|
Memorial
Conference on United Nations
Press Release AFR/868
HQ/630 March 26, 2004 [Excerpts
only:
The silence that
had greeted genocides in the past must be replaced by a global
clamour, and a willingness to call what was happening by its
true name, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said this morning at the
opening of a one-day conference in memory of the genocide in
Rwanda 10 years ago.
The Memorial
Conference on the Rwanda Genocide, which had started with a
minute of silence for the victims, was co-chaired by the Foreign
Ministers of Rwanda and Canada and moderated by Ruth Iyob,
Director of the Africa Programme, International Peace Academy,
and David M. Malone, President of the International Peace
Academy.
During two panels
that followed the opening of the Conference, participants in the
event remembered the 1994 tragedy and considered means to ensure
a more effective international response to genocide in the
future. The Conference attracted representatives of governments,
international organizations, non-governmental organizations,
academics and members of the Rwandan Diaspora.
The international
community had failed Rwanda, the Secretary-General stated. If it
had acted promptly, it could have stopped most of the killing.
But neither the political will nor the troops had been there. If
the United Nations, government officials and the international
media had paid more attention to the gathering signs of
disaster, it might have been averted.
The Rwandan
genocide raised questions that affected all humankind, including
fundamental questions about the authority of the Security
Council and the effectiveness of United Nations peacekeeping,
Mr. Annan continued. If confronted by a new Rwanda today, would
the international community respond effectively? He had
suggested a number of measures that would better equip the
United Nations and its Member States to meet genocide with
resolve, including a special rapporteur on the subject. More
must be done, and he was currently analysing what further steps
could be taken.
The Foreign
Minister of Rwanda, Charles Murigande, stressed the need to
learn from the tragic failures in Rwanda, saying that no other
nation or people should be allowed to suffer what the people of
Rwanda had suffered. . . .
The international
community, while it had learned what needed to be done, still
lacked political agreement to prevent a Rwanda from happening
again, said the Foreign Minister of Canada, Bill Graham. . . .
Harsh words were
said about the role of the international community in Rwanda
during the first panel - entitled "In Memoriam: Bearing
Witness", which was chaired by the Foreign Minister of
Rwanda.
While the head of
the Association of the Widows of the Genocide, Speciose
Kanyabogoyi, and genocide survivor, Eric Nzabihimana, recounted
the events of April-August 1994, when some 800,000 people were
murdered, former Commander of the United Nations Assistance
Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR), Romeo Dallaire, said that the
Mission had been "a last priority" for the
international community. It had no budget and no structure at
the time the killing began. The Security Council had made it a
point not to consider the threats and warnings about Rwanda, and
as the months went by and the peace agreement was "falling
to pieces", there was political stagnation and no real
desire to put any resources into the Mission.
He also recalled
that some 2,000 personnel from several countries, including
France, United Kingdom, United States and Italy, "remained
firm in totally ignoring the catastrophe" as they fulfilled
their mission of evacuating their expatriates, "though they
were stumbling on corpses". On 22 April, when over 100,000
people had been killed, the bulk of the Force was ordered to
withdraw, but 450 African and 13 Canadian troops were told to
stay on the ground and observe. As millions were internally
displaced, killed and injured, the Mission was able to save some
30,000, and on top of that, he had been ordered to abandon them.
The order had come from the Security Council, and nobody
objected.
"Never
Again: Toward a More Effective International Response of
Genocide" was the title of the second panel, which was
chaired by Canada's Foreign Minister. Its keynote speakers
included Ibrahim Gambari, United Nations Special Adviser for
Africa, Ramesh Thakur, Vice-Rector of United Nations University
and Danilo Turk, Assistant Secretary-General for Political
Affairs. . . .
Mr. Gambari said
that the real key to preventing conflict and genocide was
political will to act promptly and decisively. Without a doubt,
it was the Council, especially its most powerful members that
had failed the people of Rwanda in their gravest hour of need.
The controversy
over the international community's culpability for its failure
to prevent the genocide in Rwanda would not easily go away.
Source:
United Nations * * *
* * History of
the Genocide in Rwanda
As the smallest country in
Africa with the largest population, 7 million, Rwanda has had to
overcome famine, overpopulation, and, most recently, a massive
genocide which reduced their population by a huge amount. The
country of Rwanda has had an interesting history due to their
two supposed ethnic groups, the Hutus, the majority, and the
Tutsis, who consist of about 15-18% of the population. The
Tutsis were more prominent in the royalty and hierarchy of the
country but most of them were still peasants. The Hutus were the
farmers and the Tutsis ran the cattle. During the time of
European Colonization, the Belgians came to Rwanda and decided
to further the gap between the peaceful Hutus and Tutsis. The
Belgians saw the Tutsis as more like themselves; therefore, they
took them under their wing and educated them and brought them up
to be the upper echelon of society. The Europeans created tribal
cards to differentiate between the two groups. Believing that
they were just furthering what the Tutsis had created, the
Belgians created a class system. Due to their presence, the
Belgians made the discrimination between the two groups greater
and yet the Hutus and Tutsis were still living together
peacefully. The Hutus, having no power, accepted the role of the
oppressed.
In
1962, Rwanda gained their independence from Belgium. The
Europeans, however, left the country in a state of discord due
to the majority of Hutus who were able to gain back their power
from the Tutsis, who were viewed as feudal overlords. Soon the
Party of the Hutu Emancipation Movement (PARMEHUTU) came into
power. The once oppressed Hutus decided to take revenge and many
Tutsis were killed. 200,000 Tutsi refugees fled to neighboring
country to escape the violence that was taking place in their
country. . . .—Trincol
* * *
* * A Brief
History 1400 - 1994
Once, Hutus and Tutsis
lived in harmony in Central Africa. About 600 years ago, Tutsis,
a tall, warrior people, moved south from Ethiopia and invaded
the homeland of the Hutus. Though much smaller in number, they
conquered the Hutus, who agreed to raise crops for them in
return for protection.
Even in the colonial
era—when Belgium ruled the area, after taking it from Germany in
1916—the two groups lived as one, speaking the same language,
intermarrying, and obeying a nearly godlike Tutsi king.
Independence changed
everything. The monarchy was dissolved and Belgian troops
withdrawn—a power vacuum both Tutsis and Hutus fought to fill.
Two new countries emerged in 1962—Rwanda, dominated by the
Hutus, and Burundi by the Tutsis—and the ethnic fighting flared
on and off in the following decades.
It exploded in 1994 with
the civil war in Rwanda in which hundreds of thousands of Tutsis
and moderate Hutus were killed. Tutsi rebels won control, which
sent a million Hutus, fearful of revenge, into Zaire and
Tanzania.
In Burundi, the Tutsis
yielded power after a Hutu won the country's first democratic
election in 1993. He was killed in an attempted coup four months
later, and his successor in a suspicious plane crash in 1994, in
which the Hutu leader of Rwanda was also killed.—CNN
* * *
* * Why is
there conflict between Tutsis and Hutus?
The bloody history of
Hutu and
Tutsi conflict stained the 20th century, from the slaughter
of 80,000 to 200,000 Hutus by the Tutsi army in Burundi in 1972
to the 1994 Rwanda genocide in which Hutu militias targeted
Tutsis, resulting in a 100-day death toll between 800,000 and 1
million.
But many observers would be
surprised to learn that the longstanding conflict between the
Hutu and Tutsi has nothing to do with language or religion—they
speak the same Bantu tongues as well as French, and generally
practice Christianity—and many geneticists have been
hard-pressed to find marked ethnic differences between the two,
though the Tutsi have generally been noted to be taller. Many
believe that German and Belgian colonizers tried to find
differences between the Hutu and Tutsi in order to better
categorize native peoples in their censuses.
Generally, the Hutu-Tutsi
strife stems from class warfare, with the Tutsis perceived to
have greater wealth and social status (as well as favoring
cattle ranching over what is seen as the lower-class farming of
the Hutus). The Tutsis are thought to have originally come from
Ethiopia, and arrived after the Hutu came from Chad. The Tutsis
had a monarchy dating back to the 15th century; this was
overthrown at the urging of Belgian colonizers in the early
1960s and the Hutu took power by force in Rwanda. In Burundi,
however, a Hutu uprising failed and the Tutsis controlled the
country.—WorldNews
* * *
* *
Hutu vs Tutsi
With the arrival of
catholic missions in the African great lake Region, there was a
resistance from Tutsi community against conversion. The
missionaries were successful with the Hutu. Properties of Tutsis
were taken away from them and given to Hutus. This was the
beginning of the conflict between the two ethnic groups.
Culturally, Rwanda has a
monarchy system of Tutsi monarch, the Mwami. The other area that
is the northwestern part is ruled by Hutu society. The rule of
the king was demolished after it received independence.
Currently there seem to be no cultural difference between the
Tutsi and Hutu and they speak the same Bantu language. There
were marriages between a Tutsi and a Hutu. The child was reared
up as per the father’s culture. The impression is that Tutsi is
a class and not an
ethnic identity. But there are several dissimilarities in
the two groups of societies.
German rulers gave special
status to Tutsis as the rulers found them to be superior to
Hutus. Tutsis are well turned-out people in relation to Hutus,
who are shy and timid. This earned Tutsis the chance to get
educated and find a place in the government. The Hutus were in
majority and this special status sparked off conflicts between
the two groups. This policy was followed by the Belgians who
took over control of the region after World War I. Finally in
the year 1959, Belgians changed their stand and allowed Hutus to
form the government through proper mandate.—DifferenceBetween
* * *
* * Tutsi,
Hutu and Hima—Cultural Background in Rwanda
Burundi and Rwanda had
already become separate Tutsi kingdoms before European
occupation as the Tutsi-Hima empire broke up. The Tutsis were a
minority in both territories, and currently make up about 15% of
the Burundi population and about 9% in Rwanda. But do not
overlook the fact that the Tutsis and Hutus had intermarried
considerably, even with the tribal class distinctions.
Some Tutsis have more Bantu
features than the "pure" Tutsis. But the Tutsis have commonly
been referred to as "the tall ones" and the Hutus "the short
ones." Many observers of the region comment that there has been
no real difference other than superficial differences in
features, and that the "tribal" division referred to in recent
history was a class distinction exploited by the Germans and
treated only by the colonialists as a difference in ethnicity.
The Colonial Era
Animosity between the "indigenous" people and the Tutsis
increased due to the German, then the Belgian,
colonial pattern of indirect rule. The colonials chose the
Tutsi minority as their ruling class under the suzerainty of the
Belgian Empire.
Under German colonial
domination from 1890, Germany first occupied what is now Burundi
until the end of World War 1, when Burundi and Rwanda were
joined by the League of Nations under Belgian administration as
Rwanda-Urundi.
Initially Belgian indirect
rule supported Tutsi power, but tension built between the two
tribes. Clashes have broken out periodically in both countries.
The Tutsis have remained dominant in military and politics in
Burundi, though recently Hutus have been brought into the
government.—OrvilleJenkins
* * *
* * Hutu and Tutsi
It has been theorized that
the distinctions between Hutu and Tutsi were not emphasized
until the area was colonized by European settlers. When
conducting census counts, the
Belgians separated Africans into Tutsi and Hutu groups based
solely on appearance or wealth. The colonists believed that the
Tutsi were superior because they were taller and had longer
noses and therefore more similar to Europeans. On this basis,
only Tutsi were allowed to participate in government or seek
education. Naturally, this caused dissatisfaction among the Hutu
majority. In
1959, the Belgian government reversed this practice and
implemented a Hutu government. Civil wars and genocides
instigated by both sides have occurred periodically ever since.—Mahalo
* * *
* * Hutus vs. Tutsis
The ethno-racial clashes between African
tribes have been particularly murderous in Rwanda and Burundi
because these two small areas are the densest in Africa. Rwanda,
for example, has about seven million people in an area the size
of Vermont – not a lot by Western European standards, but very
dense for Africa. In this relatively small area there have lived
for centuries, side by side and at each other's throats, two
very different racial tribes: the Hutu and Tutsi. The Tutsi are
familiar to all those who saw the grand epic movie,
King Solomon's Mines (the 1950 version with Stewart Granger
and Deborah Kerr); they are a tall, slender, graceful,
noble-looking tribe, there called the Watusi. The Tutsi are an
Ethiopid, Nilotic people. The Hutu, on the other hand, are
short, squat Bantu, a closer approximation to what used to be
called "Negro" in America. "Negroes" are now called "black," but
the problem here is that the skin color of both the Tutsi and
the Hutu are much the same. The real issue, as in most other
cases, is not skin color but various character traits of
different population groups.
The crucial point is that, in both Rwanda
and Burundi, Hutus and Tutsis have coexisted for centuries; the
Tutsi are about 15 percent of the total population, the Hutu
about 85 percent. And yet consistently, over the centuries, the
Tutsi have totally dominated, and even enserfed, the Hutu.—LewRockwell
* * *
* *
|
Hutu and Tutsi
By
Aimable Twagilimana
Gr 5-9—A Rwandan
linguist explains the people of Rwanda and Burundi. He
deals primarily with Rwanda, and a large portion of the
book (17 pages of 60) concerns Hutu/Tutsi politics and
violence since 1959. This emphasis tends to obscure the
roots of the problem in the colonial period. Twagilimana
accurately stresses that the Hutu, Tutsi (and Twa) share
language, religion, and space, with their identities
having been somewhat flexible and based on unequal
status.
He discusses the European colonials' racial stereotypes
but does not specify the profound impact of European
"scientific" racism, which assumed that Tutsi and Hutu
were different "races," with the Hutu born to be forever
inferior. |
 |
Western-educated Africans absorbed this view.
Moreover, the Belgians therefore recruited Tutsi to dominate the
Church, army, and civil service; most secondary school places
went to the Tutsi minority; Hutu kingdoms were "Tutsified"; and
changes in land rights benefited the Tutsi. Though the Belgians
reversed this policy in the last months of colonial rule, the
Hutu majority looked for greater equality in independence, while
the Tutsi hoped to cement their privilege. Deadly struggles for
political, economic, and physical survival ensued. Though key
generalizations are here, the story doesn't come through too
clearly. As throughout this series, there are chapters on the
arts and religion; the appropriately chosen photographs have
useful captions. Given the lack of material on the subject, many
libraries will want this book in their collections.—School
Library Journal * * *
* *
 |
As We Forgive: Stories of Reconciliation from Rwanda
By Catherine
Claire Larson
Rwanda—bloodied,
scarred and nearly destroyed by the 1994 brutality of
the Hutu genocide of Tutsis—is now called an uncharted
case study in forgiveness by author Larson, who was
inspired by the award-winning film As We Forgive.
Individual stories form prototypes: there is Rosaria,
left for dead in a pile of bodies, who forgives her
sisters killer. And Chantal, whose family is brutally
murdered yet who forgives her neighbor for the crimes.
Devota, mutilated and left for dead, survives, forgives
and eventually adopts several orphans. Each story is
horrible and deeply personal as Larson mines the truths
of forgiveness deep in each ones tale. Helpful
interludes offer readers hands-on ways to facilitate
forgiveness and take the next step to reconciliation in
their own lives. |
This isn't an easy book to read or digest,
yet its message is mandatory: Forgiveness can push out the
borders of what we believe is possible. Reconciliation can offer
us a glimpse of the transfigured world to come.—Publishers
Weekly * * *
* *
The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo
Film
Review by Kam Williams
* *
* * *
|
King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed,
Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa
By Adam Hochschild
King
Leopold of Belgium, writes historian Adam
Hochschild in this grim history, did not
much care for his native land or his
subjects, all of which he dismissed as
"small country, small people." Even so, he
searched the globe to find a colony for
Belgium, frantic that the scramble of other
European powers for overseas dominions in
Africa and Asia would leave nothing for
himself or his people. When he eventually
found a suitable location in what would
become the Belgian Congo, later known as
Zaire and now simply as Congo, Leopold set
about establishing a rule of terror that
would culminate in the deaths of 4 to 8
million indigenous people, "a death toll,"
Hochschild writes, "of Holocaust
dimensions." |
 |
Those who survived
went to work mining ore or harvesting rubber, yielding a
fortune for the Belgian king, who salted away billions
of dollars in hidden bank accounts throughout the world.
Hochschild's fine book of historical inquiry, which
draws heavily on eyewitness accounts of the
colonialists' savagery, brings this little-studied
episode in European and African history into new light.—Gregory
McNamee
* * *
* *
Rape Crisis in Congo Tied to Mining Activity—Washington
Eve Ensler, author of
The Vagina Monologues, helped launch an
international awareness raising campaign called V-Day in
2007 to end sexual violence in eastern Congo. UNICEF
estimates that hundreds of thousands of girls have been
raped in the last decade in the two eastern provinces of
North Kivu and South Kivu. "Corporate greed, fueled by
capitalist consumption, and the rape of women have
merged into a single nightmare," Eve Ensler said at U.S.
Senate hearings on May 13. "Women's bodies are the
battleground of an economic war." Ensler said that
international mining companies with significant
investments in eastern Congo value economic interest
over the bodies of women by trading with rebels who use
rape as a tactic of war in areas rich in coltan, gold
and tin.
 |
"Military solutions are no longer an
option," she said. "All they do is bring
about the rape of more women." The United
States has invested more than $700 million
in humanitarian aid and peacekeeping to
Congo, according to the U.S. Department of
State.
Prendergast said this money will do nothing
to root out the economic causes of eastern
Congo's conflict and sexual violence.
He said
a comprehensive long-term strategy to combat
rape needs to change the economic calculus
of armed groups. Prendergast asked senators
to support the Congo Conflict Minerals Act,
which was introduced by Kansas Sen. Sam
Brownback, Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin and
Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold in April of
this year. |
The bill aims to
break the link between resource exploitation and armed
conflict in eastern Congo by requiring companies trading
minerals with Congo or neighboring states to disclose
mine locations and monitor the financing of armed groups
in eastern Congo's mineral-rich areas.
"The sooner the
illicit conflict minerals trade is eliminated, the
sooner the people of Congo will benefit from their own
resources," said Prendergrast. U.S. consumers,
Prendergrast said, can also help by pressuring major
electronic companies - from Apple to Sony - to certify
that cell phones, computers and other products contain
"conflict-free minerals," a campaign tactic popularized
by the Sierra Leone-based film
Blood Diamonds. Such a process would use a
tracking system for components, similar to that
developed in 2007 under the Kimberly Process. This
international certification scheme ensures that trade in
rough diamonds doesn't fuel war, as it did in Angola,
Cote d'Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and
Sierra Leone during the 1990s.
Germany has already
developed a pilot fingerprinting system for tin that
could be expanded to other minerals and help establish
certified trading chains, linking legitimate mining
sites to the international market.
Truthout
*
* * * *
Congo has attracted
attention in the media [as a place that is suffering]
systematic rape in war. One statistic quoted is 200,000
rapes since the beginning of the war 14 years ago, and
it is certainly an underestimate.
When in Congo, I met government representatives and
particularly women who had been raped and violated. It
was interesting but also disappointing - nothing is
getting better and more and more civilians are
committing rapes.
But I should be fair and say that there has been
progress, the government has introduced laws against
rape, it has a national plan and there is political
will. There is a lot to do to implement the legislation,
but now there is an ambitious legal ground to stand on
to be implemented by the police, judiciary and health
care.
Margot Wallstrom - "There Is Almost Total
Impunity for Rape in Congo"
*
* * * *
Congo: White King
Red
Rubber, Black Death
A Belgium King’s Sins Revealed in Film
*
* * * *
 |
Heart of Darkness
By
Joseph Conrad
Missing
words have been restored and the entire
novel has been repunctuated in accordance
with Conrad’s style. The result is the first
published version of
Heart of Darkness that allows
readers to hear Marlow’s voice as Conrad
heard it when he wrote the story.
"Backgrounds and Contexts" provides readers
with a generous collection of maps and
photographs that bring the Belgian Congo to
life. Textual materials, topically arranged,
address nineteenth-century views of
imperialism and racism and include
autobiographical writings by Conrad on his
life in the Congo. |
New to the Fourth
Edition is an excerpt from Adam Hochschild’s recent
book,
King Leopold’s Ghost, as well as writings on
race by
Hegel,
Darwin, and
Galton. "Criticism" includes a wealth of new
materials, including nine contemporary reviews and
assessments of
Conrad and
Heart of Darkness [Contents]
and twelve recent essays by
Chinua Achebe,
Peter Brooks, Daphne Erdinast-Vulcan,
Edward Said, and
Paul
B. Armstrong, among others. Also new to this edition
is a section of writings on the connections between
Heart of Darkness and the film
Apocalypse Now by Louis K. Greiff, Margot
Norris, and Lynda J. Dryden. A Chronology and Selected
Bibliography are also included.
* * *
* *
B.B. King Thrill Is Gone /
B.B. King-The Thrill is Gone with lyrics
B.B. King - The Thrill Is Gone ft. Tracy Chapman /
B.B. King—The
Thrill Is Gone
B. B. King & Eric Clapton—The
Thrill Is Gone /
B. B. King—The
Thrill Is Gone (1993)
B.B. King is the greatest living
exponent of the blues and considered by many to be
the most influential guitarist of the latter part of
the 20th century. His career dates back to the late
forties and despite now being in his eighties he
remains a vibrant and charismatic live performer.
B.B. King has been a frequent visitor to the
Montreux festival, appearing nearly 20 times, so
choosing one performance was no easy task. This 1993
concert will surely rank as one of his finest at any
venue. With a superb backing band and a great set
list its a must for any blues fan.
* * *
* *
|
The
Thrill is Gone
The thrill is gone
The thrill is gone away
The thrill is gone baby
The thrill is gone away
You know you done me wrong baby
And you'll be sorry someday
The thrill is gone
It's gone away from me
The thrill is gone baby
The thrill is gone away from me
Although I'll still live on
But so lonely I'll be
The thrill is gone
It's gone away for good
Oh, the thrill is gone baby
Baby its gone away for good
Someday I know I'll be over it all baby
Just like I know a good man should
You know I'm free, free now baby
I'm free from your spell
I'm free, free now
I'm free from your spell
And now that it's all over
All I can do is wish you well
|
* * *
* *
*
* * * *
updated
16 June 2010 |
