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Remembering Rwanda

"In 1994 TIME photographer James Nachtwey witnessed the devastating effects of the Rwandan genocide. On the 17-year anniversary, the photographer looks back on the tragedy."   

  


It is now the 20th anniversary of the horrors of Rwanda, but what Nachtwey wrote 3 years ago is still just as pertinent......

"Humans make war, and we make peace. We make love, and we make hatred – hatred and fear. Those two are the killers. Orchestrate hatred and fear, and humans make genocide. European colonialists used fear and hatred to cut an incision deep into Rwanda to divide and conquer. It was never allowed to heal and became the subtext for society long after the white rulers made their exit. In 1994, tribal enmity between Hutus and Tutsis was politically manipulated to a state of critical mass. Between 500,000 and 1 million people were slaughtered in the span of three months using farm implements as weapons. The killing by the Hutu interahamwe was committed face-to-face, neighbor-against-neighbor, and sometimes even brother-against-brother.

The number most often heard is 800,000. It’s a big number no matter what it’s applied to. Trying to imagine 800,000 people with their heads bashed in by rocks and clubs, impaled on spears, hacked to death with hoes and machetes – in just three months – stuns the mind, and we struggle to wring meaning out of words like “biblical” or “apocalyptic.”

As they had in Bosnia, instead of sending more troops to prevent bloodshed, the United Nations Peacekeeping Force stepped aside. Because of the disastrous military operation in Somalia, our own political leaders made a conscious decision not to use the one word that could even begin to have meaning -“genocide” – understanding the obligation to intervene implicit in the language. As the world turned its back, the genocide happened in front of its eyes. Later, public apologies were made, something rare for politicians, but the gesture did not bring back the life of a single Rwandan."





 



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