# 10 years ago................



## Els' 3 Ones (Nov 19, 2001)

100 days

8000 per day

and "they" couldn't decide if it was "genocide".

The blood is on our hands too.........................

again.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl.../crontext.html

Quote:

May 5

A Pentagon memo rejects a proposal from Gen. Dallaire and State Department officials to diminish the killings by using Pentagon technology to jam the extremists' hate radio transmissions.

_"We have &#8230; concluded jamming is an ineffective and expensive mechanism.&#8230; International legal conventions complicate airborne or ground based jamming and the mountainous terrain reduces the effectiveness of either option. &#8230; It costs approximately $8500 per flight hour &#8230; it would be wiser to use air to assist in the [food] relief effort."_

*Day 29
Estimated Death Toll: 232,000
*
Ghosts of Rwanda


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## mamaofthree (Jun 5, 2002)

You know I just saw a Frontline last Thursday on PBS about the horrific stuff that happened in Rwanda. The sad part for me was that I have no memeory of this happening. I mean I have excuses for not being aware it was going on... PG with baby #1 (who was born that summer also), and I was finishing up nursing school...
I was shocked to see that we did nothing, and that those very few UN troop that were there had to see this terrible stuff happening, and really be unable to stop it. The on Leader of the UN forces (if that is what you want to call less than 500 men) has been suicidal since he got back, he blames himself for not being able to help more people.
It was shocking and then the American leaders go over there afterwards and see the carnage and say... "We had no idea" ... I was really saddened and sickened by the whole thing.






































H


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## Piglet68 (Apr 5, 2002)

And Bush has the gaul to act as though he did the world a favour by bombing Iraq because of what "that terrorist did to his own people". Uh yeah, but when it's poor black folk who aren't sitting on oil fields, somehow that doesn't warrant a full-scale intervention.








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## aussiemum (Dec 20, 2001)

I'm here Els. I know it's been 10 years. I remember when it all happened- hearing about it on NPR & the TV. The world stood by & let it happen.......

I didn't open your links tho- just can't quite go there today.......


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## Els' 3 Ones (Nov 19, 2001)

I watched the Frontline special too (the last half).................my heart just broke for the workers who helplessly witnessed this. I don't know if I could live with those ghosts.

I wonder how Clinton and Albright can fall asleep................really, I'm serious. Far,far lesser things have kept me awake.

To add some more salt, at yesterday's rememberance there was little to no representation by western nations.
Rwanda Marks Genocide as Western Leaders Stay Away
Sure, let's form a coalition to occupy a sovereign nation but do absolutely nothing to stop a genocide.....................

The UN vowed after the holocaust to never allow such a thing to happen again...........................they failed.

We failed.


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## aussiemum (Dec 20, 2001)

I'll keep an eye out for the Frontline thing- sometimes we get PBS programs on our public tv station.

Some of the officials/UN people who had to witness the descent into chaos in Rwanda & stand by helplessly aren't sleeping very well at night. Serious pysch problems from what I've heard, so you can just imagine how the Rwandans are coping........

Quote:

To add some more salt, at yesterday's rememberance there was little to no representation by western nations.
They are ashamed. As they well should be.

And I'm still tearing up just listening to Franti on the car stereo these days, so I'm staying well clear of links for now. The newspaper too, for the time being. It's not just Rwanda- it's everything, IYKWIM...........


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## Bearsmama (Aug 10, 2002)

Really great stuff on NPR this week commemorating the 10 year anniversary of the Rwandan genocide.


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## SueZVudu (Jul 6, 2002)

If you want to know the whole story, _We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families_ is a very powerful and informative book that will leave you competely pissed off and utterly cynical about the US's policy and the UN. Ugh. But be forewarned: it's a tough read, very depressing. I had a chance to hear Pres. Kagame speak at Harvard a couple of years ago, but I had to work late. I wish I could have gone. Does anyone know if he's turned out to be as good a president as it seemed he would? I haven't kept up with Rwandan politics.


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## IslandMamma (Jun 12, 2003)

I've been listening to the NPR programs. I still have a RWANDA sticker on my car, and you wouldn't believe how many people are appalingly ignorant about it. ("Is that a Seattle band?")

My heart just breaks. And then I look at what big brother is doing in Iraq, and I feel physically ill.

SueZ, I want to check that book out. Thanks for the heads up.


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## Els' 3 Ones (Nov 19, 2001)

phew! I'm glad there are a few of you responding...............I was getting worried.

The silence is deafening, isn't it? Nothing from the admin and not much more from the ppl of this country..............an apology from Clinton.

Here is someone to speak. A 19yo survivor. That means she was 9 when this went down.

Season of Evil

Quote:

"It's not a question of not knowing. That's factually inaccurate. People were identifying genocide in mid April," said Ferroggiaro. "The fact that you were not creative enough to know what it meant says something about your orientation toward human rights."

Quote:

Jacqueline Murekatete knew nothing of America's policy debate in 1994. She was nine, and lived on her family's farm in Masango, southwest of Kigali. "I remember cows and goats. We grew corn, pears, and yams." And she remembers April 6, the day the Rwandan president's plane was shot down, probably by Hutu extremists in his own government.


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## twopeasinpod (Aug 20, 2003)

Still breaks the heart to see/hear/remember it....at least I will never forget. DH & I watched Frontline & wept again.

Slate had an interesting article about the RPF and it's slant.

http://g.msn.com/0NL34064/6874

Maya


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## mamaofthree (Jun 5, 2002)

WOW.
The whole thing is a big mess. All those people, what they went thru, and how the world sort of just looked the otherway... why? Do you think is because they are black? Because their land isn't "big money" nothing like oil or something? I just don't understand us (us as in humans) how we can hurt each other like that, and how we can stand by and let it happen. It makes me weep.
















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## MaShroom (Jan 25, 2003)

i caught that frontline too. i'm ashamed to say that i didn't know what was going on at that time. typical american, head buried in the sand, nobody but me in the universe... i made myself watch the whole thing to educate myself about it. that was really hard to watch but it made my resolve to PAY ATTENTION AND BE INVOLVED even stronger.


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## applejuice (Oct 8, 2002)

T
Alittle off-topic, but something so obviously wrong should be corrected...

Quote:

_Originally posted by Piglet68_
*And Bush has the gaul ...*
That word should be "gall" as in "from the gall bladder".

"Gaul' refers to the French people or France.

One should not stand up for one culture and inadvertantly tear down another.


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## lilmiss'mama (Mar 8, 2002)

Wow. I didn't know anything about this either. I was only 16 at the time and way less informed than I am now. Another reason to















Thanks for all the information ladies.


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## TiredX2 (Jan 7, 2002)

Thanks for the book recommendation.

Do you







or uke over this though?


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## Els' 3 Ones (Nov 19, 2001)

When I think about what it must have been like living in Rwanda for that 100 days - I sob uncontrollably.

When I think about what it was like to live here and listen helplessly to the news and the spin - I retch and retch and retch

El


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## Evergreen (Nov 6, 2002)

I have been listening to the coverage of it on NPR also. I fall asleep thinking about it everynight. I am haunted by images of mothers and babies and children and fathers and grandfathers dying violently. I heard a woman who survived telling how she was pushed into a large grave alive with her baby on her back. The baby suffocated under the weight of the bodies. That could have been me and my baby, I was just lucky enough to be born in another part of the world at another time. Last night I tossed and turned thinking about her.

I was in middle school when it happend, but despite having no TV or internet and only listening to music via tape, I do remember hearing about genocide in Rawanda. If I knew that it was happening to some extent, others must have known exactly what was going on. Yet no one did anything! The Tutsis thought God and the world had turned their backs on them, and since everyone had forsaken them it made it easier for the Hutus to justify.

It is so sad.


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## twopeasinpod (Aug 20, 2003)

I know this thread is old, but I had to update it with this link of an article by Mr.Bill as he takes responsibility...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2004Apr5.html

Maya

ps. thanks jonas


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## mamaofthree (Jun 5, 2002)

Thank you for posting that.

H


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## aussiemum (Dec 20, 2001)

From what I've been reading lately, we should be taking those lessons from Rwanda & applying them to Sudan ASAP. FWIW.


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## mahdokht (Dec 2, 2002)

Quote:


Originally Posted by *Piglet68*
And Bush has the gaul to act as though he did the world a favour by bombing Iraq because of what "that terrorist did to his own people". Uh yeah, but when it's poor black folk who aren't sitting on oil fields, somehow that doesn't warrant a full-scale intervention.








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## candiland (Jan 27, 2002)

"The whole thing is a big mess. All those people, what they went thru, and how the world sort of just looked the otherway... why? Do you think is because they are black? Because their land isn't "big money" nothing like oil or something?"

I think our society has a way of seeing people of color as "less than".

Example: Over two months ago, a 17 yo. boy from an upper-middle class family was stabbed and killed at a party. The press coverage was non-stop. It's still going on.

The black youths who are dying nightly on our streets in our city? They are a quick blip, and it's on to "other news".

I mean, if this sort of press coverage doesn't make it shockingly and appallingly obvious that we regard people of color as "less than", I don't know what does.









White blood seems to be a lot more expensive than any other kind of blood.


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