genocide and nirvana

please take a moment of silence this week and remember all those killed
in the name of genocide in the 20th century alone.

also, kurt cobain shot himself 10 yrs ago this week.

-j


from the April 08, 2004 edition -
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0408/p09s01-coop.html

Reflecting on Rwandan lessons
By Helena Cobban

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA. - Ten years ago this week in Rwanda, thousands of
hate-filled Hutu extremists launched a well organized, 100-day campaign
of killing that left more than 800,000 of their countrymen dead. Most of
those killed, raped, and mutilated were Tutsis - the rest were
pro-coexistence Hutus.

The features of that genocide should cause everyone, in Rwanda and
internationally, to reflect on the terrifying capacity of humans to
perpetrate acts of great cruelty, or to turn a callous, deliberately
blind eye when such acts are committed against others.

Just to put the horror in stark statistical context, Rwanda's daily
murder rate was several times greater than at the height of the
Holocaust in Europe. But in Rwanda, unlike the Holocaust, the killing
was low-tech and personal. The Hutu killers "worked" close up with
machetes and nail-studded clubs, and only sometimes at an impersonal
distance with guns or grenades.

Hundreds of thousands of Hutu Rwandans participated in what seemed to
many of them to be a somehow "necessary" activity. Alcohol and peer
pressure both played a part in egging them on. Leading institutions in
society, including many government and local church leaders, either
participated directly or condoned the killings. In those circumstances,
it is noteworthy that many Hutus stood aside from the pressure to
participate: More than 150,000 of them lost their lives for that act of
courage.

Today, Rwanda has a Tutsi-dominated government that is dedicated to
rebuilding the links between the country's main communities: the Hutu
majority (84 percent), the Tutsis (15 percent), and Twa Pygmies (1 percent).

This project faces many obstacles, including the legacies left by the
genocide, the minority nature of the government, Rwanda's chronic
poverty, and its location in a very unstable part of Africa.

When I was in Rwanda in 2002, I found that many local churches,
especially evangelical churches, were by then playing a very
constructive role in rebuilding and reconciliation. I met ministers like
Antoine Rutayisire, Michel Kayitaba, and David Bucura - all genocide
survivors - who were undertaking broad and effective ministries that
combined an emphasis onreconciliation with team-building work on
urgently needed development projects.

If Rwandans have many hard tasks to grapple with as they remember the
genocide, so, too, do those of us who live in powerful countries
elsewhere. The record of the "international community" in 1994 was not,
by and large, an honorable one.

When the genocide started on April 7, 1994, there was a small UN
peacekeeping force, UNAMIR, already in Rwanda. Its Canadian commander,
Romeo Dallaire, had long been hearing reports of preparations for a mass
killing. But his pleas to UN headquarters for permission to act against
the planners went unanswered.

Then, almost immediately after the genocide started, the Hutu extremists
killed a squad of Belgian peacekeepers. Belgium pulled the rest of its
troops out of UNAMIR. Many other powerful nations, including the US,
then tried to persuade the Security Council to disband UNAMIR
completely. General Dallaire and some top aides - including officers
from Ghana and Senegal - held on valiantly inside Rwanda. They were
hopelessly understaffed and underequipped, but by their sheer presence
they were able to save thousands of lives. The completely unarmed
International Committee of the Red Cross and networks of courageous
local and "international" people - at great risk to themselves - saved
many thousands more.

Meanwhile, the handful of powerful nations that dominate Security
Council decisionmaking all played a shameful role. Washington was still
leery of international involvement because of the humiliation US troops
had suffered in Somalia a few months earlier. But the US did not have to
provide troops - it could have provided political, financial, and
logistical support that would have strengthened UNAMIR considerably.
Hundreds of thousands of lives could have been saved. It's even possible
that determined UN action before - and at the launch of - the genocide
could have deterred its planners from pursuing their hateful project in
the first place.

What lessons, 10 years later, should leaders and voters in rich,
powerful nations take from the events of that year?

• Sober "on the ground" assessments like Dallaire's should be taken
seriously when they warn of atrocious violence ahead. Right now,
fighting in Western Sudan is causing what the UN calls "the worst
humanitarian crisis in the world." But what are the world's powerful
nations doing to end the fighting and bring effective long-term aid to
those people? Do Western voters even care?

• The UN needs to build a quick-response capability so it can send the
right combination of unarmed and armed peacekeepers, peace negotiators,
and humanitarian aid into crisis areas in timely fashion. Building each
intervention force from scratch is hard and wastes time.

• "Solutions" devised in secure Western nations will often be
inappropriate or even unhelpful. In late 1994, guilt-driven Security
Council members created an international court to try the top leaders of
the Rwandan genocide. That court has consumed more than $1 billion, and
tried 20 individuals. Along the way it has kept Tutsi-Hutu polarizations
alive. Most Rwandans say it has given them far less value than a similar
amount in well-spent development aid.

• The terms of global trade put in place by rich Western nations have
kept many countries in the global south mired in long-term poverty and
thus susceptible to conflicts driven by fears over basic human needs. Do
we in the West think that Rwandans, Sudanese, and other "southerners"
are our moral equals? If we do, we should change the global trade rules
and give them a chance to lead dignified, productive, and peaceful lives
that are equal to ours.

Sound like a tall order? Maybe. But serious changes like these are
what's needed if we really mean it when we say, "genocide: never again."

• Helena Cobban, the author of five books on international issues, is
working on a book about violence and its legacies.
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