hutus and Tutsis aren't separate ethnic groups at all. It was the colonial rulers in the 19th century that that came up with the idea of there being different ethnic groups. But the selection process that determined whether a person was a Hutu or a Tutsi was more or less random and had nothing to do with ethnicity.
When travelling in Rwanda we were surprised over how little evidence there is in
The Nyanza Genocide Memorial in Kigali
Black wall with names of victims. Finding out the names of all the victims is a difficult and slow process. They have begun putting up names on this black wall but they have so far just beguneveryday life of these horrible events. It was only 19 years ago that entire Rwanda was nothing but a lawless chaos. Today Rwanda with any standards is a well functioning and very safe country. Of course most people carry scars, physical and/or emotional, and how the two "ethnic groups" Hutus and Tutsis get along with each other is difficult for us to say.
All over Rwanda there are memorials over the people who were killed during the genocide, sites where massacres took place are preserved to keep as reminders of the horrible events back in 1994 and in Kigali there is a genocide memorial and study centre. With this blog entry we have no other purpose than to show what various genocide related sites look like and we hope people who are planning a visit to Rwanda decides to go and visit one or more of these places. Visiting these places and reading or listening to stories of what really happened during the 100 days when hundreds of thousands of people were killed only because they had an identity paper saying they were Tutsis is of course very unpleasant. But it is and for a very long
The Nyanza Genocide Memorial in Kigali
The flame above the pool is lit every year for 100 days from April 6 to mid July, the dates when the Rwandan Genocide took place time will be very much a part of Rwanda's history, a part that visitors to the country should not ignore.
Here follows a short presentation of the various places we visited on our visit to Rwanda:
The Nyanza Genocide Memorial in Kigali is a memorial, a museum of the genocide, a mass grave with victims and a study centre. It is a good place to get an idea of the chains of events that led up to the genocide and how carefully planned it was. The actual genocide started on April 6, 1994 but many years prior to that date hatred against the Tutsis had been built up using various propaganda tools.
The Camp Kigali Memorial is a place where 10 Belgian UN soldiers were killed in the very beginning of the genocide. The soldiers were deliberately targeted right in the beginning of the genocide as a tactical move. The plan was that if a group of foreigners were killed the international community would be scared off and would hesitate to intervene later on. Today we know that this plan worked very well because the UN quickly evacuated all its personal
The Nyanza Genocide Memorial in Kigali
Mass grave where thousands of victims are buried. Still today when bodies are discovered they are brought here for their final rest and did nothing to stop the killings.
Nyamata and Ntarama genocide memorials: In the villages Nyamata and Ntarama just south of Kigali thousands of people took refuge in the local church hoping that the Hutus wouldn't kill people while they were in a holy place. When the Tutsis hid themselves in a tiny enclosed space neither being able to flee nor fight it only made the work easier for the Hutus. Some of the stories we heard when we visited these places were so awful that it is unimaginable that people can be so cruel and evil towards each other.
Hôtel des Mille Collines was made famous through the movie Hotel Rwanda where the true story of how the hotel manager Paul Rusesabagina managed to save Tutsis from being killed by keeping them inside the hotel. It is said that as many as 1,268 people were staying in the hotel while the killings were going on all over Kigali and the rest of Rwanda.
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taracloud
Tara Cloud
Difficult but important!
Bravo for you for visiting these painful places and sharing your experiences. We must remember atrocities, so that hopefully next time, we will not allow the innocent to suffer. Curious that your blog comes at the time of atrocities in Syria and where diplomatic, not military means hopefully will prevent further carnage. May peace prevail!