Fuhrer: Rwanadan Genocide

This week we cover the Tutsi Rwandan Genocide. It is important to note that even before the Genocide in Rwanda tensions had already been strained between the two native tribal groups of the land. In fact one could trace the conflict to even before the country gained independence (1962) all the way to European colonial rule when Belgium (and many other European countries) scrambled to colonize the valuable land and resources of Africa.

At the time of their occupation The Belgians favored the Tutsis and gave them an advantage over the Hutus socially and economically this sparked the animosity between the two groups which reached its breaking point on April 6 th 1994 when President Juvenal Habyarimani is assassinated. His death is blamed on the RPF (Rwanda Patriotic Front) and its mostly Tutsi members although Hutu extremists who wanted to use President Habyarimanis death as an excuse to take power could have just as easily carried out the assassination.

 In any case what comes next is a horrifying attack on Tutsi citizens that lasted a hundred days carried out for the most part by the Interahamwe a militia made up of young men not connected to the army but never the less instructed by the new Hutu government to carry out the attacks. In those hundred days nearly a million Rwandan’s are killed (the death toll is said to be 800,000 but other reports insist it is more.) and as the quote from Murambi rightly indicates “the rest of the world was watching Soccer in America…”commenting how unlike in the cases of the more well known genocides carried out in Europe, foreign assistance (and by foreign I mean Europe) closed itself off to Africa even though the conflict itself could be traced back to them.

The novel Murambi, Book of Bones is a story written by Senegalese Journalist Boubacar Boris Diop who along with 9 other prominent African writers travelled around in post genocide Rwanda to see what they as artists could do to make sure that the stories of those who suffered through are told.  The story itself centers itself around an ethnically mixed Rwandan named Cornelius Uvimana a History teacher who after nearly a long period of exile from his home in Djibouti finally is allowed to come back in 1994, four years after the Genocide. The novel itself is made up of four parts.

The first and third parts contain snippets of narratives that follow people who each had their own part to play in the Genocide this it seems to highlight that no ones hands were entirely clean of what had happened and demonstrates a human beings capacity to do good and commit evil. This idea most notably seen in Part three where Cornelius's father a well respected doctor of Hutu descent, betrays the trust of not only the Tutsi people he promises to save but also his wife and two children (His wife being of Tutsi descent) when he offers them sanctuary at a Polytechnic college (located in Murambi) but then allows the militia to surround it and kill everyone inside. This despicable act from someone who obviously must have been a good person at one point shows the very cold blooded nature that war insights in people and the fact that Joseph is not only willing but wanting to get rid of his Tutsi wife and his own children shows just how strong the hatred between the two groups really were.

Hotel Rwanda on the other hand tells the tale of Hutu hotel manager Paul Rusesabagina who like Joseph (Paul’s wife is also Tutsi) is given the chance to help hundreds of his Tutsi neighbors by allowing them refuge in the hotel he works in. The neighbors are then joined by hundreds more refugees who are sent to the hotel from over populated Red cross and United Nations refugee camps. His struggle to care for them, to negotiate their safe keeping and that of his family is contrasted by the UN peace keepers to assert themselves in to conflict as they are obliged to not intervene in Genocide. Instead they began to evacuate all expats living in Rwanda. This reluctance to help I believe is shown to its most dramatic effect when a journalist Jack Daglish who is just about to leave the hotel is asked by a Tutsi woman who he had a one night stand with to take her with him. He apologizes and tells the crying woman that he cannot then as he leaves he tells his friend “I feel so ashamed.” The comment itself seemingly directed at both the journalist’s and the foreign powers that didn’t find it necessary to intervene.