Rwanda : Rwanda remembered: Samantha Power reconciles past and present on genocide anniversary

In the Spirit of Sankofa,



... Hats off to President Obama, for real.



Rwanda remembered: Samantha Power reconciles past and present on genocide anniversary

Power Players

It was a problem from hell.

That’s how Samantha Power summed up the United States’ failure to respond to Rwanda’s 1994 genocide in her Pulitzer Prize-winning book, “A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide” – and in so doing, Power made a name for herself as a critic of U.S. foreign policy.

Now the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, the former critic-turned government insider is in Rwanda to mark the 20th anniversary of the genocide as the United States’ official representative.

“President Obama wanted us to come back and pay our respects and show that even if it's 20 years later, this genocide is something that stays with us,” Power told “Power Players” during an interview in Rwanda’s capital of Kigali.

suggested reading and video viewing:
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/power-p...resent-on-genocide-anniversary-015214194.html

 

"This genocide is something that stays with us."

I watched a PBS program about the 20th anniversity of the genocide. It spoke of Rwanda's way of healing itself, modeled on South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Committee. "Something that stays with us?" It was so soul scraping I had to almost clutch one wrist with the opposite hand to keep from turning the horror off. Over and over again, my insides screamed: TURN IT OFF! The pain was that great, and so intense, it was almost physical.

No, not pix of the butchery - survivor stories of the butchery. Looking into the faces of the beautiful Rwandan Tutsi women whose lives were devastated. The survivor who was raped during the massacre.... when she was about 5.... who wonders if she will ever be able to marry, i.e., have conjugal relations. The survivor who was raped and is living with an STD from the rape (AIDS? They didn't say, but no one cries like that about chlamydia!).... forgiving the man who killed her husband and 3 beloved children, while she took care of his pregnant wife, e.g., seeing that she had the proper medicine, the victim taking her victimizer's wife to doctor appointments, etc. Oh, the horror of the tales. The tears I leaked when the young girl said her entire family was killed and the 3 families that took her in, one by one, ALL treating her like a burden, or like the woman she thought loved her and whom she was starting to call 'mother,' treated her as a maid. But the worst, the most heart-breaking was when she said that other Rwandans LAUGH at her and other survivors. They say cruel things like "Haven't you stopped crying yet?"

The best thing to come out of that heart-twisting, gut-wrenching film of women survivors speaking gently, quietly, and the male killers of their families and destroyers of EVERYTHING material they owned that could have sustained them (what they didn't "steal" of course ), some of whom went to prison for their murders and who were afraid or felt unworthy (they were) to ask for forgiveness.... being forgiven. Unlike in other war-torn African countries or for Black citizens of the U.S. who witness hood and school brutality, the Rwandan government has set up counseling services in Healing Centers for survivors that seem to making a difference. Something special, and real, is going on Rwanda today.

Ending on a "happier" note: The girl who won't stop crying who was raped and lost her entire family went to university and is now a lawyer.

 

Gut-wrenching! It truly was
Thanks for the PBS tip ...

 

It seems the mainstream media failed, or more likely refused, to get to the depths of the Rwandan genocide. Movies like "Hotel Rwanda" and one I liked better, "Sometime in Spring" which showed more of the brutality, but neither of which got into the political causes at work underneath it all.

According to reports I have had for some time, both the US and France were involved stirring up the opposite sides of this tragedy. From a Global Research report from 1997, some key quotes from it:

"The militarization of Uganda was an integral part of US foreign policy. The build-up of the Ugandan UPDF Forces and of the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) had been supported by the US and Britain. The buildup of the Ugandan external debt coincided chronologically with the Rwandan and Congolese civil wars. In fact, Uganda had no outstanding debt to the World Bank at the outset of its “economic recovery program”. By 1997, it owed almost 2 billion dollars solely to the World Bank."

"A similar process of financing military expenditure from the external debt had occurred in Rwanda under the Habyarimana government. In a cruel irony, both sides in the civil war were financed by the same donors institutions with the World Bank acting as a Watchdog."

"The focus of Rwandan-U.S. military discussion had shifted from human rights to how to combat an insurgency. At stake in these military operations were the extensive mining resources of Eastern and Southern Zaire including strategic reserves of cobalt — of crucial importance for the US defense industry....with several US and British mining companies including American Mineral Fields (AMF), a company headquartered in President Bill Clinton’s hometown of Hope, Arkansas."

"Rwanda was a brutal struggle for political power between the Hutu-led Habyarimana government supported by France and the Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) backed financially and militarily by Washington. Ethnic rivalries were used deliberately in the pursuit of geopolitical objectives. Both the CIA and French intelligence were involved."

This discussion literally got me banned from a discussion on Linkedin about it. A gentleman, presumably a businessman, had posted about "opportunities" for business investment in Africa. I posted the above information, in addition to the Bush administration's creation of AFRICOM which I said appeared hardly "humanitarian," but rather opportunistic and exploitive. My comment sat in "review" for about a week. It was never published.

I wrote one of the participants in the discussion, a South African gentleman who kindly passed along my thoughts as he, too, was wondering why my comments were being disallowed. This incident spread to other discussions, and everything I attempted to post went to "review" and never saw the light of day.

I also found it interesting about Bill Clinton's recent remarks of his regrets he didn't send in US troops. According to Global Research, the CIA was already in there doing its covert destabilization operations, as noted above, while the French supported the "other side" and stirring up the hostilities that resulted in the deaths of a million or more Africans, not recalling the numbers reported.

 

The U.S., but mainly the French and the Catholic Church fomented, aided and abetted the Rwandan genocide.

Some excerpts from "The Cross and the Genocide" on the 100 days of massacre and atrocity wherein almost 1,000,000 Rwandans, mainly Tutsi, were killed:

http://www.afrol.com/features/10600

Again, from the same source, a short history:

This was confirmed by the PBS program on Healing, that there was little diff between the Hutsis and Tutsis before the coming of the divide-and-conquer French Europeans, that intermarriage between the 2 tribes were common and there were no hositilities.

First person accounts of the genocide of Tutsis by survivors:

It was not just the Catholic Church that participated in the genocide of the Tutsis:

 

Exactly, mainstream media was very shallow with ground reporting of any depth ... Thanks for the movie tip: "Sometime in Spring" missed seeing it.

 

... ... Thanks for the contribution.

 

Wow! Kadijah, you just provided some more in-depth information about the role of "the church" in this terrifying bloodshed! In a way I'm not overly surprised, but at the same time to think "people of God" actively engaged in mass murder is incomprehensible. Some, I would guess, feared for their lives if they refused to participate....but I should read your link. I'll try to get back to it.

Hi Clyde, yes, "Sometime in Spring" (or Sometime in the Spring) did not have marquee actors or a well-known cast, but to me it was superior and gut-wrenching. Very emotional to watch this.

 

Sometimes in April

is a 2005 historical dramatelevision film about the Rwandan Genocide of 1994, written and directed by theHaitian filmmaker Raoul Peck. The ensemble cast includes Idris Elba, Oris Erhuero, Carole Karemera, and Debra Winger.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sometimes_in_April

 

Oops, correction on the movie title: "Sometimes in April"
...a wonderfully produced and directed docu-drama. VERY intense!

From Wikipedia:
Sometimes in April is a 2005 historical drama television film about the Rwandan Genocide of 1994, written and directed by the Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck. The ensemble cast includes Idris Elba, Oris Erhuero, Carole Karemera, and Debra Winger.

The story centers on two brothers: Honoré Butera, working for the tribalist Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines, and Augustin Muganza, a captain in the Rwandan army (who was married to a Tutsi woman, Jeanne, and had three children with her: Anne-Marie, Yves-André, and Marcus), who bear witness to the killing of close to 800,000 people in 100 days while becoming divided by politics and losing some of their own family. The film depicts the attitudes and circumstances leading up to the outbreak of brutal violence, the intertwining stories of people struggling to survive the genocide, and the aftermath as the people try to find justice and reconciliation.

Cast

Idris Elba … Augustin Muganza
Oris Erhuero … Honoré Butera
Carole Karemera … Jeanne
Debra Winger … Prudence Bushnell
Noah Emmerich … Lionel Quaid
Pamela Nomvete … Martine
Fraser James … Xavier
Abby Mukiibi Nkaaga … Col. Théoneste Bagosora

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