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Genocide Memorials - Rwanda

My desire to learn about the civil wars and 1994 genocide in Rwanda was my main motivation for visiting.  Telling that to a 16-yr old Rwandan student I met on the minibus, he said, "oh, I'll take you to the place where my parents were killed".  That put him at 6 years old when it happened - I still have no idea what the appropriate thing is to say or ask.  This amounted to nearly a million murders, 1/8th of the population, which (although your opinion is welcomed to differ) is the result of colonial powers granting privileges to an upper class in order to govern the masses, and religious missionaries (which still proliferate Rwanda today).  These pictures are from one of numerous Catholic churches where people sought refuge - and for various reasons - in vain.

It is clear that in the world there are only participants; those that are perpetrators, the victims, and the bystanders who allow.

Here and here are links to a couple condensed history reads on Rwanda.

  
Ntarama church where about 5,000 were killed inside, 20,000 killed in the locale.                                                                    

  

  

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