Sunday, Aug 7

Today the Insight Africa Opportunity troupe visited the Genocide Memorial Center in Kigali built to memorialize the victims and to teach future generations about the lessons of Genocide in Rwanda.There are over 250,000 victims in mass graves at the site in the Rwandan capital, out of an estimated 1,000,000 killed by Hutu extremists and the Interahamwe militia. Most of the victims were hacked to death by machetes during the 100 day period from April 6th thru early July 1993.

The Rwandan genocide was the most serious mass murder of an ethnic group (the Tutsi’s and moderate Hutu’s) by Hutu power since the murder of 6 million Jews by the Nazis in WW II.

The Museum tour explains the history behind the Rwandan genocide and the divisions between the Hutus and the Tutsis.  The explanation is too long to include here but is very powerful in it’s meaning. The Tutsis were the Jews of Rwanda and the techniques used by Hutu power to whip up a campaign of hatred and seek extermination was eerily similar to that employed by the Nazis only with machetes.

The lesson of a genocide of this magnitude and rapidity is that it is not just a bunch of random killings but it is rather a highly plotted, organized, resourced, and executed hate campaign by those in power against an ethnic group whose members can be identified and victimized as being responsible for all of society’s perceived problems.  Those in power are also in a position to convince the masses to turn on their neighbors, through propaganda and hate radio, and  join in the tracking and killing of their victims.

The evil and cruelty of the genocide campaign is unspeakable: rarely does one witness such evil on earth.

One plotter explained in a testimony that a small death squad group could be trained to kill an estimated 1,000 Tutsis per hour with techniques for killing men, women and children.

Romeo Dallaire, the Canadian Commander of the UN Assistance Mission to Rwanda during the time of the Genocide in 1994, who due to a seriously understaffed unit cut from 2500 to only 270 men, was powerless to reverse the fortunes of the genocide victims. He writes how he felt after witnessing,

“Can I still believe in God? I answered that I know there is a God because in Rwanda I shook hands with the devil (meaning those in power who planned and executed the genocide). I have seen him, I have smelled him and I have touched him. I know who the devil is and therefore I know there is a God…”

Rwanda is a different place today, in 2011. The country has been rebuilding and healing for the last 16 years.  There is a new able government led by the strong guiding hand of Paul Kagame. Racial and tribal identification is outlawed and who are Tutsis and Hutus is not discussed or even known. We are only Rwandans now is their message.  The process of confessions, trials, justice, and forgiveness and now reconciliation appears to have had a tremendous and remarkable healing impact.  This part of the story is perhaps even more remarkable than the horrific past. It is why we came here to help in the rebuilding process…and why the Rwandans look positively toward their future.

Fred Middleton

Hillsborough, CA