Rwanda-

Rwanda-
I made a quick jaunt down to Rwanda this past weekend with a girl I met in Ft. Portal named Jamie. While there I had a chance to see three different memorials. The first one was a museum that covered the history of the Rwandan genocide, as well as giving information about genocides in general. It was very well done.

I really had a hard time comprehending the genocide. Rwanda was by and large a catholic country. You wonder how can such a thing happen in the first place. We have had a bloody history in the past. When I found out, however, that certain priests had actually collaborated in the killing of their congregations, I was made sick to my stomach. One even bulldozed down his church to kill those inside of it. Seeing among the personal belongings of those killed small plastic rosaries, I asked myself where was God…. Echoing back in my head was that famous quote following the holocaust… where was man. Our governement, we in the states are also complicit in this genocide… where were we? They say that a force of 5000 could have ended the whole thing. It wasn’t just a day either, but a whole month of murders.
The distinction between hutu and tutsi was actually one that was created by the Belgians. They put the Tutsis in power during colonialism and then the government system was based on favors to this small group of people. When they ended colonialism, the Belgian government decided to just switch the roles, and put hutus in charge of everything. Then began the 30 year long persecution of the tutsis.

I traveled on Tuesday to nyamata, which is one of the genocide sites. It was a church were grenades were thrown into. I was led there by a woman who survived that attack in the church. You can still see where the ceiling has had shrapnel blown through it. Walking to the back of the church we found the tombs of those murdered. There the bones of the unidentified were stacked for all to see…. Never again.
Going to another site called nyatamara, we saw again a place where people were slaughtered in the church. First with grenades and then with machetes. It was difficult to imagine the violence that had happened there some 12 years ago even though the bones of the dead are lying in front of the church, exposed for all to see as they clean and sort them.

Oddly enough, the most emotionally moving site for me, was a memorial stone at the centre cristus, the Jesuit center where we were staying. It was put there in memory of 18 people who were assassinated. This stone helped me to realize deep in my heart that the genocide was not limited to sites, as one would experience from their tourism, but it was spread to every area of Rwanda.

Rwanda seems to now be one of the fastest developing nations in the region. They have done a lot of work to unify and reconcile. It used to be that on the ID badges it would say hutu or tutsi, but no longer. There is a zero tolerance policy on corruption and foreign countries are investing money and man power to build roads, buildings and other infrastructure. One man pointed out to me that the road we were on was being built by the germans and the following year the US would build an international airport. The city of Kigali seems to have no discernable center unless you are right at it. There are no sky scrapers and the whole city is spread out over a variety of hills.