Darfur and Rwanda

Kudos to Republican Senators Mike DeWine and John McCain for bringing the snowballing Darfur crisis to Americans' attention in their co-authored Washington Post story today. They correctly cite the Rwandese genocide as a precedent, and their call for international action should be heeded, both in Washington and in New York.

I recently asked a friend I met in Rwanda to email me some of his stories from the genocide. He had told me some things in person, things that would turn your stomach. His name is Gaudin and he is a Hutu. He was in prison for 7 years on charges of genocide, and was released recently as part of a new (and very well-conceived) justice system the government began employing in 2002. Here is his first letter, edited to make it readable:

Dear Salim, I am very happy to take this time to tell you all that you asked me to make you know, but I want to start by telling u all of my history because is the first thing in the world that made me to tell you the firsts things that happened in my life. But i want to apologize because my history contains many bad things then i beg your pardon. I was born in 1980, the 21st of September. I come from a poor family with 6 children. I am the 4th child. At age 2 i went to my grandparents to be brought up by them, but meanwhile there was not any relationship between my father and mother. Then my mother made up her mind to go away from my father. Then I stayed alone and she went away with her 4 children, 1 stayed with my father, and me i was still at grandfather's. Then after my grandparents' death I was still a child indeed. Then the life was very difficult to me. To find a place to live is another thing. My father was strict that he would not support me. I missed a place to live. I had an uncle here in Kigali but he did not want to take me at his home. Then as I was in primary 2 I dropped out. I went to live in a neighborhood. I reealy remember some times I used to beg what to eat then I survived like this, my brother. I had another aunt near my home then she felt shame and she came and told me to come to her home. She had begotten 4 children (all boys) but only one lived at home, the others in town. Then I had to do all the work; the work of girls and boys like to sweep; to chop the trees down and so on... But although it was like this she put me in class again. It was a great thing to me. Then I continued my studies without knowing where my mother was. Sometimes i had nostaligia of her but in vain. After that time my father who did not take care of me died. This made my mother come back with the 4 childen whom i have not known for they went while i was still young at my grandparents. It was a great day for us though it was the day that my father died. For me to see my mother and brothers it was funny indeed. So after one year being together the war started. I was at the age of 13 and 5 months. It was very difficult to see it as a child of this age, my friend. In this war I was very fightened. My mother made up her mind to move from home to our neighbourhood. The killers came and robbed our house saying that we hid those wanted in that war but it was their manner to steal. Then this war killed my uncle that i said before who lived in Kigali and his wife and children, my cousins and all of my friends of my age. Dear Salim, to say about war is another thing but the truth is this the war is bad all in all. In this time i saw the houses burn, many people in the mountains killing others without a shame, so let me tell you today about my life and the war I will tell it after. OK, the time had came for us to flee from our houses this the war of R.P.F. to take the country so many people died and others fled to the D.R. Congo where my 4 brothers died and after 7 months we turned back to our homes but there was nothing. Everything lost. I came with my mother and my younger sister but one of my brothers was in Kigali before then. I started a new life to live with people whose hearts were broken and who missed their relatives indeed. It was very difficult. After 7 months, on July the 5th, 1995, on sunday in my way home from the church I was arrested by soldiers with a great heap in their hands. Then I saw many people sitting and being beaten and they compelled me to say that I smoke a hemp, never in my life even the cigar then they told me to sit down and be beaten too. THE FIRST DAY OF MY SUFFERING . SEE LATER . OK MY DEAR I WILL CONTINUE OK CIAO.

The only thing needed for evil to prosper is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke