Doubt [print version] is an article by Andrew Rice about Leopold Munyakazi, a professor of French at Goucher College, who has been accused by the Rwandan government of being a genocidaire. His defenders, including the late Alison Des Forges, claim that the Hutu Munyakazi, who's married to a Tutsi, is being targeted by Paul Kagame's administration because he's a dissenter who's challenged the official account of the genocide. Into this complicated affair steps documentarian Charlie Ebersol who wants to profile Munyakazi for his NBC primetime news show Wanted, which has been received with considerable opprobrium and which may already have been canceled.
posted by Kattullus on Aug 3, 2009 - 9 comments

Forgive and Forget? "Rwanda's warring population has a lot to account for, and a lot to reconcile. Can science point the way to understanding?"
posted by homunculus on Jul 20, 2009 - 5 comments

Intended Consequences. It is estimated that 20,000 children were born as the result of rape during the 1994 Rwandan Genocide that claimed the lives of over 800,000 Tutsis. Many of these women also contracted HIV/AIDS as a result. Not only do the mothers have to live with memories of this incredibly horrible event, but they along with their children are shunned by other Tutsi survivors. [more inside]
posted by itchylick on Apr 20, 2009 - 22 comments

Alison Des Forges, American historian of Africa, MacArthur genius and top human-rights advocate, was an impassioned observer of the Rwandan genocide, lobbying the United States and United Nations to intervene in the killings, saving some Rwandans from certain death, and later writing one of the definitive histories of the events, "Leave none to tell the story". She testified at hundreds of trials and inquiries resulting from the genocide. Last night, she perished aboard Flight 3407. "Her death is a devastating blow," said the president of Human Rights Watch, where she worked as an advisor. "She epitomized the human rights activist — principled, dispassionate, committed to the truth and to using that truth to protect ordinary people."
posted by docgonzo on Feb 13, 2009 - 24 comments

Musekeweya ("new dawn") is a phenomenally popular radio drama broadcast out of Kigali, Rwanda. The soap, funded by Dutch NGO La Benevolencija, follows the story of two star-crossed lovers who come from opposing villages involved in an increasingly violent struggle. Thought Rwandan law makes it difficult to discuss the genocide in the media, the show aims to open a dialog using the fictional villages of Bumanzi and Muhumuro as a proxy for Hutus and Tutsis. A soap opera may seem like an unlikely vehicle to tackle a topic of such national importance, but it's actually not uncommon. And, certainly, Rwanda is a country that knows all too well about the power of radio
posted by meta_eli on Jul 8, 2007 - 8 comments

US as Lord of War in Rwanda?
posted by pwedza on Feb 25, 2006 - 15 comments

Eleven years ago this month a genocide of horrific proportions nearly destroyed a country. We must never forget.
posted by ScaryShrink on Apr 18, 2005 - 15 comments

There was no honour to be had in Rwanda.
11 years ago this week, the Rwandan Genocide began and didn't end until almost a million Rwandans, mostly Tutsis, were dead - killed by their own countrymen in the span of 100 days.

Romeo Dallaire was the Force Commander of the UN troops in Rwanda at the time. Increasing unrest and killings along with intelligence obtained from an informant led him to conclude that the genocide was coming and that it could be stopped if action was taken quickly and decisively enough. He requested 2000 additional troops and the authority to plan and execute an operation to halt the genocide before it began.

The UN Security Council denied both requests, and reduced the UN force in Rwanda to 260 troops. One million Rwandans died. Romeo Dallaire and 260 Canadian, Ghanian, and Dutch soldiers are directly credited with saving over 20,000 Tutsis that would have died.

Dallaire's career as a soldier is over. But he knows that if the effort is not made, another genocide like Rwanda will happen. It may already be too late to stop the next one.
posted by Dipsomaniac on Apr 12, 2005 - 41 comments

Congratulations to the winner of this year's Sundance World Cinema Documentary Audience Award - The story of the Canadian general who, under the auspices of the United Nations, could only watch helplessly as the Rwandan genocide occured.
posted by Caffine_Fiend on Feb 1, 2005 - 18 comments

"But maybe it was the right policy after all."
on the 10th aniversary of the genocide in Rwanda, Jay Bryant suggests that perhaps Clinton's policy of non-intervention was the "right policy after all". This comes a few days after another fellow right wing columnist suggests from her suburban home in south carolina that we should "nuke the Sunni Triangle" (and any innoncent who happens to live there) - apparently her entire family agrees. Do they utterly lack sensitivity and should be ignored? or are these valid opinions worth publishing?
posted by specialk420 on Apr 7, 2004 - 34 comments

Rwandans turn toward Islam. A NY Times story (reg. req.) describes how Islam has become the fastest-growing religion in Rwanda, partly because people are disgusted with the priests and nuns who helped with the killing ten years ago, partly because Muslims saved many people at that time.

Muslim leaders credit the gains to their ability during the 1994 massacres to shield most Muslims, and many other Rwandans, from certain death. "The Muslims handled themselves well in '94, and I wanted to be like them," said Alex Rutiririza, explaining why he converted to Islam last year.

Food for thought for those who think of Islam as a "religion of violence."
posted by languagehat on Apr 7, 2004 - 29 comments

Ghosts of Rwanda
10 years later, FRONTLINE delivers one of the most powerful episodes in their excellent series of reports. Also covered in The Economist last week, and a couple years ago in The Atlantic in a sublime article: "Bystanders to Genocide". When you first heard about the tragedy did you wish you could have done something, if you had only known more?
posted by specialk420 on Apr 1, 2004 - 40 comments

The Rwanda Project It began as a photographic workshop in 2000 for child survivors of the Rwanda genocide. Using disposable cameras, the children originally took pictures for themselves and to share with others, exploring their community, and finding beauty as the country struggles to rebuild via Jonny Baker
posted by Coop on Dec 9, 2003 - 7 comments

Africaserver. Contemporary African art and culture - San art from Botswana, Arms into Art from Mozambique, Dar es Salaam in Delft Blue - a cross-cultural comparison of favourite objects, Marthe Nso Abomo from Cameroon, a Rwanda Genocide Monument, and more.
Related :- Meshu, an artist and political activist from Lesotho who may have been southern Africa's first streaker.
posted by plep on Jun 16, 2003 - 2 comments

Looking Through a Child's Eyes. The historical children's art collection at the very well maintained Papa Ink : the International Gallery of Children's Art features child drawings from many relevant events. Some of particular interest are Witness to Genocide: Children of Rwanda, holocaust drawings from the Jewish Ghetto in Terezin, treatment of women under the Taliban in Afganistan, and remnants from medieval Russia from a boy named Onfim.
posted by Stan Chin on Dec 20, 2002 - 7 comments

In spite of his promise that human rights would take precedence over concerns of state sovereignty, Kofi Annan's philosophy of neutrality and nonviolence in the face of genocide and dictators, costs over 7,000 lives at Srebrenica, and 800,000 in Rwanda alone.
posted by semmi on Oct 3, 2002 - 18 comments

An estimated 300,000 people have fled across the Congolese/Rwandan border to escape lava flow from the recently erupted Mt Nyiragongo volcano. Many are thought to have died, but this mass movement has prompted fears that a much larger humanitarian disaster may be imminent.
More photographs here, map of the region here.
posted by davehat on Jan 18, 2002 - 4 comments

Hardly Christian. So many questions... were the nuns simply trying to save their own lifes? If so, does that make it any better? And does a Belgium court have the right to preside over crimes in another culture? Can anything good come of this?
posted by Neale on Apr 17, 2001 - 7 comments