Remembering the Rwandan Genocide
The week of April 6th begins a period of mourning in Rwanda. Sixteen years ago, on April 6, 1994, the genocide began. The immediate catalyst for the genocide was the shooting down of a plane carrying the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi. The genocide would rage for 100 days from 8:23 pm on April 6 when the plane was shot down.
Over the past sixteen years, more information has emerged about the genocide itself as well as the international community's failure to respond. One of the people at the forefront of that work was the late Alison Des Forges. Des Forges knew the Great Lakes region for decades, having lived there as a graduate student and then written her dissertation on the region. Prior to the genocide she was working as a consultant for Human Rights Watch, an international non-governmental organization. She had been paying close attention to the warning signs prior to April and tried desperately to stir the international community. It was to Des Forges that the then National Security Advisor to President Clinton said "to make more noise."
In this clip from "Confronting Evil" Des Forges discusses the genocide, the events leading to it, the international failure to respond as well as the implications of the genocide on Rwandans and on Rwanda today.
Des Forges reminds us that what happened in Rwanda was a genocide, "...fully as modern as the Holocaust in the sense that it was state organized and state driven." She then goes on to ask why the numbers of people killed matter, "...must there be a million to cross a threshold of terror?"
If you have more time to explore the genocide in Rwanda, please consider using Greg Barker's documentary "Ghosts of Rwanda" which you can borrow from our resource library. You can also link to clips and transcripts from the website.
The "Confronting Evil" clip also provides context for the role of propaganda and particularly the use of radio prior and during the genocide.
Finally, on April 14, PBS will air the documentary "Worse Than War." The film will provide substantial opportunities to understand genocide more deeply as well as scholar Daniel Goldhagen's analysis of how to stop it.
- What does Des Forges mean when she says that the genocide - and the absence of an international response - did not occur in a vacuum? What factors does she point to?
- Talking about the genocide and the implications of what happened, Des Forges says: "It's as if you took a picture of a family and ripped it down the middle and then tried to fit the halves back together again. Even with the best glue in the world, it's never going to be the same. People betrayed their deepest values in order to kill, in order to rape, in order to pillage their friends and neighbors and their own family members. Whether you look at it from the point of view of the victim or of the perpetrator, these are things that can never be forgotten." Reflect on Des Forges' thoughts. What are the implications of this analysis?
