Global Encounter Africa 2007

Part III:  The Rwandan Genocide

On April 6, 1994, an airplane carrying the president of Rwanda as well as the president of neighbouring Burundi was shot down near the Kigali airport in Rwanda. Within hours, Tutsi and Tutsi sympathizers were being dragged out of their homes, beaten, raped and killed. Within days, the same was happening throughout Rwanda. Spurred on by hate pouring out of government sponsored radio, neighbour betrayed and participated in the killing of neighbour. Son-in-law against father-in-law. Daughter-in-law against mother-in-law. Over a period of one hundred days, between eight-hundred thousand and a million Rwandans, mostly Tutsi, would be killed. Tens of thousands more would be injured, maimed or raped. Sanctuary couldn’t even be found in the schools or churches. At the end of the hundred days, when light was finally shone on the horror of the Rwandan Genocide, tens of thousands fled across the border into the Dem. Rep. of the Congo (formerly Zaire) where ethnic hatred continues to simmer even to this day.

A whole country was nearly destroyed by hatred. How could this have happened? How could ordinary Rwandans be convinced to carry out such horrible deeds against family, friend and neighbour?

The reasons for the Rwandan Genocide are complex – too complex to go into detail here. Essentially, when Rwanda gained its independence from Belgium in 1961, a power vacuum was created. Filling that vacuum was the Hutu majority who felt that Belgians and the Tutsi minority had conspired for decades to keep the Hutu down. Their anger was not without cause, and so independence was an opportunity to right past wrongs, and the Hutu took full advantage of this opportunity. The result was the deaths of 20,000 Tutsi, the flight of another 200,000 Tutsi across the border, and the beginning of the Rwandan Civil War.

The Civil War went on for decades, sometimes fierce and violent, sometimes quiet. Finally, in the Fall of 1993, the Rwandan government and Tutsi rebels came to a power-sharing agreement. It was this agreement that Canadian General Roméo Dallaire was originally sent by the UN to oversee in January, 1994. Many, however, were unhappy with the agreement – both Hutu and Tutsi. It is unknown who is responsible for shooting down the plane carrying the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi. What is not in dispute is that this act was the spark that ignited the Genocide.

Finally, in July of 1994, the rebel Tutsi army defeated the government forces, bringing that chapter of the Genocide to a close. Peace was enforced in Rwanda, although it seems killing continued just across the border in the Dem. Rep. of Congo as revenge was exacted from those thought to be responsible for the Genocide.

“Never Again” is the theme that rings forth from every corner of the country. Memorial sites display blood-soaked clothing, bullet infested church altars, weapons, crypts, and even the skulls of victims as a stark reminder of the horror. Signs with slogans like: genocidethinking is not welcome here line regional roads. The labels ‘Hutu’ and ‘Tutsi’ have been abolished – today, all the people of Rwanda are merely ‘Rwandan.’ But peace remains fragile, even fourteen years later, as is evidenced by the newspaper article I read there describing two murders the previous day which were thought to be “genocide related.”

Next time I will talk about the efforts I witnessed, and in which the Lutheran World Federation is playing an important role, toward peace and reconciliation in Rwanda.

Pastor Brian

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Tabernacle (houses blessed bread and wine in Roman Catholic Churches) at the Nyamata Genocide Memorial Site. The damaged tabernacle and pedestal are the result of grenades thrown into the church targeting people seeking refuge from the genocide. Photo: Brian Wilker-Frey