Today had to be one of the most memorable experiences of my life. If you are like me you may remember something about the genocide that occurred in Rwanda back in 1994 but not a lot. Well today we traveled to Arusha and attended the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. In short this is a series of trials that have gone on for several years where the top leaders in charge of organizing the genocide are being prosecuted. We were able to watch one of the trials take place....a witness was on the stand testifying against one of the commanders. We had headsets on so that we could hear the translation. We later watched a documentary and met with a PR rep from the ICTR.
Here comes a stat that I won't ever forget....over 100 days 800,000 to 1 million people were killed...that's 8,000-10,000 people per day. It is impossible to go after or charge all the people/soldiers who were doing the killing so they have to limit themselves to the ~90 government officials, leaders, etc who organized this. The PR rep explained that this was a well oiled machine...think about it...it had to be very organized to kill that many people. Some people may not want to know this but I think it is very important to help us keep things in perspective...the killing was mainly done with clubs and machetes...if someone wanted to be killed with a gun they had to pay money.
Priests were also convicted...many Rwandans fled to churches because they were thought to be safe areas. Some priests were corrupt and would report where people were hiding. Some employees or a radio station and a journalist were also convicted because they announced the whereabouts of people and names of people to go after. A musician was convicted because in his songs he incited violence. Businessmen were convicted because they increased production of machetes in preparation for the plan that had been put in place.
Probably not my most pleasant post but again...I will never forget this experience for many reasons.
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