“NEVER AGAIN” is a famous quote by one of the victims engraved in Kigali Memorial Center.
“When they said,
“NEVER AGAIN” after the Holocaust, was it meant for some people and not for
others?” Appolon Kabahizi
Definition of
Genocide
Rapheal Lemkin, a Jewish Polish lawyer introduced a new word
describe the Nazi policy of systematic destruction of European Jews. It is a
combination of Greek and Latin words ‘geno’
(race or tribe’) and ‘cide’ killing.
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the crime of genocide which
approved by the United Nation in 1948 could not prevent the tragic event in
Rwanda in 1994.
The genocide happened everywhere in the world. For examples:
the killing of Jews by the Nazi in 1949, the killing of Tutsi in Rwanda by the
Hutus in 1994, the killing of communist members and sympathizers in Indonesia
in 1965, the Bosnians, the Poll Pot, etc.
However, in this writing I would like
to overview the massacre in Rwanda based solely on my personal observation and my limited knowledge
about the tragic event. This writing was also supported by my previous ethnographic field-works and
secondary works by previous scholars.
I had a personal experience to explore the Kigali genocide
memorial center in Kigali city. It was Tuesday, 10 January 2012, after presenting a paper at the International Symposium at Hotel Rwanda, there was an excursion
carried out by the symposium team. We visited the Kigali Memorial Center.
After having lunch at the Panorama restaurant of the Mollies Collins or Hotel
Rwanda, we all left for the memorial. There were four buses leaving from the
hotel accommodating all of us around 100 participants both from the SIT
community and scholars from various Universities in the world. It took around
30 minutes to get to the memorial. The buses parked in the parking lot and we
walked to the center. There was a man who gave us information about the ritual
needed to be performed before going around the memorial.
As we can see from the picture above, there was a ritual of
offering flowers to the dead; we could do it individually or in a group. Since we
visited the memorial in a group, we did the ritual in group. We also could buy a
banquet of flowers for the veneration for the victims. We could take pictures
outside the memorial but not inside. We all got together in front of the
entrance gate of the memorial. The flower was carried to the display-coffin in
the open yard next to the memorial building. We walked to the displayed-coffin and laid the flower on top
of it. There were a few coffins underneath the glass-box
display. The coffins were wrapped in white with purple strip around them. They looked so
peaceful but yet they still could tell many stories about what had happened in the tragic event of 1994 massacre. We all were silent for a moment to send our prayer to the dead. Fortunately, we were
allowed to take pictures in that area. However, I had a mix feeling about that area; the feeling between terrified and sad, angry and incomprehensively upset imagining about the situation at the
moment of the killing.
We were so silent, no words to say. We were all in deep
thought. How could that happen? What did they have in their mind when they
conducted the genocide among human-beings?
After the ritual, we proceeded to the memorial building. We could
choose whether we would like to use audio aid that explained the images in the wall
or just read the captions next to each image. I chose to have an audio aid for myself because it was hard for me to read in the crowd and also I needed a new pair of
glasses that I could use for reading both for long and short distant.
We entered the
memorial building and the first thing we saw in the display diorama was the introduction about the Garden of Unity. Kigali before
the genocide was united just like a Garden which was full of different plants
and lived happily together. But suddenly in April 1994, there was an imbalance clash
between Hutu and Tutsi after the crash of a plane that carried two of the most
powerful figures of Rwanda at the Kigali International airport. That plane
crash had triggered the mass-killing of the Tutsi by their Hutu fellow tribes.
There were about 1,000,000 million peoples killed in only 100 days. The
methods of killings were very brutal and inhuman at all. The perpetrators tried
to kill their victims in the most painful death. They used machetes, hoes, club, sex, etc. They
killed men, women and children. Not only Tutsi were killed but also the Hutus
who tried to stop the massacre. The women were raped by those who had HIV
diseases to make the women died slowly and painfully. The women were hung and
beaten up till they stopped screaming reaching their peaceful mind for not feeling
any pain of the tortures. The children were killed by machetes, gun, hoed in
the heads. The methods of killing were unbelievable sadistic and beyond human
feelings. This killing happened in Kigali Rwanda in 1994 for 100 days.
There
were men, women and children got shelter in one of the churches assuming that
they would be safe under the protection of Jesus. But, they were wrong because human
beings had been blinded by their anger. There was only one thing in their mind, which was kill,
kill and kill with the most painful death.
The house of Gods did not guarantee to provide any safety when the human
beings have been penetrated by their evil thoughts. However, the Hotel Rwanda
has become famous because it has saved 1200 people from the cruelty of the
perpetrators. That Hotel Rwanda has kept a very sweet memory in providing life for
more than thousand peoples. There was a movie made entitle "Hotel Rwanda"
After the massacre, there were 37,000 children left without
parents, families and other relatives. Those children waited for their fate to
face the uncertain future in front of them. I asked about the fate of those children the next day the Reflexion session after our visit to the memorial museum,
they (the Rwandan scholars) said that some survivors adopted them to be the members of their families.
During that Reflection of the excursion held in one of the rooms at Hotel Rwanda, I recommended to our audiences especially
those who were from Rwanda to demand their government to enforce and implement
an incentive policy by paying the couple if they do mixed-marriage between the
Hutu and Tutsi. However, as human beings, it must be hard for those people to
forgive all of what had happened to their dead families. No way, we can forget
easily the painful memories that claimed the lives of beloved ones. In one of
the talks it was mentioned that the Tutsi and Hutu still differentiate themselves as
better than the others. For an example: the Hutu smell bad etc.
Rwanda in present
time:
The Rwandan government has tried so hard to unite and to
create One Nation which is Rwanda consist of several tribes; no more Tutsi or
Hutus. They both should live in peace by respecting each other and should
forget the bitter past of animosities. They tried to use one language which is Kanyarwanda as the national language,
but still some debates about that. In the past they (the Tutsi and Hutu) spoke their
own ethnic languages, there was no one language to unite them. In addition to
their ethnic languages, they also speak English and French. Some of them
recommended to adopt one of those foreign languages to be their national
language, however, their patriotic pride make it impossible to adopt any of those foreign languages.
There have been some conciliation efforts carried out to
unite Rwanda as one country, one language and one nation. According to a common
theory, a nation will unite if they have an enemy from the outsiders, they will
fight together to protect their country as one. It happened in East Timor
(Sakti presentation, 13 January 2012), where the Timorese united themselves to
fight against the Indonesian government after 20 years of cruel occupation. So was Rwanda, after having no more outside enemies, they become enemies among
themselves. They fought with each other for sometimes unclear stupid reasons.
Please feel free to comment, suggest and advise for this writing. This is a bit heavy stuff to digest....:)
Thanks for reading it.
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