Beyond The Gates

I decided to watch a video that has been sitting around in my bedroom for some days now.  I picked it up at the library in the DVD section and its title is "Beyond the Gates" with John Hurt and Hugh Dancy. After I got it home I read the back cover and when I realized it was a story about the genocide in Rwanda, it took me a while to get to the place where I determined I would view it.  I had seen Hotel Rwanda many years ago and wasn't even sure I could watch yet another story about the Rwanda genocide.  But, I did. And yes, I wept. And wept. And prayed. And thought about the overall message the film so tragically yet so aptly portrayed.  Then I watched the Special Features. Among the cast and crew, the credits tell us, were many survivors of that 100 day genocide the world played footsy with in April through July 1994.  No one wanted to admit it was really what it was. Especially the people who could have done something about it.

On the metal gates at the entrance to a dusty cemetery near the ETO school near Kigali, where 2,500 Tutsi's fled to the school for safety, and where 2,500 Tutsi refugees were left abandoned by the U.N. forces sent there to 'monitor the peace,' and where the same 2,500 Tutsi's were subsequently massacred, is an inscription:

"Qui ne repondrait en ce monde a la terrible obstination du crime si ce n'est l'obstination du temoignage."

The last lines in the special features section translated this inscription thusly:

"You cannot respond to such a determined and terrible crime,,,,except with an equal determination to bear witness."

Subsequent to viewing the film and the special features (I highly recommend when viewing any film of import to watch the special features....you will learn a great deal doing so) I did some googling about the Rwandan genocide. Mind you, the reports tell us that some 800,000 people were killed in those 100 days in Rwanda. It is unthinkable and inconceivable to even imagine such a thing.

Consider this.

The extermination of Jews during the holocaust lasted from January 30, 1933 when Hitler became the Chancellor of Germany, to V.E. day, May 8,1945.

The figure used by most authorities to state the number of Jews that were murdered during the holocaust is 6 million.

12 years 3 months or 4,480 days
6 million people

Imagine this.

Had the genocide/holocaust of the Jews been kept up with the same pace as the 100 day Rwandan genocide of the Tutsi's by the Hutu's,,,,the Nazi's would have had to kill nearly 36,000,000 people.

Or....consider it this way.

If 800,000 people were killed in 100 days,,,,then the killings had to be an average of 8,000 per day.

In 1994 the population of Rwanda stood at about 7 million.  Estimates of the death toll have ranged from 500,000–1,000,000, or as much as 20% of the country's total population.

Consider this also.

The cast and crew of the film who were survivors of the killings, some having hidden themselves under the bodies of their slain relatives, were re-living events that were only 10 years prior.  Members of the crew even had to strongly explain to the extras that this was NOT REAL, and they were only pretending,,,,,mind you, they did not understand and were begging that no one hurt them!

I started writing here as I began to come to the end of my reading and thinking about what happened there.....and how it all translates to what can happen -- anywhere -- and in fact, by the very words of some of the survivors who spoke in the special features to this film,,,,,IS happening in the Sudan.
I found myself reading a paper that described other mass massacres that took place during the 100 days in Rwanda. A mass killing occurred when Tutsi were told to go to a particular stadium in Kibuye, Rwanda.  Tens of thousands gathered there, thinking it was to be safe, then were given no food, no water.  They ended up eating grass, and in the end, they were slaughtered.  Between April 15th and April 18th, more than 25,000 were killed every day in Rwanda.  From April 15th to April 22nd nearly a quarter of a million Tutsi's were killed. They were massacred in stadiums, churches, schools, anywhere large numbers of them could be manipulated to gather.

The writer of the paper made this comment: "It seems that only escaping or hiding really improved one’s chances [of survival]. From this, one can derive a behavioral guideline for persons targetted for extermination in the future: do not go where the crowd goes."

And THAT is why I am blogging this.