RWANDA: INSIGHT INTO TUTSI GENOCIDE
Rwembeho Stephen

AllAfrica.com, Washington
New Times (Kigali)
July 16 2007

OPINION
15 July 2007
Posted to the web 16 July 2007

The Genocide week in Rwanda is characterized by a complexity of
issues like elsewhere in the world. This is the time when survivors of
Genocide are filled with fear and desire of both moral and physical
revenge. The perpetrators of Genocide on the other hand, are filled
with shame or desire to do more killings. It is a tense week as we
watch the films and listen to testimonies of all gruesome activities
that were committed against the Tutsis.Scholars on, the other hand,
battle it out asking themselves if it is worth having the memorial week
or not. And the debate goes on the controversy over the naming of the
1994 Genocide in Rwanda. Should it be called "The Rwandan genocide"
or "The genocide that killed many Tutsis and moderate Hutus" or
"The Tutsi Genocide?"

What do all these titles have to do with reconciling people and
vice versa? What actually happened in Rwanda was Tutsi Genocide and
the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda should be therefore, called the "Tutsi
Genocide." Shying away from this fact and the truth is tantamount
to denying the Genocide itself. If we have the Jewish Genocide,
the Herero Genocide, the Armenian Genocide, etc. why do we find it
difficult to have the Tutsi Genocide? Some radicals correctly put
it that it sounds more comfortable to most people to accompany the
Genocide in Rwanda with the killing of moderate Hutus.

Genocide is remembered in all countries where it happened for obvious
reasons. If you bury your father and forget him, you will never have
to tell his grandchildren, and this will ridicule you. We are told
stories by typical events and whether we want or not we shall keep
on experiencing the ills left by the genocide both the survivors
and perpetrators. There are therefore commemorations all over in the
worlds where genocide occurred.

Every year on April 24, people of Armenian descent organize blood
drives, picket Turkish embassies, and celebrate special church services
to commemorate the anniversary of the 1915 arrest of several hundred
prominent Armenians in Constantinople. The arrests were the beginning
of the genocide in which an estimated 1.5 million Armenians were
slaughtered by Ottoman Turks between 1915 and 1923.

However, they find themselves in similar circumstances that Rwanda
faces – of people who do not want to remember. Reasons for fear to
remember remain the same in both cases. This is one utterance reacting
to the yearly commemoration of the Armenian genocide."Genocide is
the most abhorrent and outrageous crime against humanity and we
are not going to prevent it by selectively remembering only some of
its victims."

The Holocaust and Genocide Memorial Day of 27 January is the
anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration and
extermination camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau – seen as a powerful symbol
of the horrors of the Holocaust. Holocaust Memorial Day is about
commemorating all of the communities who suffered as a result of the
Holocaust and Nazi persecution, and demonstrating that the Holocaust
is relevant to everyone in the UK today.

The day provides a focus – through the national and local events and
activities – for people to think about the continuing repercussions
of the Holocaust and more recent genocides on our society.

However, critics claim that the holocaust is too old to be remembered
now as other crimes have overtaken it. "If someone wants to honour the
victims of holocaust, war etc., then they should do so in there own
private way. Similar negative criticism does not spare the holocaust
either. "National memorial" days just drag up the past and do not
necessarily look to the future."

And what do Rwandan critics on the commemoration of the 1994 Tutsi
Genocide say?

Rwandans have mixed reactions with some against, others for and those
who do not care about the Genocide at all.

Whatever the line one takes, the fact is that we cannot afford to live
with hate. People have to be reminded about this. Holocaust Memorial
Day should influence behaviour changes today. We need to put it in
context of all suffering. Everyone should remember in their own way.

Lectures given in the days of commemoration must be able to
contextualize the issue of hatred and genocide in Rwanda.

The Holocaust Memorial Days for example aim to: remember all victims
of the Holocaust and Nazi persecution; reflect upon those affected
by more recent atrocities, in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Kosovo.

Educate about the dangers of anti-Semitism, racism and all forms
of discrimination.

Ultimately, the day aims to restate the continuing need for vigilance
and to motivate people, individually and collectively, to ensure that
the horrendous crimes, racism and victimization committed during the
Holocaust are neither forgotten nor repeated, whether in Europe or
elsewhere in the world.

While teaching about the Tutsi Genocide of 1994 in Rwanda, similar
enlightenments must be brought to surface in all discussions.

Comparative studies and explanations are essential and ignorance
about other world genocides does not provide a clear cut explanation
of the Rwanda.

For example, the massacre of the Armenians in Turkey in 1915-23, the
Holocaust of the Jews in Hitler’s Germany, the mass killing of Tutsis
in Rwanda in 1994, and the ongoing slaughter in the Darfur provinces
of western Sudan today. You don’t just finish people (the Janjaweed)
the way you want when the whole world is watching.

The unfortunate part of it is that very few people have the concern,
the will and ability to take the comparisons down to earth and use them
in the context of Rwanda. Those few, therefore, should come in to help.

Any genocide has it own uniqueness and it is wrong to portray any
genocide as the same as others. This kind of understanding will allow
you to understand why the Holocaust is regarded classically as the
only unique genocide to have happened. But the uniqueness in the
Tutsi Genocide is evident; the speed with which it was carried out
and the relationship between the victims and the killers make it an
extremely unique genocide. So the problem should not be in the degree
of uniqueness but the context.

Remembering is very important in as far as the concept of evil
deterrence is concerned.

It gives us the bench mark of our morality as a society and the
ability to say no to evil. It is one of the steps in the long chain
of procedures to de-poison the Rwandan psyche and psychologically
rehabilitate the dehumanized psyche of the survivors.

The writer is a researcher at K.I.E