Rwandan Survivors

2006-05-05T07:00:00.000-07:00

Darfur rebels 'agree peace deal'

Taken from the BBC News Website

The largest rebel group in Sudan's Darfur region has agreed to sign a peace deal with the government.

The breakthrough came when SLM leader Minni Minnawi returned to the talks, following a late-night session.

However, two smaller groups say they are not happy with the terms of the deal on offer. The government has also agreed to sign.

International negotiators say the deal is the best hope for peace in Darfur, where 2m people have fled their homes.

The BBC's Alex Last, who is at the talks in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, says a huge round of applause was heard shortly after Mr Minnawi returned to the talks.

"I accept the document with some reservations concerning the power sharing," Mr Minnawi said.

One of his officials told the Reuters news agency that the SLM wanted more seats in parliament but had agreed to the deal to end the suffering of the people in Darfur.

But the smallest rebel group, the Justice and Equality Movement (Jem), insists that it still wants fundamental changes to the document.

The group's chief negotiator, Ahmed Tugod, reiterated the rebels' demands for the post of vice-president in the Khartoum government and for Darfur to have a greater share of national wealth.

"We decided not to sign it unless changes are made," he said.

The larger Sudanese Liberation Movement (SLM) is divided into two factions.

The smaller faction, led by Abdelwahid Muhamed El Nur, refuses to sign.

"We need the document to be improved upon," he said.

'Doubtful'

Our correspondent says mediators are now hoping Mr Minnawi will be able to persuade the two other rebel groups to change their minds.

But our correspondent says that looks doubtful.

Mediators have said this will be the last attempt to secure a peace deal for the three-year-old Darfur conflict, which has claimed some 200,000 lives and displaced more than two million people.

The rebels took up arms in 2003, accusing the government of discriminating against the black African residents of Darfur.

Pro-government Arab militia then launched a campaign, described as "genocide" by the US. The Sudan government denies backing the Janjaweed militias accused of the worst atrocities, such as mass killing, rape and looting.

2006-04-06T15:25:00.000-07:00

Tharcisse Mukama

About the history of segregation & resulting conflict in Rwanda

I was born in Ruhengeri and so were my father, grandfather and great-grandfather. I finished school in 1942 and married in 1950. Then in 1959, King Rudahigwa died and Kigeri was put on the throne. Jérôme Bicamumpaka opposed this and passed word to the Hutu about eradicating Tutsi. War broke out. The next thing we knew, our houses were being set on fire by the Hutu amongst us. They were our friends and neighbours, but they had been taught propaganda about Tutsi. Nevertheless, they didn’t kill anybody then; it was just burning houses. We all ran to the churches. The people who had gone to the provincial town were all packed in cars and sent off to Bugesera. I had my own land, so I went back to it. Vitari Basekwa, the leader of my hill, told me to go to Bugesera right away. I didn’t even sleep at my house that night. Early next morning, I left for Nyamata as a refugee with my two kids, my wife, my mother and grandmother.

They sent us to this area because it was a bad place with forests, wild animals and the tsetse fly. But the land was fertile and we had good rain, so we had good harvests and settled there. In 1963, those who had fled to Burundi invaded, but their attack failed. Then there were some killings of Tutsi, but only of those who were rich or educated. We stayed at home but others ran to the church. In 1966, there were killings again. We took refuge in the church. Soon it was over and we went home. Every time we went back, we had to rebuild our homes. Every time they killed, they also looted and burned. If you had crops, you would find empty fields. If you had a cow, it was eaten. You had to start all over again. That was the way of life for Tutsi in Bugesera. In 1973, Habyarimana removed President Kayibanda in a coup. In 1990 the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) attacked from Uganda.

Then in 1994 Habyarimana’s plane was shot down. Things got bad. People ran. They came to Nyamata, and because there were roadblocks no one could go back. Killings started here on 11 April. We fought for two days. Up to then, they had been fighting with bows and arrows, which we also had. On the third day, we saw a man called Murekezi going up in the air, then we heard the gunshot and he fell to the ground. He was our best archer. When this happened, we ran. The next morning we saw fires everywhere and heard gunshots from all corners. Most of the people ran into the Ntarama church, but we ran into the tall grass in the valley. My wife died there; she was with my children. I had eight children; six died in the genocide.

Before 1959, Hutus and Tutsis got on well together. There was no problem at all. The Hutus weren’t mean, it was other people who taught them bad things. They taught them first to burn houses and then, thinking that was not enough, they taught them to kill. I think things will get better, now that segregation no longer exists. In the past, we had our race written on our identity cards; first it said which clan a person belonged to, then later they changed it to race. Today, it has been removed; if things continue this way, they’ll get better. We fight segregation today. People are one. Children are taught as one, taught the same things by the same teacher. If people are united at such an early stage, they will not become separated again. Division is created by bad leadership. The Rwandan government is fighting against segregation. This gives me hope. I do have hope in the future. The most important thing everyone asks for is peace – even if you have only a little to eat, to be able to eat it in peace. Even though I’m old, I ask for peace and I have it now. I am sad, but I have peace. I’m in a peaceful country.

2006-03-28T02:50:00.000-08:00

Romain Kabahizi

I grew up in Kicikiro. We had a good childhood and played with the other kids with no problem, but once we got into school, the teacher started asking questions like, “Which of you are Hutu? Which are Tutsi?” All your friends went to one side of the class; you had to go to the other. That was a slap in the face. It felt like, “You're not one of us.” In 1990 the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) attacked. Things got worse and worse. Multiple political parties were allowed then; there was a demonstration every other day and you couldn't go out when they were happening. Killings would often happen at night.

The UN had a camp nearby, in the ETO high school. On 6 April, we went there because we thought we would be in good hands. About a week later, they left. People tried to lie down in front of their trucks, but the soldiers kicked them away. I knew we were going to be killed, so I hid. I saw the Interahamwe jumping the fence. I saw them chasing women and children and I could hear kids screaming. I saw them hacking, kicking and hitting with the butts of their guns. One woman was screaming, “Please, please, don't kill me.” They just said, “Shut up.” One child was crying and they cut him, but didn't finish him off; he was dying, and I could hear all those things.

My parents, my brother and his pregnant wife, and many of my family and friends were killed. Every time I go to Kigali, everywhere I walk, I remember. As long as I live it will be impossible to forget. I can forgive, but I can't forget. I can forgive because that's the way to heal myself, to get over the anger, but even if I forgive it doesn't mean I want to see them walking the streets free as they are doing now. I think the UN failed to prevent genocide in Rwanda simply because we Africans were not that important. The international community could still help with justice. And the International Tribunal in Arusha is very slow. I think people should learn that as long as you acknowledge a problem exists, you can solve it. As long as we ignore things, they are going to keep on happening. I think there is hope for Rwanda. Reconciliation is something we have to achieve, but reconciliation and trust are two totally different things. I can have my Hutu friends again, but I have lost my trust in them. But in the next generation, I want my children to have the trust I have lost. For me, the scars are too deep to heal. It's going to take generations of healing to regain that trust.

-Romain Kabahizi

2006-03-23T10:31:00.000-08:00

Darfur

Taken from the BBC News website
Written by Jonah Fisher

The African Union is faced with the most difficult decision in its short history.

Created three years ago with the idea of "African solutions for African problems" at its heart, it must decide whether to handover its first major peacekeeping operation to the United Nations.

Seven thousand AU troops are deployed in Darfur but they have failed to end a conflict that has so far killed more than 100,000 people and left millions in overcrowded camps.

The last year has seen a steady deterioration on the ground with militia attacking civilians, rebel movements splintering and the arrival of armed groups from neighbouring Chad.

Given the mess they were sent to resolve many feel the AU never stood a chance.

Originally deployed to observe a ceasefire that existed in name alone, the force was strengthened on a piecemeal basis until it reached its current size.

In a few areas the peacekeepers have made a difference - keeping the parties apart and encouraging some people to return.

But until recently they had to rely on pick-ups for transport leaving them vulnerable to attack and reluctant to step in when trouble flared.

Failure?

On those occasions where AU forces have found themselves in the midst of things it has gone badly.

In October 2005, four Nigerian soldiers and two contractors were killed in an ambush.

The very next day, 38 AU soldiers were taken hostage without a shot being fired. It was clear they were losing the respect of the warring parties.

Maj Gen Collins Ihekire is the Nigerian Force Commander of the AU in Darfur.

"If someone hasn't got wings and you say he has failed to fly - I don't think you can call that failure," he said when asked how he assessed then achievements of the AU mission.

"If we're given what we request for then we'll get the job done." Maj Gen Ihekire would like to see AU assault planes and more troops but that now seems unlikely.

The United States and the European Union, who have funded the AU until now, are reluctant to give any more and want the UN to take over.

A UN mission they say would be bigger, better equipped and more capable of aggressively responding to Darfur's myriad armed groups.

Its estimated budget of $1bn would also be funded directly by all UN members.

About turn

Having regularly criticised the AU mission throughout its one-and-a-half years in Darfur the Khartoum government has suddenly become its biggest supporter.

Sudanese diplomats have toured the continent lobbying African leaders and looking for the funds to keep the mission going. They have even threatened to quit the AU if things do not go their way.

On the domestic front, Khartoum's newspapers have led a government-backed anti-Western campaign.

Bounties have apparently been put on the heads of two Western diplomats and international journalists were labelled terrorists by a government minister.

President Omar al-Bashir has promised to make Sudan a graveyard for foreign intervention and government-backed militia say they are preparing for a holy war. The message they are trying to send is clear - Sudan is not safe for the UN.

"We don't want intervention in our internal affairs," Jamal Ibrahim, the foreign ministry spokesman said.

"We don't want it to lead public opinion into not respecting its own government."

Saving face

The irony of the Sudanese government's position is that it already has a large international presence.

Ten thousand mainly Asian peacekeepers are being deployed to southern and eastern Sudan and the UN's gleaming white four-wheel-drive vehicles can be seen all over the northern capital, Khartoum.

In Darfur, the AU has scores of international observers and advisers, and at least one American in every camp.

But with money running out AU foreign ministers must either find $200m a year to keep the mission going or handover responsibility.

Any UN takeover is likely to take between six and nine months - and the transfer would initially involve little more than a change of hat colour for the soldiers, from green to blue.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has approached the US and Nato for assistance but it is likely that Western help would be logistical and the bulk of troops remain African.

Having waged such a high profile campaign against UN troops a mechanism may yet be found to enable the Sudanese government to save face.

Western diplomats, however, are convinced that in the long-term, Khartoum and the AU will have little choice but to accept a bigger and more robust UN mission in Darfur.

-Jonah Fisher

To see the full report - click here

2006-03-21T03:25:00.000-08:00

Isaac Mugabe

An orphan’s story of survival and hope for the future.

Before the genocide, I lived a happy life with my parents. My father was a contractor in the construction business. Mum was a housewife although she was educated and qualified as a nurse. Problems started in school after 1990 when people’s race had to be entered in their student files. If you were a Tutsi student, you’d have no peace; there was always someone bullying you. My father worked with men who helped young people to get to the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). I remember when the RPF troops came as part of the Arusha agreement, my father was very excited and took me to see them.

When the genocide began on 6 April 1994, some of us ran to St Charles' church in Nyamirambo. There were bodies in the church. Next day the soldiers and Interahamwe came to remove them. I heard them saying that they didn't want the bodies to be seen or found. We realised we would be caught, so we went to the school just behind. Soon the school was surrounded by the Interahamwe, who climbed the walls and came in, slaughtering people. I jumped over a wall and ran home. By luck, I found everybody alive at home. When our neighbours were killed, however, we knew we would be next. Father sent me to a family friend named Ally Kamegeri. He hid me, along with the younger children, even though our parents couldn’t come. He hid about 20 kids in total. That’s how we lived until the end of genocide.

Father was killed. An attack group made him walk all around the neighbourhood naked. That was because before the genocide, he wouldn't take their nonsense. I heard that he was beaten badly and never made it alive to the hole in Gatare which they intended to throw him into. They dragged his body there. His remains are still in that hole. I haven’t yet been able to exhume him and give him a proper burial. Three days later, my mother was rescued by the RPF. In our hiding place, we had no news of Mum, but we knew that Dad had been killed. We just thought they had both been wiped out. After the genocide, we ran into Mum by sheer luck.

Mum was never the same after the genocide. She seemed depressed and discouraged, unhappy with life, and as time passed she developed ulcers and had stomach problems. My older brother developed mental health problems after the genocide as well, which destabilised her even more. Her stomach problems got so bad that if she tried to eat, she would vomit. I thought Mum was only sick, but she died. At first my brothers and sisters lost all hope. I lost hope as well, but as the oldest, I had to calm them down and I showed them examples of other people orphaned before us. It made them see that they weren’t the only orphans. And they're not completely orphans because we are still together. At the moment I’m studying in the Université Libre in Kigali. In my daily life, I do my best to ensure a good life for my brother and sisters. I can't take the place of our parents, but I try to do most things that parents would do. I am like their parent.

-Isaac Mugabe

2006-03-17T02:38:00.000-08:00

Rebuilding Rwanda after the genocide

2006-03-15T07:15:00.000-08:00

The Archbishop of Birmingham sees Shooting Dogs

Below is a letter from Vincent Nichols (Archbishop of Birmingham)

Thank you very much indeed for your letter of the 22 February and for sending me a review copy of the BBC film Shooting Dogs.

I would like to express my appreciation of the film and to say how very moving I found it. It has clearly been made with great sensitivity, indeed affection, for all those caught up in the tragedy at the Ecole Technique Officielle. The film portrays the dilemmas faced by many people with perceptiveness and respect. I was particularly appreciative of the fact that if anything the film understates not only horrendous nature of what occurred, but also the human dilemmas. In this it leaves space for the viewers own imagination and reflection.

I was particularly impressed by the way the characters of Father Christopher and the young English teacher were drawn. The crises that they faced were not minimised nor over dramatised. I think everyone who sees this film will always retain a vivid memory of the terrible events that took place. They will also be drawn into a profound reflection on the limitations of human nature as well as the demanding summons of the Christian faith.

I am grateful to have had a chance to see this film and I look forward to its general release from the 31st March.

With every good wish,

Yours sincerely

Vincent Nichols
Archbishop of Birmingham

2006-03-14T00:31:00.000-08:00

Help to end genocide in Darfur

This site is a voice for the survivors of the Rwandan Genocide of 1994 but we must not forget that acts of genocide are still occurring in the World today even though we hear little about it.

Like the Rwandan Genocide of '94, we will look back on the genocide in Darfur and once again ask why we didn't do anything.

Save Darfur Campaign

Darfur: A genocide we can stop

2006-03-13T03:05:00.000-08:00

Ndamyina Gisanura

A horrific account of one man’s struggle during the genocide.

'The genocide didn't exactly start in 1994 - we could see signs of it earlier. There were car bombings, students were beaten up; there was a bad atmosphere and it seemed as if something was being planned. But 1994 was the grand finale.

When the attacks started, along with my father and some other men, I escaped to the mountains of Bisesero and Kirongi where we could fight back. We resisted the militia, so they sent the presidential guard. It was hard, but we were really motivated to resist, hoping that some of us might survive. They used heavy ammunition, grenades and rockets. We used stones, arrows and sticks. We'd mix with them, hit them with rocks, tackle them with their guns. Then they would be ordered to move back to re-organise. By the end, official figures say that 85,000 people were killed there, but I think there were 160,000 or 175, 000. I come from a big family; 188 people descended from my grandfather, but by the time the French arrived they had all died except me and my uncle.

I returned to my neighbourhood in the valley of the Kirongi mountain, but an attack group found me. I asked them why they were going to kill me when I had never wronged them, when in fact I had lived in harmony with them and their children. They told me to ask God because He was the one who created Tutsi and had abandoned them. I knew they were going to kill me. I had seen death and was no longer scared. I asked them to let me pray, and they agreed. While I was praying, they started complaining that my prayer was taking too long and they needed to go somewhere else to find people to kill. They hit me on the head with a club. I fell down unconscious and don't know when they hacked me, but I have four machete scars on my head. For four days I lay there unconscious. I woke up after a dream about being killed. I decided to go to Kibuye town. I would go to the hospital and they would either kill me or treat me. I was really looking for a place for a nicer death. It took me two days.

When I got there, a crowd started to beat me. They asked me why I had come there, and I said, "To be healed or killed, one of the two." One woman stood out and shielded me. She took me inside the hospital and treated me. She gave me antibiotics, washed me, fed me and even gave me clothes because what I was wearing was very dirty. I'd been wearing those clothes since 8 April. She also hired Interahamwe to protect me. She paid them not to kill me. I spent the entire month of June in the hospital. When the Interahamwe went out to kill elsewhere, they used to leave a notice saying that if they found me dead when they came back, it would be best if my killer was dead as well before they got there. Those were the terms on which I survived, while other people at the hospital were being killed on a daily basis, especially the many girls who had survived at the stadium and were kept to be raped.

The nurse who saved me is still alive today. Sometimes I visit her. I feel overwhelmed by all she did for me. I have nothing to give her in return. She didn't even know me when she saved me. She just saw people torturing me and made a decision on her own to rescue me. So I put that lady in a category of humane people with a true human heart. When I'm in Kibuye, I feel very sad, it's immeasurable. Even though I was lucky to survive, it's still a problem because I cannot forget it. From the first day, I saw people dying bad deaths for no reason. Those scenes frequently replay in my head like a film. It's all kept somewhere in my head. Wherever I go in this world, I will not forget Kibuye. I had a good life and a bad life there; I lost all those people, but it still remains my home. It is a marked place inside of me.'

-Ndamyina Gisanura

2006-03-10T07:24:00.000-08:00

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL EVENT SUCCESS!

SHOOTING DOGS screened to another full-house last night. This time at The Amnesty International UK Headquarters in London. The Director of Amnesty UK Kate Allen introduced the film and then joined the distinguished panel members for the question & answer session that followed the screening. SHOOTING DOGS director Michael Caton-Jones was joined by cast members John Hurt (Father Christopher) and Clare Hope Ashitey (Marie) to discuss the genocide and their experiences shooting the film in Rwanda.

It was an emotionally charged screening that left the audience stunned. The audience were moved to question the underlying motivations of the genocide, as well to discuss the experiences of the panel on making the film.

John Hurt remained philosophical, saying "There are no good people, there are no bad people. What happened in Rwanda isn't reserved for one specific element of humanity. We're all capable of terrible things. Hopefully this film will help make us all aware."

Michael Caton Jones described making the film as "a truly humbling experience".

The Q & A overran with many people talking to the director personally afterwards to try make sense of what they had seen.

2006-03-09T02:45:00.000-08:00

Murambi Memorial Centre (Rwanda)

The Murambi Memorial Centre was set up by the Aegis Trust in memory of those who died during the genocide of 1994

Inside the Murambi Memorial Centre

2006-03-06T03:37:00.000-08:00

Eugénie Musayidire

A Rwandan living in Germany witnessing genocide from abroad.

I grew up in the village of Nyanza and have happy memories of my childhood there. My father was a doctor and was killed in 1959, but my mother didn't marry again, and I grew up with my mother and brother. In 1973 when I was in my 20s, I found my name on a list of Tutsis who were going to be arrested. I escaped overnight to Burundi. Four years later I sought asylum in Germany, where I raised a small family. My mother used to come and visit me every year for three or four months. She would talk and laugh with my German neighbour; she tended the strawberries and beans in the garden; she went to church services, to the parish fete; she was part of the community. Her last visit was from May-September 1993. I should have kept her with me. My mother thought that nothing would happen to her in Rwanda – she was an old lady, the oldest in the village, the lively and cheerful granny of orphan children. Who would dare to harm her? She was mistaken.

My mother died on 22 April 1994, in Nyanza where all the Tutsi were killed on that day. In all, 29 members of my family were killed then: my mother, my brother, his four children and his wife, my aunts, uncles, cousins, godchildren and friends. The only members of my family who survived were already living in Europe before 1994. Now I have nobody living in Rwanda. My trauma and pain in experiencing the genocide from Germany were indescribable. I would watch the television news, searching for the faces of my mother, brother and friends, hoping against hope to recognise my loved ones amidst the mass of refugees. But they were nowhere to be seen. My anguish was doubled by the fact that I knew my mother's murderer. His name was Eugène Nsanganira and he was one of our Hutu neighbours, long known to the family. He and I had played together as children. My mother taught his wife to sew, prepared his daughter for her wedding, looked after the two little ones when they were young. She used to take his family presents from Germany: soap, lotion, chocolate, biscuits, exercise books and pencils for the children. How was it that he gathered up those innocent people and marched them for an hour to prepared mass graves?

I went back to Rwanda in January 2001 to meet my mother's murderer. His sister didn't understand what her brother had done. His mother felt the same. She took me in her arms and we cried and cried together. It's difficult to explain my feelings about meeting the person who killed my mother. I can't pardon him. I don't want vengeance, but I need time and distance from him. I could possibly forgive him but he has refused to admit his responsibility for the genocide and for my mother's death. He doesn't show remorse. Yet he was my neighbour and he lived just beside us. Forgiveness is a two-way process. I am the victim and I feel sadness and mourn, but the killer must show remorse and sadness for what he or she has done.

-Eugénie Musayidire

2006-03-03T08:23:00.000-08:00

Tuesday's Screening of Shooting Dogs

Tuesday night saw yet another hugely successful packed screening of SHOOTING DOGS at The Everyman Cinema in Hampstead. Arranged in association with leading Human Rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC and The Doughty Street Chambers, the film was screened to a full-house of lawyers, politicians and NGO representatives. These high profile events are proving hugely successful as platforms through which we can raise awareness of Shooting dogs. The Guardian even decided to report on the event. All that attended the screening remained in their seats as the film concluded, keen to discuss the issues raised by the film in the pursuing Q&A session. A number of interesting and important issues were raised in the discussion lead by a host of leading panelists: Geoffrey Robertson QC, Claver Gatete (The Rwandan Ambassador to the UK), Oona King (founder of The All-Party Parliamentary Group on The Great Lakes Regions and Genocide Prevention), Steven Crawshaw (UK Director of Human Rights Watch), and Guy Vassall-Adams (Barrister at The Doughty Street Chambers and author of the OXFAM report on the genocide).

Shooting Dogs won high acclaim from each of the panel members, described as the best and most important film based on the Rwandan genocide to date. These sentiments were echoed by President Kagame who watched the film in Kigali last week.

It was of the shared opinion that the film was capable of going a long way in raising awareness. Oona King pointed out and emphatically supported the central message that the film articulates as the most important factor in preventing future genocide - the importance and responsibility of the individual. To point blame after such a humanitarian crisis is of no consequence. It is the responsibility of the individual to be aware and to utilise all the power and influence within one's own personal sphere, however great or small that may be, no matter how far away from the crisis one may be, TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

The failure of the media at the time was brought up on a number of occasions, as was the fact that even today people are still unaware of the atrocities that took place there in 1994. Steven Crawshaw of Human Rights Watch talked of how the media constantly seems to avoid the current important issues until it is too late. The example he drew upon was of particular interest. He described how during the week of the 10 year commemoration of the Rwandan genocide in 2004, the papers were full of retrospectives on the Rwandan genocide. At this very point when the media was looking back at the world's failure in 1994, there was at that very moment, genocide taking place in Darfur. Darfur of course had no coverage.

Other topics covered were the successes and failings of gacaca as a way of bringing stability to Rwandan society, the culpability of Europe and King Leopald in initially installing the division between Hutu and Tutsi, and of course, the involvement (or lack of) of the British government in 1994.

If you would like to comment of any the issues raised at the event, please post your comments below. An audio file of the Q & A session should be available on the blog soon.

To read a PDF version of the event handout, click here.

2006-02-28T13:13:00.000-08:00

Screening of 'Shooting Dogs' at The Everyman, Hampstead.

There will be a special screening of Shooting Dogs tonight at The Everyman in Hampstead (North London).

The evening will be hosted by Geoffrey Robertson QC, who is founder and head of Doughty Street Chambers. He was recently appointed to the Appeals Chamber of the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone.

Also in attendance will be Steve Crawshaw; the UK Director of Human Rights Watch, Oona King; who founded the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on the Great Lakes Region and Genocide Prevention, Elizabeth Wilmshurst and a representative from the Rwandan Embassy in London.

I’ll be there to get a full report on the evening and place a posting soon on how it all went.

2006-02-27T09:19:00.000-08:00

- Rwanda today-

2006-02-24T14:28:00.000-08:00

Emmanuel Mugenzira

An account of massacre & Problems with reconciliation

Once a farmer, I got a job at the provincial office but was fired because of my ethnic group. People used to live happily together, but then they were taught negative things – that Tutsi were ‘cockroaches’ and a bad tribe.

After Habyarimana’s plane was shot down, Interahamwe and soldiers started burning houses, taking cattle and killing people. On 16 April, the mayor told us to go to the school in Murambi. We were attacked on 18 April. We fought using stones. They had guns, but left because they couldn’t handle us. On 21 April, a truck arrived full of militia and soldiers. Those who attempted to escape were shot. I was shot in the head, then stripped and left because they thought I was dead. My wife, two boys and three girls all died at Murambi. I just can’t bring myself to talk about them. It took me three days to walk to Burundi, naked in the cold and rain. When I got there, my head was swollen and I had malaria. I was only saved by God. Soldiers took me to the hospital in Kayanza.

There are still people with such bestial hearts; people who killed. You can tell they would do it again. Reconciliation is not the problem. The problem is that those who killed, ate our cattle and took our things run away from us. I don’t know how we can forgive when there hasn’t been any communication between us. There are lots of people like that who look at you and wish you were dead.

-Emmanuel Mugenzira

2006-02-22T11:43:00.000-08:00

Historian Jailed for Denying Holocaust

-Taken from the Metro Newspaper 21st February 2006

Written by Sarah Getty

A British Historian was jailed yesterday for three years for denying the Holocaust took place.

David Irving, 67, admitted the charge which stemmed from speeches he’d made 17 years ago in Australia, where it is a crime to deny that six million Jews were slaughtered by the Nazis.

In a last ditch bid to avoid jail, he told a Vienna court he was wrong to claim there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz, adding; ‘In no way did I deny the killing of millions by the Nazis.’

But Michael Klakl, prosecuting, said ‘He is everything other than a historian. He is a dangerous falsifier of history.
In his version, there were no gas chambers, no genocide prepared and executed by the state.’

Irving looked stunned by the sentence. As he left court, he said; ‘I’m shocked and I’m going to appeal.’

Britain’s Holocaust Education Trust welcomed the conviction. Chairman Lord Janner said; ‘It sends a clear message that we must not tolerate the denial of the mass murders of the Holocaust.’

Irving has been accused of spreading anti-Semitism with his right-wing views.

He has insisted that Austrian born Adolf Hitler knew nothing about the systematic slaughter of 6million Jews and that large-scale gas chambers were a hoax.

He also claimed that there was ‘not one shred of evidence’ that the Nazis carried out their ‘Final Solution’ on such a scale that the number of Jews killed was far lower than generally accepted.

Irving was arrested in September on a warrant dating back to 1989.

2006-02-21T13:06:00.000-08:00

Rwandan Genocide suspect in Britain.

-Taken from The Sunday Times -January 29th '06

A government official accused of helping to carry out the mass murder of thousands of civilians during the Rwandan genocide has settled under a false name in Britain.

Charles Munyaneza, 47, is alleged to have urged people to massacre Tutsis, saying at one point: “All of you, men, women and girls, must take part. I don’t want to see a single Tutsi alive on this hill.”

The revelation that he is living in Britain prompted an immediate request by the United Nations international criminal tribunal for Rwanda that he be arrested and prosecuted in Britain on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.

The chief prosecutor, Hassan Jallow, said that if the tribunal had not had to stop issuing new indictments so that it could complete its work by 2008 when it is due to be wound up, it would be seeking Munyaneza’s extradition.

But Jallow added that the tribunal would make available to the British courts all the evidence that it believes implicates the Rwandan in massacres.

“Given that there is this evidence against him, the British government should consider whether the British courts have jurisdiction over him to prosecute him in the UK because men like him should not be allowed to go scot free,” said Jallow.

-To see the full article published on the Suday Times website click here.

2006-02-20T01:54:00.000-08:00

Soldier's Photo

This photo was taken by a UN Peace Keeper in Rwanda just a few days

before they were ordered out of the country.

2006-02-16T12:35:00.000-08:00

Dancilla Nyirabazungu

An account of massacre & survival

Before the genocide, Hutus favoured Hutus. Teachers, politicians and soldiers were Hutu. Tutsi kids didn’t pass the national exam. And people's race was written in their ID documents.

After Habyarimana’s aeroplane was shot down they started burning houses and taking people’s cows. Everyone gathered in the church. I was there with my entire family. On 15 April, the attackers came with guns, clubs with nails in them, grenades and axes. They broke down the walls, threw grenades into the church and shot at everyone. The Interahamwe were ready with their machetes. I hid, and kept hiding until God rescued me. On 14 May the RPF captured Bugesera. They told everyone that they were equal; that they had to be Rwandans, not Hutus, Twa or Tutsi. They had to rebuild Rwanda.

I still have my children – the ones who ran and hid with me, and I gave birth to the one I was carrying when the genocide happened. But I lost 18 members of my family. I clean, I garden, I separate the clothes from the bones left on the church floor. This place is important not only to me, but to all Rwandans – and the world as a whole. There are people who deny all this and if they came and saw the bones and corpses, they would have to believe it. If we don't maintain the place, the genocide might be forgotten.

-Dancilla Nyirabazungu

2006-02-13T11:18:00.000-08:00

Genocide Survivors

Two young survivors of the Rwandan Genocide

2006-02-13T08:21:00.000-08:00

Survivors

This posting was sent to me anonymously by a survivor of the Rwandan genocide.

I am 26 and I am a genocide survivor. Sincerely speaking, I have got no words to express the genocide. It is something that can end on a political aspect but for survivors, this crime is everlasting. You are called genocide survivor but actually you are not! You just try to move along with others without any basis just like a shot trying to grow up without roots.

Justice depends on political interests and currently I have not seen any justice done on crimes of genocide.

I just don’t know what kind of reconciliation people talk about if I am to live with perpetrators. Actually it seems that survivors are the one who ought to create reconciliation! There can be no reconciliation without justice.
The very hard stage of genocide is the aftermath…I can only hope to go through that, to live, to work and most of all to protect myself and others against any threat of genocide.

The International Community policy is "No interest, no emergency". They left people dying during the genocide then came back after to clean the bloody place with their nutritional and medical assistance to the injured survivors…

Why should people waste time arguing on either if it is genocide or not in Darfur? Any second wasted results in a waste of lives.

2006-02-10T06:48:00.000-08:00

Darfur

Submitted to this site by Todd Huffman, M.D.

An arid and profoundly impoverished region in western Sudan known as Darfur is home to what continues to be, even after the catastrophic December 2004 tsunami in South Asia and the October 2005 earthquake in Kashmir and Pakistan, the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Since February 2003, over 400,000 men, women and children have been killed or have died from disease while another three million civilians – half the population of Darfur – have been forced to flee their destroyed homes and villages. Most have sought safety in squalid and overcrowded refugee camps, where severe shortages of shelter, food, water, and medical care place hundreds of thousands at risk of disease and a cruel and slow starvation.

Supported by the Sudanese government in Khartoum, nomadic Arab "Janjaweed" militias have been systematically clearing the region of civilians through a merciless campaign of ethnic cleansing. Following air raids by government aircraft, the Janjaweed death squads ride into villages on horses and camels, slaughtering men, raping women, burning down homes and villages, and stealing whatever they can. Crops are destroyed, and wells are poisoned with dead bodies. Many women are abducted as sex slaves.

The majority of the 400,000 civilians who have died or been killed were not part of any anti-government group. They were unarmed non-combatant men, women and children living in small tribal villages where they have subsisted off the land for centuries. Survivors are dying one thousand a day in the camps, trapped by the Janjaweed, who patrol outside the camps killing men and raping women who go in search for food or firewood.

The international response thus far has largely been indifference. The world is failing its vow of "never again" made after the Holocaust and reaffirmed after the 1994 Rwandan genocide. During past genocidal campaigns against Armenians, Jews, Cambodians and Rwandans, it was possible for the world to claim that it didn’t fully know what was going on. This time we do. And we have no excuse not to act.

Over 130 countries, including the United States, are signatories to the 1948 Convention Against Genocide, which commits countries to act to prevent genocide anywhere in the world. The state-sponsored violence in Darfur clearly constitutes genocide, which the Convention defines as "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group" by, for example, "deliberately inflicting on members of the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part."

To his credit, President Bush has called the slaughter in Darfur what it is: genocide. Secretaries of State Powell and then Rice have publicly used the word. Even the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives unanimously adopted a resolution in July 2004 urging the Bush administration to call the atrocities in Darfur "by its rightful name: ‘genocide’", which the President finally did in the first presidential debate in September 2004. The resolution even went on to urge the administration to consider "multilateral or even unilateral intervention to prevent genocide should the United Nations Security Council fail to act."

Until recently, opposition to action in Sudan hasn’t come from the United States but from the many other UN member states who prefer to respect Sudan’s sovereignty or who have oil investments in Sudan and are reluctant to alienate the government in Khartoum. The UN Security Council has for two years been dragging their feet, weakly supporting a grossly inadequate number of African Union troops on the ground in Darfur. These AU soldiers, numbering roughly 7000, patrol the Texas-sized region with limited equipment and an even more limited mandate, lacking the strength and authority to remove or disarm Janjaweed forces from Darfur and around the refugee camps. Most of Darfur remains too dangerous for international aid agencies to reach.

The African Union’s mandate expires on March 31st. The UN Security Council is soon to take up the issue of transferring responsibility for stopping the genocide and for delivering desperately needed humanitarian aid to UN peacekeeping forces. This is where the responsibility should lie – with the global community. The world, most especially the West with its high-minded rhetoric of human rights and values, has a moral obligation to do everything possible to protect civilians from genocide.

The United States is the most important presence on the Security Council. Other nations will follow our lead if we insist on a strong and clear new peacekeeping mandate for Darfur. And yet recent words from the Bush administration seem to indicate that it has backed away from its acknowledgement that the slaughter in Darfur constitutes genocide.

In November, Assistant Secretary of State Robert Zoellick mischaracterized the genocide as a "tribal war", stating that the US cannot clear Darfur because Western peacekeepers would not want to "get in the way of a tribal war of Sudanese". He went on further to state that "if people are determined to kill each other, there’s not a lot the United States can do."

However, the only parties ‘determined to kill’ are members of the genocidal government of Sudan, and members of the Janjaweed militia they have armed and employed. Zoellick’s comments represent a disturbing movement away from former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s assertion of the situation as a "consistent and widespread" pattern of genocide, and could represent a disturbing policy shift if the administration is seeking to renege on its treaty obligation to protect civilians from genocide.

Further evidence of a shift in policy came in December. The US Senate passed the Darfur Peace and Accountability Act on November 18th, and the US House was poised to pass the DPAA before the White House delayed it. Apparently, the Bush administration now objects to the continuation of sanctions on the government of Sudan, which has been called an increasingly cooperative "partner in the global war on terror."

The 20th century is haunted by the ghosts of tens of millions of innocent victims the world failed to protect. Times beyond number, the West has simply closed its minds and eyes to the madness of man’s inhumanity to man. In Darfur, will the world once again wait until genocide is complete and lament afterward that we should have done something?

-Todd Huffman, M.D.

-Eugene, Oregon

Want To Do More?

*Sign on to the Million Voices for Darfur Campaign, at www.millionvoicesfordarfur.org

*Learn more or contribute to the Save Darfur Coalition, a partnership of over 150 faith-based, advocacy and humanitarian organizations, at www.savedarfur.org

*Learn more or contribute to the Genocide Intervention Fund, a group founded by college students at Swarthmore College. Donations go directly to support the African Union peacekeeping mission: www.genocideinterventionfund.org

*Contribute to Doctors Without Borders, serving Darfur refugees in Chad: www.doctorswithoutborders.org

Todd Huffman is a pediatrician and regular columnist for the Springfield (OR) News. He is also a regular contributor to the Portland (OR) Oregonian, Eugene (OR) Register-Guard, the University of Oregon Daily Emerald, the Washington Free Press (Seattle), the Columbus (OH) Free Press, and several progressive websites, including CommonDreams.org, PeacefulAssembly.org, and SelvesandOthers.org.

Comments are welcomed at: doctortodd@att.net.

2006-02-09T03:54:00.000-08:00

Genocide Pair freed

(from BBC News on-line)

A UN-backed tribunal has confirmed the acquittal of two senior Rwandan officials charged with genocide.

The two men were found not guilty two years ago due to lack of evidence but prosecutors appealed the verdict, saying the court had made errors.

Ex-transport minister Andre Ntagerura and ex-governor of Cyangugu province Emmanuel Bagambiki were accused of genocide and crimes against humanity.

Mr Ntagerura is the first former minister to be acquitted by the court.

Awaiting trial Italian judge Fausto Pocar of the International Criminal Tribunal (ICTR) for Rwanda rejected the prosecution's call for a new trial.

In February 2004 the court found that the prosecution had failed to prove that the two men had actively participated in the genocide in Cyangugu, in the south-west.

More than 800,000 people, mostly minority Tutsis, were killed in a 100-day wave of ethnic violence that swept through Rwanda in 1994.

The Tanzania-based ICTR has convicted more than 20 people and acquitted three since it was established in 1994. More cases are awaiting trial.

-Full story here

-BBC Africa

2006-02-08T03:35:00.000-08:00

Béatha Uwazaninka's testimony

Today’s testimony is a moving account of a young girl during the genocide. She talks of her struggles and fears but also of those few who tried to stand up to the killings.

'My father died when I was two. Mother remarried when I was five, and I lived with Grandma. On New Year's Eve, 1987, neighbours - people I knew - came into the house and beat G randma on the head with a hammer. They dragged her outside and left her body in the rain. I thought they were going to kill me as well, but one of them said, "Leave her, she can't do any harm." I wondered what harm Grandma could have done. I sat with her body in the rain until it began to get light. That's when I realised some people didn't like us because we were different, but I didn't understand why. I was seven years old. I went back to Gitarama to live with Mother, who had married a Hutu. That's how it was; normally, people didn't think about separate ethnic groups. We were poor, but happy. Mother worked very hard and my childhood was good.

The morning after the President's plane was shot down I was in my uncle's house with five cousins. The Interahamwe came, saying they were going to rape the girls. Uncle Gashugi pleaded with them not to do it, but they cut him down with a machete. I ran out of the back door with the others. All the other girls were killed before they reached the gate. I'm the only one of the household who survived. I went from house to house, like a hunted animal. Sometimes I hid in the drains with the corpses, pretending to be dead myself. One day I was being pursued by an Interahamwe and fled into the house of Yahaya, a Muslim. My heart was beating so fast. The Interhamwe was banging on the gate, threatening to throw a grenade to kill everyone if the family didn't give me up. Yahaya told his daughter to open the gate. I thought I was going to die, but he took me by the hand, stood with me in his doorway and told the killer off. The same man had shot a boy the previous day in that same house. Yahaya told him that the blood was still on the yard and that God would judge him. He could have been killed for sheltering me, but he saved my life and many others. He said that in the Koran it says, 'If you save one life, it is like saving the whole world; if you take one life, it is like destroying the whole world.' He didn't know that was in the Jewish texts as well.

The saddest day was when I heard my mother had been killed, that they had thrown her into the river. My heart wanted to break. I was fourteen years old and I was now all alone. There is a saying in Kinyarwanda that if a thief steals part of your basket, you cry and tell everyone what has been stolen. But if they take everything, it is too much to talk about, too much for tears, so you keep quiet. So it is with life after the genocide. It is too big to tell. No one can really understand it. People today talk about forgetting, forgiving and reconciliation. I think it's better to remember than forget, because if you don't remember what happened, you don't have all the truth. People say you can't have reconciliation without forgiveness. But you can't have forgiveness if people don't say they are sorry. That is why justice must happen before reconciliation. I used to think that gacaca would not be very useful. It doesn't bring back the dead. But it does make people face the truth -or at least some of it. For me, memory is personal, but remembering is important for everyone. The world knew and did not stop the genocide. So everyone shares something of what happened in our little country of Rwanda.'

-Béatha Uwazaninka

2006-02-05T17:06:00.000-08:00

A message from Jean Pierre

My name is Jean Pierre and I am a genocide survivor. I think people should avoid those ones bearing genocide ideologies because we know what the consequences of Genocide are.
Justice is trying but there are still people having genocide ideology in the society...
Unity and reconciliation is still hard to reach because people don’t tell the truth!
I hope to see a Rwanda that will achieve great things in the future. This is possible because the government is struggling against genocide ideology.
Some people in Darfur are suffering while the government is taking profit out of it and that is not fair at all!

Fleeing the Genocide (Rwanda - 1994)

2006-02-03T04:40:00.000-08:00

Sent by Marcel

My name is Marcel and I am a genocide survivor. I lost parents, friends and relatives during the Genocide…today I am an orphan and I have been through several hard situations and I have got to fight it by all means.
People who killed our people should be punished in a very severe way so as to fight impunity for ever.
I would simply ask the UN to fight genocide because what is happening in Darfur is horrible…it doesn’t give any value to humanity.

-Marcel

Nyanza Memorial

2006-02-02T04:24:00.000-08:00

Kigali Memorial Centre (Rwanda).

The Kigali Memorial Centre (set up by Aegis)

2006-02-01T04:13:00.000-08:00

Dominique

Dominique came into the the Genocide Memorial Centre in Kigali and looked at our site. Like many, she wanted her voice heard and asked for her views to be published on this site.

My name is Dominique and I am a genocide survivor.
For me the Genocide is something beyond imagination…it left me in loneliness and all I can wish is that it may not happen again.
Justice does not work as it should because it does not punish the criminals as it is supposed to.
I don’t think Unity and reconciliation will be possible because the perpetrators do not admit their crimes.

However, I am optimistic about the future because the government keeps on setting good plans for us…
On the other hand, I would like to ask the government to pursue the genocidaires wherever they are because they keep on hunting us!

What Aegis Trust is doing is really good because it us there for survivors and speaks on their behalf on an international level- lot of people have been denying what happened here! And The International Community hasn't shown anything yet. Even the genocidaires being held in Arusha don’t get a punishment complying with their crimes at all.
I think things will be fine in Darfur if we keep pushing on and showing courage.

-Dominique

2006-01-30T03:05:00.000-08:00

Thierry's Story

Please keep your thoughts and views coming in. Hundreds of people all over the world are reading this blog each week. This is a great place to get your voice and views heard.

I want to know what you think. Have we learnt from our mistakes in the past or are we just making them all over again on top of new ones? What can we do about preventing genocide? What should we do?

We start this week with a moving account that was written last week and sent to me from genocide survivor Thierry Kagabo.

My name is Thierry Kagabo. During the Genocide I was 14 years old and living in Kicukiro, Kigali. I sought refuge in a convent near my home. I was with my sisters and younger brothers and many of our neighbours also hid there. We were around 30. We arrived there on the 7th April 1994 after our father had been killed.

The Interahamwes came there to kill, we had come here because we thought that we would be safe there. We then spent 6 days there until they came with the aim of killing people on the 13th.

I remember how in one room, as I was sitting there they shot 2 bullets, I remember, I was sitting there; they came down... I believe it was God's hand because it is beyond my human understanding, I don't understand it ! The bullets reached my feet just as they had lost impetus. I was fine and I did not have any problems... When I recall it, I thank God , because it was a miracle, I could have been killed.

They got people to come out of the rooms they had been occupying inside the convent, the nuns had provided us with more than 3 rooms in which to hide. They got us to leave in single file until we got to the road down there.
We all sat on the road and they chose some people who would be taken to be killed.

That is when they said that all the children should go back to the convent... How I personally escaped... I bent over slightly while climbing up the hill and prentended to be a child and ran back to the convent. That's how all the remaining adults were taken to the septic tank nearby to be killed with clubs and machettes.

After the genocide, nothing really bad happened here. Most of us went back to the place where they'd been killed. They were in a pitiful state, the way they'd been buried... everyone was trying to bury them with dignity, we even built a tomb at the place where they'd been thrown.

This place... After the genocide, I rarely come here. Usually when I come here, I think back to the days when I lived here during the genocide, how we lived here...
The place that makes me become thoughtful and sad every time I get there is there, down the road. When I think about the day we were all sat on that road. When I think about the way we were all sitting down, the way they took us from here, in a line... Whenever I use that road, I become thoughtful, I think about the people who were murdered and I feel pain.

Making this testimony available to all kinds of people all over the world is very helpful for me. And in addition to that, future generations will learn from it how bad genocide is.
The fact that Aegis Trust struggles to prevent genocide is something that makes a lot of sense in my life. It helps me a lot.
Personally, I am assigned to teach the youth about the bad things that happened to us so that it may not happen again. I will never forget what took my family away... I know some people are planning for our better future but it's still hard for us to carry on.

-Thierry

2006-01-27T03:44:00.000-08:00

Rwanda NOW

Today is Holocaust Memorial Day and it is a time to look to the future. We should not forget the atrocities that have occurred in the past but we should look at where we are now and realise that in many countries these horrors still occur. We only need to look to Darfur to realise that people soon forget.

Days like today are to help us remember but also to educate us, to make sure that this does not happen again.

Today's post was contributed by Ken Barham, Trustee of Rwanda Aid and Former Anglican Bishop of Cyangugu, Rwanda (1993 to 2001).

"It is important that people are made aware of the horrors of the genocide, but it is also important to bring to the forefront, the situation in Rwanda NOW. Rwanda is no longer a dangerous place with gangs like the Interahamwe roaming about the country. I feel strongly about this because I have worked in one of the most vulnerable parts of Rwanda from September 1994 until 2001 and then visited once or twice a year since then. I have watched the country move from total chaos in 1994, when all the banks were cleaned out and all government and other property taken, including my roof, doors, windows, cupboards etc; through sorting out administration, setting up commissions for Unity and Reconciliation and a Constitution, to elections at a lower level and then for Parliament and President. I was there last year in October and again in November and will be there again in May this year. Rwanda is incredible! The city of Kigali is being cleaned up remarkably. I have just come back from Honduras and seen rubbish thrown out all along the streets. President Kagame led his Ministers through Kigali picking up all the plastic bags and banning their future use. Trees and flowers are being planted everywhere and new buildings going up like mushrooms. In addition, Tutsi and Hutu are living and working side by side everywhere and nobody is going out to kill anyone (even if that feeling is still there for genocide survivors).

That horrific massacre happened in 1994. Those who have visited Rwanda recently will know the enormous effort that has been made, not only to restore the devastated country, but to move steadily from chaos to creative development, from devastation to democracy. Such strides have been made that inward investment has brought a brand new Five star Intercontinental Hotel to Kigali to match the Hotel Mille Collines and the Umubano Hotel, all of which are hosting international conferences. Rwanda NOW is a very safe and beautiful country. Scores of visitors go to see the gorillas in the mists of the mountains. Some of them travel to the National Park in the east to see a huge range of African animals. Some travel south to the university town of Butare and visit the National Museum. Wise people also continue on the tarmac road through the Natural Forest of Nyungwe with its thirteen types of primate, its rare birds and orchids. After the forest the country opens out to miles of beautiful green tea plantations before arriving at the small town of Kamembe in Cyangugu. Very wise people stay at the Peace Guest House on the lakeside of the beautiful Lake Kivu! Here they can get a Rondavel with two bedrooms, sitting room looking at the lake, and bathroom with flush loo and hot shower. It is safe to travel anywhere in Rwanda today and it is a beautiful country, the Land of a Thousand Hills. Every visitor will get a very warm welcome. The genocide certainly happened and, of course, there are still deep scars, but the courts are dealing with justice. The three ethnic groups, the Hutu, the Tutsi and the Twa, live side by side in every village and town and work together in every business, and study together in every school and college. If ever there was a perfect example of Reconciliation, Rwanda is it! The people, the government Commission for Reconciliation and Unity, and the Churches, are all working at it.

If you want to prove it, go and see!"

-Ken Barham

For more information about visiting Rwanda, click on the Rwandan Tourist Board website.

Please keep sending in your thoughts and views.

2006-01-25T12:00:00.000-08:00

Diane's Story

Today's post was written by a young Genocide survivor called Diane. This is the first of many testimonies which have been written by Rwandans specifically for this site. These testimonies are actually collected at The Genocide Memorial Centre in Kigali, which Aegis helped set up.

My name is Diane, I am 21 years old and I am a Genocide survivor. I want people to know that Genocide is really bad because it took away our parents, relatives and friends and left us with lots of scars.

Justice is really good because it punishes those who killed our people. Reconciliation is a good thing too but it's very hard - I just don't think you can easily forgive and reunite with someone who made you be what you are today.

Peace is the best I wish for the country. I wish not to be hurt in the future for what I am. I also wish to have a good life and be in the right position where my parents would be, I wish that no more Genocide happens in Rwanda again.

I would really love the government to punish the killers but mostly those who rejoice about our pain. Another thing I would request of the government is to help those who still have injuries and/or bomb fragments in their bodies getting medical care. I personally undergo serious physical problems due to fragments that I carry in my body everyday.

-Diane

The victims of Nyanza

2006-01-24T03:07:00.000-08:00

General Roméo Dallaire Talks

Tonight, General Roméo Dallaire will be talking at an event arranged by 'Facing History & Ourselves' at The Royal Society of Medicine, London. Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire, now retired, was Commander of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide. He now holds a post on the Canadian Senate. Since the publication of his book, 'Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda', General Dallaire has become a passionate spokesperson about the humanism necessary today in leadership and conflict resolution.

'Facing History & Ourselves' is doing extensive work in Rwanda currently helping them develop a new history curriculum and training hundreds of teachers to use it. You may know that 75% of the teachers in Rwanda were either murdered or imprisoned during the genocide so the rebuilding of the teacher network is essential.

General Dallaire and the work of Facing History challenge us to explore profound moral questions. What are the challenges of being given responsibility without authority? What are the consequences of a military person following his conscience instead of his orders? Are some lives worth more than others? How can we expand our "universe of obligation" to include people we don't know or even recognize? Why should we care about events that go on half way around the world?

A full report of the event will be posted later in the week.

2006-01-23T14:47:00.000-08:00

Holocaust Memorial Day is on Friday and there are events going on all over the UK. If you want to get involved or want to know what events are taking place in your local area, click on the link here and select your location.

I received a lot of messages over the weekend expressing support for our site and our aims. There is a genuine interest and concern and people want their voices heard.

This is a testimony from Apolinie Uwantege. It is a harrowing account of her ordeal during the genocide and I thank her for letting us publish it here.

'We were a happy family and got along fine, but in 1990, classmates started to look at us differently, not nicely. Then the multiparty political system was introduced. Even though we weren't involved with any party, people thought we were on the RPF side just becausee we were Tutsi. Whenever we walked past, people would scream, "Oh, look at the inyenzi (cockroaches)."

On 6 April, we made our way to the Ecole Technique Officielle (ETO), where some people had already sought refuge with the UN. We had protection and felt safe, but on 11 April, the UN troops drove away. As they left, the Interahamwe and government soldiers came. They told us we would be taken to Nyanza. They made us run. Some people were praying, others singing. As we ran, some people were hacked with machetes and others killed. Many Interahamwe had come and there were buses full of soldiers behind us. It was evening and it had rained. We arrived at an open field in Nyanza, and could tell it was over. As we all stood there, we kept asking our father what would happen. I remember my oldest sister asking Mum if we would see each other when we got to Heaven. Mum didn't say anything; she was overwhelmed. Father kept on giving us hope that nothing would happen. They started shooting and we fell to the ground. After that, I never saw my father or mother again. Bodies fell on top of those of us who had fallen down first. They threw grenades into the crowd and kept on shooting for a long time until it was very dark. The Interahamwe started walking around hacking people if they were alive. I was with my older sister, younger brothers and some other young people. We had all agreed to keep quiet and pretend to be dead. They picked me up, wondering if I was alive or not. They hit me with something - I don't know what. I was hurt but kept quiet, so they threw me onto the ground thinking I was dead. They kept on going, hacking people. People were crying, calling for their mothers, shouting out, close to death. Eventually they realized it was too dark and left.

Next morning, we could see the Interahamwe coming. They started asking each other whether we were dead or not. One said, "Let me just show you." He started hacking people. There were about 15 of us. My little brother Bertin gave up and asked for forgiveness. They hacked him with a machete, and he died immediately. I was cut on the neck and leg. Felix tried to fight them and they cut his neck, fingers and feet. My older sister, Fifi and Bertin died immediately. Then they left.

The RPF was fighting to capture Rebelo, and they wanted to save the survivors in Nyanza. Those of us who could walk left, not really knowing where we were going. One day, at dawn, I heard footsteps. I thought it was the Interahamwe who had followed us, and I immediately shut my eyes. One of them stopped and told the rest to come and see the kids who had been killed there. One touched me. He said, "These kids are alive, feel them." We kept quiet, but we couldn't hold our breath long enough. They told me to wake up. I thought if I did, they would kill me on the spot. They kept on saying, "Wake up, we'll take you to hospital." Then I thought to myself that no Interahamwe could be so sympathetic, so I raised my head and looked at them. They were wearing RPF uniform.'

A longer version of this account is published by the Aegis Trust in 'A Time to Remember: Rwanda, ten years after the genocide'.

2006-01-20T05:54:00.000-08:00

The coming weeks.

It's been a good first week on the Rwandan Survivors blog and I've had a great response from people who would like their views heard. Naturally I'll look through them all and try my best to put as many on the site as possible.

Next week I'll publish more testimonials, pictures, current news and forums and look at the build up to Holocaust Memorial Day.

The release of SHOOTING DOGS is being closely aligned with work of The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust to help raise awareness of contemporary genocide alongside the commemorations of the Holocaust. Holocaust Memorial Day, which takes place next Friday (27th January) is about both the past and the present. It is about commemorating and continuing to learn from the events of the Holocaust and about relating those lessons to the ever-changing world around us. There will be a number of commemorative events taking place across the country throughout next week including a number of screenings of SHOOTING DOGS. The film will also be showing at the main Memorial event in Cardiff on the 27th. Please visit The Holocaust Memorial Day website for more information on their work and events taking place in your area.

The site is being viewed by people from all over the World so its a great place for you to voice your opinion and start a discussion. We want to hear from you.

This blog is a platform for anyone and everyone to write their views on the subjects raised.

Lets get people talking!

Mount Sabinyo - Rwanda

2006-01-18T03:50:00.000-08:00

Today we post the first of our testimonies from survivors of the genocide. This account of the massacre and her survival from Anne Marie Bucyana is a testimony to her great strength and courage.

I grew up in a loving home with my parents, two brothers and five sisters. In 1990, I married. My husband Jean-Marie and I had our first child, Patrick. After his birth, the authorities started persecuting the Tutsis. They arrested my husband, accusing him of being an RPF accomplice. He was jailed for two weeks, and after his release, fled to Kibuye. Me and my son followed after the interahamwe came looking for him. In 1993, I gave birth to my second child, a boy we named Iradukunda, meaning ‘God loves us’. This was where we were in April 1994 when Habyarimana’s plane was shot down.

When the killings began they came and took my husband away. Shortly after, I could hear those who took him away singing that they had killed a cockroach, and I knew he was dead. One soldier came up to the house. I was sitting with my baby boy on my lap. He grabbed the child and threw him against the wall. He died from the impact. I ran to pick up my baby’s body, but the soldier threatened me and told me to lie down. And there he raped me. I don’t really have the words to explain all that he did to me. At some point he heard a commotion, and ran off.

When he heard that I was still alive, Zacharya, a colleague of my husband’s came on a motorbike to take me away. I did not know that he had been involved in my husband’s murder, and thought that I would be safe with him. I took my son with me. Zacharya had taken many houses from Tutsis, and he took us to one of them in Safi Cyumbati, putting us in a room with Interahamwe. I remained at this house for six days, and was raped every night. At any time one of the Interahamwe wanted me, he took me – even in front of my son, who was with me.

At dusk on the sixth day, I was raped by two gangs of interahamwe. A third gang gave me a hoe and ordered me to dig my grave; they couldn’t be bothered to do it themselves. I was naked; they had already taken my sarong. I started pleading with them to shoot me, and not to kill me with a spiked club. They asked me if I knew the price of a bullet. While they were deliberating, another gang of interahamwe came. Because I was claiming to be a Hutu, their leader ordered the group to take me back to the house, and check my tribe in the morning.

As they were taking me back to the house, someone went and told an old lady whom I had helped in the past. Later that night she stole me away to her house and hid me and my son.

We started hearing rumours that the RPF were advancing and killing. Everyone started fleeing. I asked myself, why leave? But I had no reason to stay; so I decided to leave with them. But once we reached the Rusizi River, where we would cross into Zaire, I felt that they all had something in common, and I was on my own. I decided to stay in Rwanda.

When I learned I was infected with HIV/AIDS, I was shocked, confused, in denial. I felt worthless, I felt I was finished. That’s when I started to feel the trauma. I looked for something with which to commit suicide, but I couldn’t find anything. Ever since I found out I was ill I have never received any medication for my illness, not once.

I only half survived. I am still carrying death in me; not only the death that AIDS will bring. Others say they escaped from the sword, but the sword is still in my heart. Even in death, I do not believe I will find rest. Only my son gives me the strength to live. It is a miracle that I am still alive after ten years. If I can survive another two years, he will be a little older, and maybe he will have a chance in life; maybe he will not become a street child.

A longer version of this account is published by the Aegis Trust in ‘A Time to Remember: Rwanda, ten years after the genocide’.

2006-01-17T02:57:00.000-08:00

Todays posting was sent to us by Mary Kayitesi Blewitt from the Suvivors Fund (SURF)

Survivors Fund (SURF)

Between April and June 1994, more than 1,000,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed in the Rwandan genocide, the most intense period of killing in modern history. Eleven years on, survivors of genocide are struggling to piece together their shattered lives and cope with the many legacies of genocide.

I am one of the lucky ones. Despite losing most of my family in the genocide, I did not suffer the trauma of rape and abandonment that befell many Rwandan women. It is this vulnerable group, in particular those raped, deliberately infected with HIV and who are now dying from AIDS, that SURF has been focused on helping over the last year. Fortunately, through the assistance of the Department for International Development (DFID) we are now supporting 2,500 HIV+ women survivors with antiretroviral treatment.

This is the essence of SURF’s work, to rebuild a sense of self and trust in humanity for these people, destroyed by genocide through the infliction of excruciating physical pain and terrifying mental abuse. Since helping to set up SURF, nearly nine years now, we have helped survivors deal with and recover from the tragedies of 1994, supporting a wide range of services for victims in Rwanda, and assisting survivors in the UK. Funded by a variety of organisations and individuals, we act as a channel to distribute financial assistance through grassroots partners to bring hope, safety, and a decent standard of living for survivors.

Films like Shooting Dogs are playing an important role in raising awareness of the events of 1994. The release of the film comes at the right time for survivors, many who cannot help feeling that their stories had been long forgotten by the world.

As the film portrays, the events of 1994 were brutal with genocidaires actively involving the entire population. But what it is unable to showcase is the plight of survivors today. It is not a sad ending, neither a happy one, as the conclusion is still to be determined. Men were targeted first in the killings, so survivors are mostly women and children. Many women were gang raped by the interahamwe (those who killed together), who knowing that they were HIV+ used sexual violence so survivors would live only to die slowly from AIDS.

The reality for women survivors in Rwanda is an ongoing concern, as they must live side-by-side with men who raped them and killed their families, as the perpetrators of the genocide are being released back into the community. The country no longer has the resource to continue to keep these men incarcerated, and so by admitting guilt at a local gacaca (community-based) trial they are now free.

Survivors have received no justice - they now face harassment and intimidation from these very people. There is no simple way of redressing the balance, but by securing access to antiretroviral treatment then at least women survivors can look forward again to a future. Meanwhile SURF in 2006 will raise the profile of rape as a weapon of war, and call for action to stop the verbal and physical abuse, and in recent cases, murder, of survivors for giving testimony to gacaca courts.
For more information, please visit: www.survivors-fund.org.uk

-Mary Kayitesi Blewitt

2006-01-16T04:10:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the Rwandan Survivors

In the summer of 2004 we went to Kigali to make the film Shooting Dogs which tells the story of what happened at the Ecole Technique Officielle during the Rwandan genocide. It was an extraordinary experience for all of us. For five months we shared rich experiences and made lifelong friendships with our Rwandan friends who made the film with us. We all learnt much about Rwanda - its history and its struggle to move beyond its recent tragic past.

We hope that the film will spark debate and this site is an opportunity to join in and contribute. We really want to hear from as many voices as possible: to tell us what you think and to open up the discussion so that all of us can share our stories.

We have two blog sites running. This blog will feature testimonials from the survivors of the genocide courtesy of Aegis and Surf. Our other site (Shooting Dogs) will take a closer look at the film itself and how we made it. There you will find diary entries from the production crew, as well as trailers, photos and much more.

These blogs will function as interactive forums for people, survivors in particular, to post their views. This is a platform that will offer a voice to the survivors that take part. We will have input from survivors still residing in Rwanda, some of which made up the film's cast and crew, from journalists that were present in Rwanda at the time of the genocide, as well as testimonies and comments from survivors living in the UK.

We hope that the film itself, partnered by the blog sites, will function to keep the Rwandan genocide, and indeed, other genocides/crimes against humanity, in the public consciousness.

-David Belton (Producer)

2006-01-04T05:52:00.000-08:00

This site launches on the 16th January 2006 in conjuction with the 'Shooting Dogs' blog.

We aim to bring together survivors of the Rwandan Genocide of 1994 and create a discusion linked to the new film 'Shooting Dogs'.

This site will include testimonials from survivors and a database of resources for people to use.