When Claire Bloom visited Rawanda, the people she met asked her to talk about the genocide when she got back to Australia, so that others would know what had happened. It was their hope that by talking about the massacre it would help prevent it from occurring again. Claire kept her promise and this article is part of her contribution and tribute to the survivors of Rawanda.

Recently I was lucky enough to visit a friend in Arusha, Tanzania. My friend works for the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). This tribunal has so far completed 21 trials and convicted 28 persons involved in genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed during 1994 in Rwanda. It has been a slow and frustrating process, with much work still to do. However, the tribunal has established world first legal principles by declaring rape a form of genocide. It has also made the production and broadcasting of “hate” media which encourages genocide, an international crime.

Genocide is defined as the deliberate and systematic destruction of an entire people who belong to one racial, political, cultural or religious group. In Rwanda, over 100 days, more than 800,000 people were massacred. The causes and background to this massacre are long and complicated, but seem to go back to European colonization, when the Belgians promoted the minority Tutsi tribe, over the majority Hutu tribe, in order to make it easier for them to rule the colony. Then just to confuse things, before leaving Rwanda, the Belgians reversed their policy of favouritism.

In 1998, then US President Bill Clinton, apologized to the Rwandans because his country did not acknowledge what was going on and stood back and watched the tragedy unfold. Clinton said, "Genocide can occur anywhere. It is not an African phenomenon. We must have global vigilance. And never again must we be shy in the face of the evidence."

 

In Rwanda, I visited a church on the outskirts of the capital, Kigali, where innocent people had fled for protection, only to be slaughtered where they sheltered. Over five thousand people are buried in unnamed graves in the church grounds. I also experienced a heart wrenching visit to the Genocide Memorial Centre. The Centre is a modest, unassuming house-like structure, built on a site where over 250,000 people are buried. Here the history and background to the genocide is explored. I saw the remains of victims, listened to the stories of survivors and good Samaritans who protected victims from slaughter. It was a very moving and sobering experience.

I heard there are still many problems in Rwanda and extremists exist on both sides. At the site of a church massacre- 5,000 un-named graves. Yet, despite this sadness, I couldn’t help but notice how optimistic and forward thinking most people seemed to be. The capital city was thriving with new buildings and construction work everywhere. (many of the labourers were dressed in bright pink outfits and I found out they were prisoners being put to work rebuilding Rwanda!) The streets were busy, but clean and tidy. There were signs everywhere reminding the population that there must never be another genocide and urging reconciliation. People I spoke to said, they would never forget but had to learn to forgive, in order to heal themselves and for their country to survive. I wonder if I could find the strength to recover had I experienced the horror that occurred just 14 years ago.

Sadly since returning home, news of fighting in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda’s eastern neighbor, reveals that over 250,000 civilians have been displaced and the brutality of previous conflict has been renewed. In part, this current dispute is fueled by ethnic hatred left over from the Rwandan genocide. Despite the presence of the largest UN peacekeeping force in the world, it seems another crises looms, that may yet, overtake the Rwandan genocide

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Written by claire bloom