Relating to genocide in court and
in print, and also film
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By Malcolm McColl -- What prompts genocide to erupt in places such as
Rwanda? It is seems to be even harder to understand since the courts hear more
of the testimony in trials about genocide. In the case of Rwanda, for example,
the usual explanation is that some kind of ‘political’ vacuum was left by
departing colonial Belgians. What explains radio broadcasts calling day
and night for Hutus to take everything out of the Tutsis, every corpuscle,
throughout the land? “Kill Tutsi ‘cockroaches!’” the radio cried, endlessly, ceaselessly, and historians tell us it
was a 
complete
reversal of fortune foisted on the privileged Tutsi of society.
This makes it some form of bloody and relentless
tit for tat genocide, ‘legitimized’ by the reality of revenge being foisted. We
are informed that Tutsis were separate by dint of a mocking privilege found in
skin pigmentation. None of the darker-skinned garbage men, Joe-lunch-buckets,
unemployed sons and daughters possibly orphaned in previous massacres, were
going to deny a century of oppression had occurred. It was written on
everybody’s face, rich as Belgian chocolate.
Follow the history leading to the large scale event
in question, one imagines ever since Joseph Conrad wrote Heart of Darkness at
the turn of the previous century, in a sense, the definition of a cockroach
grew, uh, legs. It grew out of the lighter skinned Tutsis utilizing privilege
like a club, for making slaves out of darker skinned brothers and sisters must
have become second nature to the Tutsi. They must have enjoyed the privilege of
committing atrocities on behalf of Belgians, establishing an apartheid or a
different sort, growing Belgian-sized bellies off the fat of the land, until
becoming targets in a 100 day massacre of 800,000 (light-skinned, previously
privileged) Rwandans.
The light-skinned Tutsis, they say, had been
Belgian-favoured who found themselves about to be victims upon the Belgian
departure. Oddly, Tutsis were unprepared, or unable to continue in governance
over the facile social organization. Something like this occurred in Cambodia,
after French Colons were forced out, and Khmer Rouge eventually rose to commit
atrocities on the ones educated and presumably favoured by the French. (A
genocide trial is getting underway in Cambodia. In 1975 if you wore glasses,
carried a book, or wore a tie, the KR marched you out of the city at gun point
and killed you. For a segment of society, everything goes further than time
standing still. Time ceases to exist.
In Rwanda the light-skinned and educated,
bureaucratic and former, ruling class Tutsis fell under the constant radio
cacophony demanding door-to-door hunting for Tutsis. From the pictures, the
hunt was in suburbia. People who once enjoyed the advantages conferred upon an
elite, these privileged were conveniently easy to spot.
History informs that when Belgians left with all
the authority, the privileged were standing around without machetes. These are
the ones who fell under machetes and occasional pistol shots to the head to
finish the deed. In film and photos showing the event, and there is a
surprising amount of film and footage, bodies are lying outside the entrances
to decent-looking housing, prime real estate is filled with bodies. The
genocide was not committed in shantytowns.
Meanwhile Hutu ‘leaders’ told Hutu people to kill
or be one of the ones they kill, and this became one of the ‘distinctions’ in
the selection of victims. Furthermore, besides the job of cleaning up the
country of its severe cockroach infestation, some or all of the Hutu
perpetrators of the genocide admit they were tempted into the action by offers
of land ownership, banana trees, and so forth, post-genocide. Such promises may
well be unfulfilled, according to reports, but such promises were incentive to
kill those who controlled the business of land deeds (if only how to file
them). By personal accounts, pictures, films, and an increasing historical
record of books, the world is aware a genocide of some kind occurred. A few
Tutsis are putting pen to ink. A few Hutus are pleading in courts around the world.
This much is sure: the Rwanda School of Radio
Broadcasting Genocide 300 intensive 6 day program (bring your own coffee cup)
makes them the most dangerous institution on earth. They churn out broadcasters
to deliver convincing messages about killing formerly privileged people for
being cockroaches. Now it is the publishing houses making the rounds with
books. These stories are for hard to resist, and indeed these are important
stories to expose to the reading public. More importantly, in Canada, they are
listening to testimony in the trial of Desire Munyanesa, facing seven counts of
crimes against humanity and on trial in Montreal. Before the trial broke for
the summer they heard about a man in Rwanda, unnamed, who resides on what (must
be a truly mystical place in Rwanda called) Death Row.
Rwanda has people stepping out of the woods and
alleys and up from the creek beds to make reports. One landed on CBC news
television at the end of May, ’07, in which appeared a woman named Eugenia,
nicknamed ‘The woman with a crooked walk.’ Hers’ was a story of permanently
disabling injuries and survival in the middle of genocide. She lives with a
story of machete wounds, and continues to live around perpetrators of the
murderous assaults.
Therein lays the crux of the story. It appears on
some level the crimes against humanity are misdemeanours in Rwanda. One assumes
from this posture that Tutsis must have been accustomed to the reign of death
in Rwanda and probably bore a century of guilt for atrocities on Hutus. Only
recently have reports emerged of people being convicted and sentenced to death
for genocide in Rwanda. Indeed the Canadian court paid a visit to Rwanda to
take the man's testimony on death row. No reports are made of executions having
occurred, but how surprising would it be? Usually the story is astonishing for
the amount of forgiveness being displayed. Forgiveness is not always there, but
that it is there at all, this is astonishing.
This level of acceptance is surreal to most
sensibilities, yet, as the report on Eugenia showed, people pick up their lives
in Rwanda and often go forward in lock step with the perpetrators of
atrocities. This Eugenia woman had spent 13 years since the 800,000 killings of
a short few months undergoing little healing and no forgetting. The reporter
noted, Rwanda has many people making peace with the conflict, but Eugenia spent
days mainly in recollection of a brazen massacre of her children with machetes,
her children calling to the Hutus they would “stop being Tutsis.”
In this case it was a life sentence in court for
the perpetrator, however, killers after sentencing these Hutus have since been
freed and they return home. This level of madness, nevertheless, calls upon the
prevailing authority to permutate into an organization to deliver redress in
society. Once a week, the CBC reported, across Rwanda, the “‘Gachatcha’
reconciliation program” takes over the country and citizens fall into
gatherings to tell stories and give descriptions of the suffering. The reporter
suggested Eugenia had been a frightened survivor and today the fear continues,
because she is struggling to deal with serial Killer Eric Kasamarandi living
nearby.
His explanation, after all the apologies for
callousing hacking her children to death on her lap, “We were driven to kill by
Invisible enemies that invaded our souls.” Returning to proceedings against
Desire Munyaneza, a Quebec Superior Court opened the first-ever War Crimes
trial in Canada, Mar 31 07.
Identities will remain concealed from public in
Canada and the world because people in Rwanda, SURPRISE, still live with the
threat of unexpected death. Witnesses in the Canadian court are ID'd in court
by alphanumeric designation to protect them upon their return to Rwanda) and
bear horrifying testimony that is practically too much for civilized ears. Many
of the testimonies are of things never heard in Canadian courts. Witness C15
said she and others took refuge at their local government office, "hoping
for a quicker death by bullets, rather than being hacked to death by
machetes."
Munyaneza, 40, is faced with seven counts of
'crimes against humanity' (under new Canadian law) including rape, murder, and
pillaging. Munyaneza arrived in Canada from Africa in 1997 and RCMP began
investigating him in 1999. He was arrested in Etobicoke, Ontario, in 2005
(CanWest News Service, Mar 30 07) The trial resumes in Sep ’07. [Rwanda: When
using machetes it takes 100 days to kill 800 thousand people -- an important
calculation made by somebody close to the machete procurement office. Genocide
trials are what the CIA, chief apologist for the Military Industrial Complex,
calls BLOWBACK.
Rwanda's scenery hardly ever discussed
REPORT from Rwanda Press Agency about
Montreal trial proceedings
RWANDA May 29 07 - A report on the CBC news about a
woman named Eugenia from Rwanda, nicknamed ‘The woman with a crooked walk.’
Hers’ was a story of permanently disabling injuries and survival in the middle
of genocide. She lives with a story of machete wounds, and continues to live
around perpetrators of the murderous assaults. Therein lays the crux of the
story. Crimes against humanity are misdemeanours in Rwanda. Eugenia was the
close subject of the CBC reporter’s endeavour. She had, he said, spent 13 years
since the 800,000 killings of a short few months undergoing little healing and
no forgetting. He said the country of Rwanda has many people making peace with
the conflict, but Eugenia spent days mainly in recollection of a brazen
massacre of her children with machetes, her children calling to the Hutus they
would “stop being Tutsis.” After jurisprudence it was life in prison for the
perpetrator, however, killers then sentenced have since been freed and returned
home. The reporter noted the perseverance of Eugenia in continuing to raise one
remaining daughter, working for $30 a month as a janitor at school. The
reporter asked Eugenia if the government was any help, to which, she replied,
“They don’t even know who we are.” Rwanda is in poverty, said the reporter, and
they are solving social problems from the destruction, with, “a unique African
solution Once a week across Rwanda the ‘Gachatcha’ reconciliation program,”
takes over the country and citizens fall into gatherings to tell stories that
give descriptions of their suffering. The reporter suggested Eugenia had been a
frightened survivor and today the fear continues, because she is struggling to
deal with serial Killer Eric Kasamarandi living nearby. His explanation, after
all the apologies for callousing hacking her children to death on her lap, “We
were driven to kill by Invisible enemies that invaded our souls.”
(MONTREAL Mar 31 07) A Quebec Superior Court is
hearing the first-ever War Crimes trial in Canada, proceeding against Desire
Munyaneza. This Rwandan is charged with ordering or participating in acts of
genocide in the 1994 attack on Tutsi by Hutus in Rwanda. One million people
were cut to pieces by government supplied machetes in less than 100 days.
Witnesses brought from Rwanda (whose identities will remain concealed from
public; witnesses are ID'd in court by alphanumeric designation to protect them
upon their return to Rwanda) bear horrifying testimony, practically too much
for civilized ears, and about things never heard in Canadian courts. Witness
C15 said she and others took refuge at their local government office,
"hoping for a quicker death by bullets, rather than being hacked to death
by machetes." Munyaneza, 40, is faced with seven counts of 'crimes against
humanity' (under new Canadian law) including rape, murder, and pillaging.
Munyaneza arrived in Canada from Africa in 1997 and RCMP began investigating
him in 1999. He was arrested in Etobicoke, Ontario, in ‘05. For those who wonder about the difference
between Tutsi and Hutu in Rwanda, it is apparently a rubric of arbitrary
non-ethnic selection by white culture to make a 'ruling class' of blacks based
on lighter skin tones. Actual ethnicity is not necessarily involved. Cause of
the event? The CIA calls it BLOWBACK