Concerning Rwanda - the most important entry I will write

Wow.
This is now something like my 3rd or 4th hour writing this entry. I'm obsessing over it, as I tend to do when something is important to me. I sat down thinking I would just write a little bit more about what I'll be doing in Rwanda, but I realized I needed to explain Rwandan history a little in order to do that. Three hours later I have not even thought about explaining my role in going to Rwanda. I knew I was going to have to write something like this at some point; I just didn't realize how hard it would be to get it right.

So here is the post about Rwanda the country. This is probably what most people have been curious about in the back of their heads whenever they hear I will be going to Rwanda, so I hope I didn't completely screw it up. I'm still not happy with it, but I can tolerate it.

Disclaimer - this is a long post, and it is not a happy post. However, I think it is a very, very important post. I think it is just as important for me to put this into my words as it is for everyone in the world to know this story. So please, take the extra time to read this.
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To start, here is a short description of Rwanda which you can read if you choose, from the Kigali Genocide Memorial's website:
http://www.kigalimemorialcentre.org/old/about/index.html

Now to the history, and the history cannot begin without discussing the genocide. To a certain extent, the history of Rwanda is the genocide - what led to it, how it took place, and recovering from it. On the scroll of Rwanda's history, saying the genocide is like an ink blot is an understatement beyond reality. It is more as if the entire inkwell was dumped out, methodically staining every part of the scroll. But genocides do not happen by accident, so I will explain the origins to the best of my knowledge.

Not much is known of Rwanda before it was colonized - a fair summary would be that indigenous people lived there, and colonizers came and set in motion the cogs that would eventually produce the genocide machine. Pre-colonially, people belonged to one of 18 or so tribes. There was also a socio-economic classification in place: the Twa were indigenous pygmies, the Tutsis were the wealthy minority, and the Hutus were the poorer majority. While there were some traits that generally separated Tutsis and Hutus, they were certainly not considered different races. People could move between being a Tutsi and Hutu based on their personal situation.

The colonial era in Rwanda began in the late 1800s, first by Germany and then by Belgium. The colonizers, in true Western World spirit, saw fit to organize Rwanda their own way. They formed Tutsi and Hutu into ethnical groups and classes, based largely on the number of cattle a family owned. More than 10 = Tutsi, Less than 10 = Hutu. Since the Tutsi were considered a nobler race by the colonizers (because they believed them to share ancestral blood with the Western World) they were made the ruling minority over the Hutu commoners. The Tutsis were forced by colonizers to rule unfairly and deprive Hutus of full basic human rights. It took the Western World to bring race to Rwanda.

As colonialism began to crumble in the second half of the 1900s, Belgium gave in and held democratic elections in 1960. Not surprisingly, the Hutu majority took power completely. This sudden 180 degree shift threatened the stability of the country. Belgium took the moral high road (voice dripping with sarcasm here) and basically vacated the country as fast as possible, granting Rwanda independence in 1962. Needless to say, this completely irresponsible behavior left the country in turmoil. While this sounds despicable enough, it was actually much worse. Before leaving, Belgium helped draft a manifesto encouraging the 'ethnic cleansing' of Rwanda, turning it into a Hutu nation.

Over the next couple decades, around 1,000,000 Tutsis were forced into exile from Rwanda. This 'cleansing' was also accompanied by a significant amount of killing done by both groups. Many Tutsi exiles began to form the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) and train as an army. In 1990, the RPF invaded Rwanda, starting a civil war. Does that sound strange? Invaded...starting a civil war. As messy as this sounds, keep in mind I am vastly simplifying this as well. After years of guerilla warfare, a peace treaty was signed in 1993, although it was not very well enforced.

In April 1994, as the effects of the peace treaty were still yet to be seen, the tiny nation of Rwanda exploded into violence. Propoganda had been spread calling for the violence against the Tutsi 'cockroaches' and for a united Hutu front. On April 6th, the Hutu president's plane was shot down and he was killed. Within hours roadblocks were set up throughout Kigali and killing of Tutsis began. This moment had been carefully prepared for, down to the lists of names to kill. Propoganda was immediately sent out calling for everyone to unite in the purging of the 'cockroaches'. There is much mystery surrounding the president's death, and many believe it was actually organized by the Hutu Power group, the driving force of the genocide, in order to provide the right spark to start the elimination of Tutsis in Rwanda.

I am in no position to attempt to properly describe a genocide... it feels wrong even attempting. I will share some details I feel are important, and encourage you to do some independent research as well. For the next 100 days, somewhere between 800,000 and 1,000,000 Rwandans were murdered. As a book I read began, "Decimation means the killing of every tenth person in a population." It was the most efficient mass murder since the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Five and a half people were killed every minute, a rate about three times higher than the Jewish Holocaust. However, as the Kigali Genocide Memorial website says, "the genocidaires did not kill a million people. They killed one, then another, then another..." Women, children, elderly... all killed indiscriminately and brutally. Machetes and clubs were the common tool of death. Whole families would watch as they were raped, murdered, and cut to pieces.

I am sorry if the graphic level of this description is disturbing to anyone, but I think you should know I want to disturb, shock, and horrify you. I think it is our obligation to know about this, and it is certainly something that I think should be both shocking and horrifying. After the Jewish Holocaust, the US promised 'Never Again'. Fifty years later, the entire world sat by as Rwandan Tutsis were nearly eliminated from the planet. The United States was too caught up in semantics to bother with actually doing something. If a genocide was taking place, the US was required by the Convention of 1948 to intervene. The US government didn't want to have to intervene, leading to this now famous exchange at a press briefing:

Christine Shelley, US State Dept: ...we have every reason to believe that acts of genocide have occurred.

Journalist: How many acts of genocide does it take to make genocide?

Christine Shelley: Um, Allan, that's just not a question that I'm in a position to answer.

She went on to explain that "There are formulations that we are using that we are trying to be consistent in our use of."

Of course, if the entire briefing took twelve minutes, that means an average of 66 Rwandans were murdered in that time.

UN Commander Dallaire, in charge of the UN forces in Rwanda, estimated that as few as 5,000 troops would have been enough to enforce peace.

While most of the international community was content to have philosophical debates about what legally constitutes a genocide, some countries actually took the initiative to facilitate the genocide, supplying weapons to the genocidaires.

Overall, I'd say it's one of the most embarrassing moments for the so-called 'international community' in history.

I won't go into too much detail about post-genocide Rwanda, as the politics start to get extremely complicated. To summarize, millions of Hutus (both innocent and guilty of genocide) fled the country when the RPF took power, fearing retaliation. Refugee camps were set up just outside Rwanda's borders, which then became bases of operation for the displaced Hutu extremists to continue recruiting and murdering. They were conveniently supplied by dozens of different international aid agencies. The international community had finally decided to act, so what if they were a little ambiguous on who they helped? The new government attempted to bring everyone back to Rwanda in order to begin rebuilding the country. Over the next year about a million people came back to Rwanda, creating complete chaos in the process. This also created a completely unheard of and to my mind unimaginable situation: the Rwandan people now had the task of living normal lives alongside the very people who had just caused the murder of millions.

I should also take time to clarify at this point. The genocide was not a war; it was not Hutus vs. Tutsis. It was an effort by a radical group of Hutu extremists to bring the Tutsi population to extinction. Not every Hutu was a genocidaire, and in fact many, many Hutus were murdered for being too moderate, or too Tutsi friendly. If the attitude in Rwanda after the genocide had been retribution against the Hutu population as a whole, an endless cycle of ethnic hatred would have been set in concrete. I think this is a very important distinction.

Amazingly, Rwanda was successful. While violence continued for years and tensions were often high, somehow Rwanda stabilized. Rwandans acknowledge the horror of their country's past, and use that as a force to drive them forward. Rwanda has embraced the Millenium Development Goals initiative, and is one of the leading nations in Africa in achieving them. Rwanda is a very safe country now, and tourism is starting to develop. All in all, it is a truly incredible achievement.

I do not want you to finish reading this and define Rwanda to yourself as a genocide. I think it would be an insult to the people of Rwanda today. While the genocide is the dominant part of it's history, Rwanda is moving on. I hope you think of the genocide as what it is: history. Very important history. Here are a few statistics of interest that I've taken from the CIA factbook about present day Rwanda.

Population of Rwanda: 10,473,282 people
Land Area: 10,169 square miles
(Comparatively, Rwanda is about 1/5 the size of Iowa and has about 3 times the population. Or, Rwanda is slightly smaller than Maryland with about double the population.)
The capital city, Kigali, has a population of roughly 1,000,000 people.
Languages: Kinyarwanda, French, English, and Swahili
Religion: Predominantly Christian, in particular Catholic
Life expectancy at birth: 50 years (US: 78 years)
GDP per capita: $900 (US: $47,000)

In short, I hope when you think of Rwanda today you think: up and coming country, very densely populated and lushly vegetated, quite different from the Westerner's stereotypical image of Africa. Common nicknames are 'Land of a Thousand Hills' and 'Land of Eternal Spring'.
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If this history has caused any strong feelings in you, I strongly encourage you to do some of your own research. If you have any questions or have anything you would like to talk to me about please feel free, I would love to talk about this further. Two books I have read that I highly recommend are:

We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families, by Philip Gourevitch - An incredibly fascinating analysis of the genocide in Rwanda, what caused it, why it wasn't stopped, etc. It's basically a much better version of what I've typed here. I read it in a couple days; I couldn't stop myself. At times I was sickened, at times I had tears in my eyes, and at times I almost laughed. One of the best books I've read, period.

Left to Tell: Finding God in the Rwandan Holocaust, by Immaculee Ilibagiza - A powerful and emotional first hand account of the genocide and an inspirational story of how one person (and hopefully a nation) can recover.

I think I'll call an end to my writing for now. I know this was a long post, but to be honest it's taken me hours to try and condense it this much. I still have much, much more I would like to say. I'll save that for a later date... and feel free to contact me about anything.

Take care