Rwanda 10 years on
4 April 2004 23:16![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mandragoraI've just watched one of the most harrowing programmes I've ever seen. Panorama's documentary on the Rwandan massacre was painful to watch.
The worst moment was when one of the murderers described how he and some of his fellow Hutus spent a week tracking down a 10 years old Tutsi boy who had evaded them. When they caught him he begged for mercy. They hit him again and again and then buried him. He was still kicking when they did so. The man in question had a son who at the time was also 10 years old.
Panorama was unflinching in its depiction of the aftermath, showing scene after scene of bodies in various stages of decomposition that were lying so thickly on the ground that it was impossible to see anything but bodies. Where they were lying was in the grounds of and inside a Catholic Church where the victims had fled for safety. The murderers did not care about the sanctity of the church, even though the people they were killing had worshipped by their side just a few days previously.
One of the most sickening thing for me was the murderers saying that they were out of their minds and possessed by the devil. They are refusing to take responsibility for their actions and admit their culpability. No one forced them to murder and rape their neighbours, as evidenced by the fact that the murderers were a minority of the Hutu population, even if the majority did nothing to prevent the genocide. There were also a few brave people who sheltered Tutsis and saved them from death.
And of course the question was raised as to why the people with the power to stop the genocide, we in the West, stood by and did nothing.
But it's an object lesson of how frighteningly easy it is to whip up mob mentality and the horrifying result. If we think it couldn't happen to us in the West we only have to think of what happened fifty years ago to remember that it did.
The worst moment was when one of the murderers described how he and some of his fellow Hutus spent a week tracking down a 10 years old Tutsi boy who had evaded them. When they caught him he begged for mercy. They hit him again and again and then buried him. He was still kicking when they did so. The man in question had a son who at the time was also 10 years old.
Panorama was unflinching in its depiction of the aftermath, showing scene after scene of bodies in various stages of decomposition that were lying so thickly on the ground that it was impossible to see anything but bodies. Where they were lying was in the grounds of and inside a Catholic Church where the victims had fled for safety. The murderers did not care about the sanctity of the church, even though the people they were killing had worshipped by their side just a few days previously.
One of the most sickening thing for me was the murderers saying that they were out of their minds and possessed by the devil. They are refusing to take responsibility for their actions and admit their culpability. No one forced them to murder and rape their neighbours, as evidenced by the fact that the murderers were a minority of the Hutu population, even if the majority did nothing to prevent the genocide. There were also a few brave people who sheltered Tutsis and saved them from death.
And of course the question was raised as to why the people with the power to stop the genocide, we in the West, stood by and did nothing.
But it's an object lesson of how frighteningly easy it is to whip up mob mentality and the horrifying result. If we think it couldn't happen to us in the West we only have to think of what happened fifty years ago to remember that it did.
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no subject
Date: 4 April 2004 18:17 (UTC)Did you see the interview with the rapist mayor in the refugee camp? That was one of the worst bits for me because, rightly or wrongly, I believed the rape victim (Pando?) and the deputy mayor's version of events but there he was bare-facedly lying to Fergal Keane and, though he probably didn't realize it, in my mind at least, indicting himself by his own words when he said of the accusations, what else would you expect of Tutsis. Also Feargal Keane is way too good and experienced a reporter to interview someone with sunglasses on, it was as though he wanted that wall between them and when he was continuing to challenge the mayor his lips were tight and twitching with what looked like palpable disgust.
A very shocking programme. Shocking what happened and shocking that so little was done only ten years ago, incredible, nauseating.
no subject
Date: 5 April 2004 00:02 (UTC)I did, and my reaction was the same as yours. I agree that Fergal Keane was obviously fighting hard not to show his disgust and failing in that I picked up the same impression that you did. The mayor was obviously lying and damned himself. I hope that he's found guilty at his trial.
I heard a report on Today this morning in which one of the murderers said that he would have been killed if he'd refused to kill the Tutsis. It's possible, I suppose, that this could have been the case for some individual killers but could not have been the case for all.