When Paying to Have Your Children Shot Was Merciful.

"The vicious cycle of political violence in Rwanda is due to a lack of a system for a peaceful competition for and transfers of power between the political elites."

Genocide update:  
2010 October - UN report into 1993-2003 conflict in DR Congo says Rwandan forces took part in attacks on Hutu civilians which - if proven in court - could amount to genocide.

Rwandan Forgives Aggressors, Builds Community Center:
Rwandan native Frederick Ndabaramiye (below) was only 15-years old, when in 1998, four years after the the 100-day genocide in 1994, Hutu rebels dragged him from a bus, killed his 18 fellow passengers, cut off his hands, and left him for dead".

The Hutus who pulled him from the bus were from a paramilitary group called the Interahamwe, armed with machetes and nail-spiked bats. They demanded he kill the other passengers to save his own life, and he refused. “Kill me first,” he said.

Frederick watched as the rebels slaughtered the 18 passengers before his eyes. “They killed them one by one by machete,” he said.

The rebels told him they were going to give him a message. He thought they would give him a letter or something, he said, but they pinned his arms to a log and cut off his hands.

He pleaded for just two fingers, he said. The rebels ignored his wish. They left him there to die.

But Frederick, blood gushing from his arms, managed to stumble from the scene. He was discovered by two girls who, despite their fear, bandaged him and helped him to a hospital, he said. His recovery took a full year.

Most of Frederick’s family had been killed in the genocide. It was in an orphanage that Frederick befriended a young teacher, Zachary Dusingizimana. Together, the two shed themselves of their hate, embraced forgiveness, and wanted to help other survivors do the same.

In 2005, the two founded the Ubumwe Community Center for maimed and disabled survivors. The center takes in orphans off the streets, provides wheelchairs for the crippled, offers personal counseling to coping survivors, and teaches job skills, like craft-making.

From original post 12/2008:

(Left)human remains at Nyamata, scene of many massacres that occurred in 1994, leaving between 800,000 and 1,071,00 Tutsis, including some Hutus,  slaughtered to death, and many more, mutilated, maimed or physically scarred for life,  

Incomprehensible as it may seem, in 1994 -  at a time when gutters along side the only functioning hospital in Kigali, Rwanda, literally ran red with blood, and ravaged bodies and body parts littered the streets -  paying to have your children shot in open pit latrines was considered merciful. Why? In order to spare them the horror and torture of being hacked to death by machete, and or watching your family hacked to death.

Sparing no one, Hutu killing squads went on a rampage - the Interahamwe (those who attack together) and the Impuzamugambi (those with a single purpose) - butchering as many civilians as they could find, leaving a massacred humanity in their wake. Babies and children were literally snatched from their mother's arms, and ripped to shreds for all to see. The reverse was also true.

*A nine-year old Tutsi girl, through an interpreter, told Dr. James Orbinski - former President of Doctors Without Borders and author of An Imperfect Offering: Humanitarian Action in the Twenty-first Century.

"My mother hid me in the latrine. I saw through the hole. I watched them hit her with machetes. I watched my mother's arm fall into my father's blood on the floor and I cried without noise in the toilet". -- 9-year old Tutsi girl explaining how she stayed alive, as her family was massacred at the hands of the killing squads.

Rwandan genocide was not the result of ancient tribal hatreds, or as Ed Koch, explained at the time, “tribal warfare involving those without the veneer of Western civilization” further justifying the apathy of developed nations by confirming the stereotype of African savages. Rather it was the confluence of many factors, including the silence and inaction of the international community, in particular, France, (the main culprit), Belgium and America, who paralyzed the United Nations, who ended up abandoning the U.N. peacekeeping force already on the ground. The aforementioned nations knowingly pursued their foreign policies through genocide. The U.S. (on record), deliberately chose not to use the word “genocide” because that would have obliged us to intervene.

"Perhaps there is no better case than Rwanda of state killing in which colonial history and global economic integration combined to produce genocide. It is also a case where the causes of the killing were carefully obscured by Western governmental and journalistic sources, blamed instead on the victims and ancient tribal hatreds.

A country the size of Belgium, with a population of 7 million people (overpopulated according to most reports but Belgium supports over 10 million people), Rwanda experienced in 1994 one of the worst genocides of the twentieth century. Some 800,000 people, mostly but not exclusively Tutsis, were slaughtered by the Hutu-run state. Contrary to media and many government reports, the genocide was the result of Rwanda’s political and economic position in the capitalist world system. It involved such monetary factors as its colonial history, the price of coffee, World Bank and International Monetary Fund policies, the global interests of Western nations, particularly France, the interests of international aid agencies, and Western attitudes towards Africa" — Richard H. Robbins, Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism, p.269

Statements such as "Genocide is irrelevant in such places" spoken by President Mitterrand of France at the time of Rwandan genocide, is symbolic of western civilization's attitude toward more than half of the world's population, who live on less than $2 per day (3.8 billion). As long as those of us who are "more equal" continue to think and feel this way about those who are "less equal", genocide will occur now, and in the future.

Humanitarian efforts and charity, while extremely important, as they directly and immediately relieve suffering, are not enough to attain true equity. We need to change the mindset and the policies that clearly oppress and seize opportunity and possibility from those who we are content to let live in conditions we would not allow for our pets. In other words, cutting a check for less than 1% of our GDP and uttering platitudes about the "plight" of the poor does very little but clear our collective conscience about the people who live without the basics necessities central to any notion of human dignity.

*True equity requires that people in comparable situations be treated equally with no distinctions made based on race, religion, gender, ethnicity, or class. The lack of equity we see today is a result of learned stereotypical thinking, and subtle, nuanced policy decisions made centuries ago that we continue to "improve" upon as our technology advances that conspires to keep half the world without. In other words, lack of equity is a politically determined choice.

"We are not born equal. Equality and equity are the result of choice and of human organization." -- Hannah Arendt

This year, the World Food Programme asked for additional money to accommodate an additional 100 million people who are being pushed into hunger by rising food prices, adding to the 840 million people worldwide who went to bed hungry every single night last year. They have collect only $2 billion of the $22 billion it needs to feed 967 million people.

Concurrently, at the G 20 summit, over $8 trillion taxpayer dollars, globally, has been activated to bankroll the fundamental underlying design of an international economy that is not working, mostly due to the corruption embedded throughout its structure...this same structure that contributes to keeping half the world living in relatively inhumane conditions.

Not only that, through no fault of their own, the "less equal", excluded from financial "boom" times, end up suffering the most profound of consequences as a result of this current global financial crisis.

For those who fail to see the injustice of the way the world is divided, perhaps the instability, violence, terrorism, disease, etc that such dire circumstances tend to produce, which when placed in a continuously shrinking world, threatens the "more equal" part of the population, evermore, will provide the impetus to change the way we currently accept half the world

Three days ago marked the 60th anniversary of the 1948 Convention on Prevention of Genocide. The Genocide Prevention Task Force, co-chaired by Madeline Albright, urged president-elect Barack Obama to make the prevention of genocide a national priority, pressuring him to create, in particular, the "Inter-Agency Atrocities Prevention Committee" based on the 34 recommendations put forward in the paper presented to the United Nations entitled: "Preventing Genocide: A Blueprint for US Policy-makers".

The genocide alarm is ringing loud and clear, right now. It's warning us that the mass murder of civilians is occurring in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where 5.4 million people have already lost their lives since 1998...and that the level of violence could possibly escalate to what we saw in 1994.
Evidence is strong that Rwandan and Congolese governments, including many who played a role in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, are supporting and provoking Tutsi and Hutu ethnic militias fighting in eastern Congo. The battle has driven 250,000 civilians from their homes in the past three months. Meanwhile the 17,000 "strong" United Nations peacekeeping missions are doing very little to alleviate the suffering and plunder in Congo.
* If any of this sounds familiar, it may be because I was inspired to blog this topic by the speech - marking World Aids Day - given by Dr. James Orbinski at the City Club of Cleveland 

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Have You Thought About the Life of Your Clothes Today?

If not, you should be ashamed.

Why? Because apparently, the "life" of your clothes is more important than the lives of real life, human beings.

Well, at least more important than 400 Congo victims who sought refuge at a Roman Catholic church, Christmas day, in a remote part of eastern Congo, only to be "hacked to death and forced into fires" by the Lord's Resistance Army rebel group.

In the last half hour to 45 minutes (it's now 10:30 AM EST), CNN reported on the following stories:

Swishing where women get together to swap gorgeous clothes and party at the same time, designed to "encourage people to think about the life of their clothes".

A white American woman who disappeared from a cruise ship (apparently a suicide).

An essay contest to win "free" tickets to Presidential inauguration where a donation is highly encouraged (The theme of the essay is "What the Inauguration Means to You." Essays are due by 1/8/2009).

The brutal year for investors, dismal housing market, and consumer confidence.

The fighting taking place in Gaza.

What do all these stories have in common? That's right. They all involve white people.

At the same exact time, the BBC was reporting (yes, I was listening to both) on the aforementioned Christmas Massacre in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Yesterday, I compared Obama to Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda, essentially praising him for what he's accomplished in Rwanda, however I neglected the dark side of that leadership - except to mention the spillover of Rwandan genocide into Congo - and that is the exploitation of Congo, where over 5.4 million Congolese deaths can be traced to Kagame's regime.

The death toll and carnage is far greater in Congo, than Darfur, yet numerous celebrities, such as George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and Don Cheadle have joined in to raise money and focus media attention on the terrible tragedy of Darfur, which is wonderful, but what about the Congolese? Surely, there are other celebrities out there...

And, why is CNN reporting on what amounts to a woman's free-for-all over large sacks of designer frocks, instead of reporting real news? Could it be an issue of complicity involving Western companies, who profit immensely from genocide who sponsor media conglomerates?

I mean, what's more important? The life of 65-million dark-skinned people or the massive mineral wealth, that these 65-million people live amidst? If you chose "massive mineral wealth", you win free tickets to witness the giant plunder of, paradoxically, the richest country on earth.

This support of militias takes the form of arms transfers, financial assistance, military advice and training and safe harbor for those who flee the Congolese national government. In fact, several United Nations reports have accused Rwanda and Uganda of siphoning off Congo's mineral wealth with the complicity of Western companies

This is genocide.

• 1,250 Congolese citizens die every day. That’s 38,000 each month
• Over ¾ of the population is now malnourished
• No access to healthcare except what the Catholic Church provides.
  
• Rebels routinely hack off limbs and the lips of civilians
• Tens of thousands of children have been abducted to be fighters and sex slaves, and another 26,000 people have fled into the forests and a further 6,000 have sought sanctuary around churches.
• Brutal, mass rapes effect victims’ from 4-years old to 80, and subsequently disowned by their own families after being raped.

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Is Obama an Agent of Change or a Broker for the Beltway Elite?

Over the objections of Rwandan Parliament, Rwandan president Paul Kagame appointed Boniface Rucagu - who was listed as one of the architects of the genocide that occurred in 1994, in addition to being identified as a member of the death squads - to govern the Northern Province of Rwanda.

Why would any president, interested in economically and politically transforming his genocide torn country, appoint someone to govern that is suspected of creating this horror? After all, Kagame not only played a major role in stopping the genocide, he engaged himself in the monumental undertaking of reconciling and reconstructing Rwanda, a task, at which the most courageous of men would cringe.

The possible answer, according to Steven Kinzer - author of A Thousand Hills: Rwanda's Rebirth and the Man Who Dreamed It, who had unprecedented access to Kagame before writing the book, enabling him to conduct extensive interviews - lies in Kagame's pragmatic approach to morality. Paraphrasing him, Kagame told Kinzer: "What good are abstract requirements of morality...isn't morality ensuring a nation's people have enough food to eat, some sense of security, paved roads, electricity..."

In other words, first things first...Kagame had to do whatever it took to secure his nation, especially the Northern Province, as this was the area most vulnerable to future attacks by Hutu rebels because of its shared border with Congo, where the Rwandan horror spilled over. Kagame knew he couldn't safeguard this potential exposure to the onslaught of more carnage alone. Rucagu was the one person who could make this happen and he was right. Not only did Rucagu pacify and secure this crucial area, he became a huge anti-genocide advocate. Although, ideologically, most would oppose Kagame's decision, as it does not seek justice the way we understand it; nevertheless, when in such dire circumstances, justice may be defined as anything that will sustain the people on the most basic level.

"Who Genocide survivors and IBUKA think they are? They think they are so important... They should put their feelings aside. They should find a place where to put them, a cupboard, and lock them inside. They should not be sentimental." -- General Paul Kagame's, (Vice President and Minister of Defense) at the time), response when asked on National Radio on July 1, 1999 about IBUKA's complaints on the government's appointment of genocide suspects to important positions

What does any of this have to do with Obama? Maybe nothing or maybe, there is a method to Obama's "madness" regarding his controversial cabinet choices of mostly centrist to right leaning individuals, who will more than likely try to preserve the status quo, rather than reform what's clearly not working. Many of these appointees are partially responsible for the current economic disaster...the one with no end in sight. On a profoundly, much lesser scale, isn't that like choosing genocide architects to reform post genocide Rwanda?

Then, to make matters even worse, what does Obama do? He chooses anti-gay pastor Rick Warren to say a prayer at his inauguration, insulting the gay community - still recovering from the passage of Prop 8 - apparently, reneging on his campaign promises.

Is this what Obama means when he says that he is an "agent of change"?

From what we've seen so far, President-elect Obama appears to be, not only a pragmatist, but also a strategist who is clearly in driver's seat. Like a skilled chess player, he does not make a move that is not in the best interest of his long-term goals...from his cabinet appointees to his choice of who will say the prayers at his inauguration; Obama appears not to waver from his plan. Like Kagame, he does what he has to do, appoint who he has to appoint, flatter who he has to flatter, in order to make his vision manifest.

The crucial question is, "What is Obama's vision?" and if he is indeed an agent of change, "How do his choices, thus far, factor into actualizing that vision?

Sun-tzu, Chinese general & military strategist(~400 BC) once said, "Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer". Obama may be employing these people to work for him rather than against him. Not only does this pacify the opposition, it provides an opportunity for transformation to occur.

Obama chose smart, experienced, and powerful people. By allying himself with these individuals, he can possibly harness that "energy" to cause change for the better, in the same way Kugame's recruitment of Rucagu served to work in the people's favor..the same people that Rucagu, at one time - allegedly - could have easily wiped out in the blink of an eye.

The impact of ideology on political choice can be detrimental when the stakes are as large as they are for both Obama and Kugame. They cannot afford the luxury of ideology.

Take his choice of Rick Warren, a man who clearly is at odds with the gay community. As insignificant as it may seem, Rick Warren did remove his anti-gay line from his web site. That's not a big deal, however, at the very least, Warren is not escalating anti-gay rhetoric. Warren has not changed his thinking - not yet, and maybe never - but if Obama's gesture assuages the fears and lowers the defenses of the conservative right wing so that he can accomplish something of significance in the long run, rather than battling the neocon's never-ending barrage of obstruction and vilification, then that small gesture was worth it.

If we're not already past the point of no return, Obama will need at least two full terms to renew our country's commitment to the rule of law, the Constitution and Bill of Rights. He will not get that chance if he charges out of the bullpen surrounded by a militant left-winged staff. In addition, choosing someone as liberal as, for example, Rev. Dr. Michael Eric Dyson to say the prayer at his inauguration, other than preaching to the choir, would most likely only serve to stir up the hornet's nest before his first day as President.

You can't throw a corrupt and/or outdated institution in a boiling pot and assume it will stay there...in order to overhaul a corrupt and/or outdated institution, one must gradually bring the pot to a boil so that the corruption and antiquity can be boiled out of existence.

Obama understands what motivates human behavior. In the continuing struggle of "us against them", the struggle that has defined the existence of mankind since the beginning of time, Obama realizes that the more people working for "us"the better. Let's just hope we are the "us" and not the "them".

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