"My son asks 'How come we don't have old people in Rwanda?'" says Justine Rukeba Mbabazi, a survivor of the 1994 Rwandan genocide that killed over 800,000. She isn't sure how to answer that question.
Hutus killed her entire family and she now lives in Canada with her son. Though she spoke softly in heavily accented English, this petite woman moved the listeners to applauding every few minutes last Thursday at an event remembering the Rwandan genocide.
Mbabazi went on to give the keynote lecture at Thursday's "Evening of Remembrance," an event organized by Human Rights Watch and the Peacebuilding and Development Institute, Four awards were given to recipients who either helped prevent, stop or expose genocide around the world.
In 1994, the Hutus, the ethnic majority in Rwanda, massacred approximately 800,000 Tutsis, the minority elite, in 100 days. The event, also organized by Saji Prelis of the School of International Service, commemorated the violence so as to never repeat the tragedy.
Students, wearing solemn expressions and cotton T-shirts that read in bold, black letters, "Remember Rwanda" stood beside Sudanese and Rwandan men and women who had traveled from as far as Indiana, Texas and New York to attend the event. Dressed in sharp business suits, they warmly embraced one another and held up colorful signs that read, "Never Again."
The flags of Rwanda, the United States, United Nations and European Union and signs held by members of the Darfurian leadership in English and Arabic surrounded the speakers. The Darfurian leadership was from Darfur, a region in western Sudan.
Darfurian members held signs that read, "NO FOR GENOCIDE" and "SUDAN GOVERNMENT STOP ETHNIC CLEANSING." According to a letter to President Bush that the Darfurian members distributed to the crowd, the government in Sudan has been complicit in a "sustained and ferocious campaign of ethnic cleansing" in the "My son asks 'How come we don't have old people in Rwanda?'" says Justine Rukeba Mbabazi, a survivor of the 1994 Rwandan genocide that killed over 800,000. She isn't sure how to answer that question.
Hutus killed her entire family and she now lives in Canada with her son. Though she spoke softly in heavily accented English, this petite woman moved the listeners to applauding every few minutes last Thursday at an event remembering the Rwandan genocide.
Mbabazi went on to give the keynote lecture at Thursday's "Evening of Remembrance," an event organized by Human Rights Watch and the Peacebuilding and Development Institute, Four awards were given to recipients who either helped prevent, stop or expose genocide around the world.
In 1994, the Hutus, the ethnic majority in Rwanda, massacred approximately 800,000 Tutsis, the minority elite, in 100 days. The event, also organized by Saji Prelis of the School of International Service, commemorated the violence so as to never repeat the tragedy.
Students, wearing solemn expressions and cotton T-shirts that read in bold, black letters, "Remember Rwanda" stood beside Sudanese and Rwandan men and women who had traveled from as far as Indiana, Texas and New York to attend the event. Dressed in sharp business suits, they warmly embraced one another and held up colorful signs that read, "Never Again."
The flags of Rwanda, the United States, United Nations and European Union and signs held by members of the Darfurian leadership in English and Arabic surrounded the speakers. The Darfurian leadership was from Darfur, a region in western Sudan.
Darfurian members held signs that read, "NO FOR GENOCIDE" and "SUDAN GOVERNMENT STOP ETHNIC CLEANSING." According to a letter to President Bush that the Darfurian members distributed to the crowd, the government in Sudan has been complicit in a "sustained and ferocious campaign of ethnic cleansing" in the Darfurian region.
"I am a survivor, not a victim," Mbabazi began. These sorts of events fulfill her desire, and her people's desire, for recognition from the international community of a devastating period in Rwandan history that should not be swept out of sight, she said.
She described what she witnessed during those three months in 1994.
"Doctors killed patients, children killed parents and teachers killed students," Mbabazi recalled. "You saw the [bodies of] women and babies piling and piling and piling one on top of another."
Schools, hospitals and churches, places that typically serve as sanctuaries, became grounds in which to dump the unlimited number of rotting corpses, she said.
The Hutus targeted Tutsi men and politically moderate members of the Hutu majority, using machetes and clubs studded with nails to dismember and decapitate them. As for the women, the Hutus first brutally raped them and then murdered them before their children, Mbabazi said.
"For men, when the violence is over, it is over. But for women, it lingers," she explained. Many rape victims contracted HIV and, as a consequence, these women now live as outcasts, ostracized by their community and unable to marry.
Mbabazi said that while she was pleased that Canada on paper is against genocide, she would rather people "stop theory and begin using their heart." She repeated this sentiment in her speech twice and praised the peace movement for its activism, but also criticized it for its inaction during the genocide.
She also had harsh words for people in the United Nations and United States for not doing anything about the genocide and instead debating about "phrasing it as a 'civil conflict' or a 'genocide.'"
Mbabazi confessed that along with grief, she also harbors anger and resentment. The international community understood the gravity of the violence within the first 24 hours, but lacked the political will to take action, she said. France, the United States, Britain, Belgium and Italy evacuated their citizens immediately. These influential powers spoke of ethnic cleansing in the case of the fighting in former Yugoslavia, but dismissed the Rwanda genocide as intertribal conflict, she said. Had they categorized the violence as a genocide, international law would demand they intervene.
The International Tribunal employs nearly 1,000 people and has more than $100 million at its disposal, yet in the last 10 years it has indicted twenty people. Rwandans continue to wait for the justice that will offer them peace of mind and allow them to heal, Mbabazi said.
This theme was echoed by John Prendegasl. The Center for the Prevention of Genocide presented Prendegasl with the Genocide Prevention Award on a plaque. In his remarks, he said, '"Never again' means what can we do to give that phrase meaning," and "'never again' means we can't wait for the U.N. Security Council and we can't wait for the U.S. government."
Corinne Dufka, a former journalist who works for Human Rights Watch, said the U.S. government will not take an interest in violence abroad unless its people care, and the people will not care unless they are informed.
Dufka noted that, while in the journalism field, she and her colleagues were eager to cover the ethnic cleansings and civil wars in African countries. Editors concerned with expanding the readership would dismiss their story ideas, explaining that "'It's just more black people dying. If less than 50 people die, we don't cover it. It's not what the clients want,'" Dufka said.
"There exists a discrepancy between the value of a human life in America or Europe and the value of a human life in Africa. The victims of these conflicts need you to educate yourselves as citizens of a powerful and influential country," she said.
Another speaker, Connie Snyder, spoke for her late husband, the Rev. Steve Snyder and accepted an award on his behalf. According to Snyder, her husband worked in Indonesia in January 2001 to help persecuted Christians in the "Christian stronghold" of Tintana.
Snyder joined her husband in Tintana and was imprisoned with him by the government. He traveled to Indonesia to let the persecuted Christians "know that Christ cared for them," she said.
Snyder's husband helped protect Titania's 63,000 citizens from "Jihad warriors" intent on murdering the Christians, she said.
Her husband "risked his life" and documented atrocities committed by the "Jihad warriors" and wrote a report and testified before Congress. According to Snyder, her husband helped prevent genocide by getting troops sent to Tintana.
Andrew S. Natsios, director of USAID, was not able to receive his award because of a busy schedule. In the past, he wrote about a man-induced hunger campaign in the hard-line communist state of North Korea. Natsios was thanked for his work in the Nuba mountain range of the Sudan, where he helped document ethnic cleansing against Christians.
The event, which was held outside of the SIS building, had roughly 175 people, including the Darfurian leadership. It began at 4 p.m. and ended at 8:30 p.m., after a 3-mile walk to the Rwandan embassy with a candlelight vigil for the victims.
