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School Report day

Remembering Rwanda 15 Years On: The Shadow of genocide remains

The Hampton School Report team today investigated the ongoing impact of the Rwandan genocide. The team discovered that, even though the terrible killings occurred fifteen years ago, many people are still affected by what happened today. Our team interviewed a survivor, two journalists who covered the genocide and the Director of a charity that helps survivors to find out more.

Survivors still suffer
The impact on survivors is still very prominent today, as Liliane, who was 16 at the time of the Genocide explained in an interview with us.

“The bad times are so bad, People think that the genocide is in the past, but I live with it still.”

This just shows how a single appalling act of extreme violence can affect so many people, even today, 15 years on. She went on to give a brutally vivid account of the events that she witnessed and experienced.

 “I saw my mother run out of the house, but she only got as far as the tree before she was captured and killed with machetes.”

“Wild dogs arrived and started to eat the bodies.”

“My family killers were never caught. Without justice I will never feel properly safe. I still feel Hutus will come and finish the job they started.”

The impact of the genocide is still felt in the UK
The dreadful events of the Rwandan Genocide also still affect people today who visited the countries, such as reporters we have interviewed including Mark Doyle and David Belton, who were there at the time. Mark Doyle, the only Western journalist to stay in the country for the whole duration of the genocide needed psychological counselling to come to terms with some of the things he saw. David Belton, witness of a massacre at a church in Nyaraybuye, where he saw “such atrocities as babies slaughtered on the altar”. He also has made a film, Shooting Dogs, about how two thousand five hundred Tutsi refugees were abandoned by UN forces and then slaughtered by the extremist Hutu militia from outside.

“Memory is a powerful weapon” – quoted from David Belton who because of what he saw feels “less confident that there is an international order that is wholly trustworthy”, when asked, “How do the events of 1994 still impact on your life?” When the same question was posed by us to Mark Doyle he responded by saying that “Rwanda has made me more determined than ever to expose the injustice and hypocrisy so evident in 1994.”

Another generation of victims
The children and next generation of the survivors still feel the impact today. Survivors Fund (SURF) feels there is still much work to be done. They plan to do this by ensuring the children of Rwanda can move forward.  David Russell, the director of SURF says “Education in Rwanda continues to be vital in order to combat the genocidal ideology that sadly is still present amongst some extremist elements of Rwandan society.”
To try and combat these problems SURF have supplied shelter, healthcare and schooling as well as small income-generating projects. Even with SURF’s support Mr. Russell says that “the need is still great”.

Lessons learnt?
One of the most important aspects of recovering from such a dreadful event is the assurance that no such thing can ever happen again. Intervention, especially from the west, is key in such circumstances, however David Belton feels that the reaction from the west was far from adequate, ‘We failed the people of Rwanda in 1994’.

Despite help being offered in other places like Darfur, Mark Doyle suggests that Africa is ignored on the world map, ‘The main issue in Africa is the general international lack of concern at the fate of Africans’.

He also feels that western governments have ignored other genocides since, ‘The shameful inaction by the international community in Rwanda in 1994 was repeated. The circumstances were different but the result – mass killings – was the same’.

As we found out from these interviews although the genocide officially ended fifteen years ago the impact is still being felt.

Why Should We Remember?
The interviews formed a part of the pupils’ ‘Why Should We Remember?’ project that asked people from around the world why it is important to not forget what happened in Rwanda in 1994.

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