Remembering Rwanda, 20 years on.

by Eze Eluchie

When ship-loads of machetes and axes, far in excess of what could have been required for any reasonable purposes in the country started arriving the shores and ports of Rwanda, we pretended as if nothing was amiss;

When the Radio stations and other mess media outlets started spewing out messages of hate, vengeance and mass murder, we again pretended that all was well;

When the Belgian General in charge of the micro United Nations military contingent based in Kigali announced to the world that a pogrom of unimaginable proportions was imminent, his bosses at the United Nations and those who ought to have known better again opted to look the other way and pretend nothing was amiss.

When finally Rwanda erupted in an orgy of violence unprecedented in living memory, with close to a million souls hacked, dismembered, charred, slaughtered and gored within 100 days of blood-letting, our humanity depreciated irrevocably.

As we join the people of Rwanda to commemorate the 20^th anniversary of the Rwanda genocide, the question that should ordinarily agitate all discerning minds include: 
 1.  Is another Rwanda possible elsewhere.
2.  Are there already tell-tale signs of similar occurrences elsewhere? 
 3.  Are we again looking the other way as those tell-tale signals of mass-atrocities blossom?

The answers to the foregoing questions are, unfortunately, all in the positive.

Another genocide need not occur anywhere. Let us all ensure Never Again!

Picture: Burial site of some victims of the Rwanda genocide. source AP