Remembering the Rwandan Genocide.

[ColbertWatcher]

In 1994, a radio station helped kill nearly one million people.

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda found three persons associated with Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM) guilty of genocide, incitement to genocide, and crimes against humanity, before and during the period of the genocidehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Tribunal_for_Rwanda#Trial_against_.22hate_media.22">1.

The targets of RTLM's propaganda were Tutsis, moderate Hutus, Belgians, and the UNhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Télévision_Libre_des_Mille_Collines">2.

An environment of hatred was cultivated over the air waves with coded references directed at the intended victims. Listeners were primed with dehumanizing words such as "cockroaches" and "exterminate."http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3257748.stm">3 When the call came out over the radio to "cut down the tall trees4," the 100-day genocide began.

Between July 8th and 31st, RTLM

"...broadcast lists of people to be killed and instructed killers on where to find them."http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3257748.stm">5

At the end of July, 1994, as rebel fighters finally regained control of the country RTLM escaped to neighboring Zaire with their mobile broadcasting equipment.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Télévision_Libre_des_Mille_Collines#During_the_Genocide">6

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LINKS

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/A-Problem-from-Hell/Samantha-Power/e/9780061120145/?itm=2">Samantha Power's A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Shake-Hands-with-the-Devil/Romeo-Dallaire/e/9780786715107/?itm=4">Roméo Dallaire's Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda

http://www.motherjones.com/news/featurex/2003/01/ma_spc_01.html">Out of Madness, A Matriarchy, a look at the aftermath from Mother Jones

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3594187.stm">The BBC's Rwanda's 100 days of genocide: the story of the 1994 genocide in sound and pictures

International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, official website for the international court charged with judging those responsible for the Rwandan genocide

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

1. It's still going on.

The Interahamwe, the Hutu militia that was responsible for the genocide is still operating in the Congo. The story below is of a young woman who was kidnapped along with 48 other Congolese. She was made a slave, raped incessantly, and forced to hang (yes, hang) her young child.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/news/2008/10/081014_congo_thomson.shtml

[ColbertWatcher]

2. While we're throwing billions of dollars at Halliburton in Iraq. n/t

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

3. Ah, but the Iraqis are ever so appreciative of the "democracy" we brought them.

http://watchingamerica.com/News/

America, Get Out Today
and Not Tomorrow!


Your democracy, which we applauded, turned us into those bereaved of children, widows, and orphans of the street begging for mercy and a piece of the bread from a government that has made itself deaf to our hunger and our eternal subjugation.

[ColbertWatcher]

4. I'm starting to think bootstraps is code for "oil." n/t

[LynzM]

7. I cannot imagine the kind of horror they have lived through.

Why would one want to continue to live, after going through so much, being forced to do so many terrible things... my heart aches. :(

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

9. Because the alternative is worse.

The most insane thing to me about the Rwandan genocide is that in many cases the people who participated were friends or neighbors of the people they were killing. And a great many of the perpetrators are still living amongst the surviving relatives of the people they killed.

Imagine victims of the holocaust living alongside their SS guards. It's inconceivable to me.

[LynzM]

11. I cannot fathom that.

Any of the aspects of that... how do you even pretend at anything resembling normalcy, after those kind of things? :(

[ColbertWatcher]

13. You don't pretend; you just keep defeating your enemy's hate by surviving it. n/t

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

10. That part of the Congo is a total disaster.

It's not like the groups being backed by Rwanda & co. are that much better. They all seem to have settled on rape as an effective tool, to the point where its use is spreading beyond the militias and into the general civilian population.

[applegrove]

5. I so glad the radio people are being tried. It is so important that all the players

are made to take responsibility for their part in the massacres.

[ColbertWatcher]

6. They were tried AND convicted! n/t

[Mabus]

8. K&R

Also bookmarking this to read again later.

[ColbertWatcher]

12. Countdown kick. n/t

[ColbertWatcher]

18. Saturday kick. n/t

[JustAnotherGen]

14. ColbertWatcher

I like your reading list. Own Samantha Power's book and Romeo Dallaire's - I've also met him - truly a kind soul.

Adding to your list:

We Wish To Inform You Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories From Rwanda by Phillip Gourevitch

Hmm - I know you are just looking back, but I've got to link this thoughtful post I read here this evening: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=4257375&mesg_id=4257375

And this quote from Husb2Sparkly:
But the hate speech will not go anywhere. This is a flood that these people have unleashed. There are, quite literally, a million people (at least) in this country who buy into all this and more. And there are, without a doubt, dangerous - truly dangerous - people among them. My concern is with them. With the most dangerous among America's Dangerous Million.

This isn't funny.

This can not be cloaked in the innocence of "campaign rhetoric".

This is incitement.

That poster isn't being hyperbolic, I'm not being hyperbolic - but when you think of the right wing nonsense on the airwaves, the Freepers insistence on the 'left rioting' (really code for what they could intend to do) . . . scary to think eh? Many of those in Rwanda people opened their doors to people they knew for years who simply held different beliefs from them - but some? Some had bought into the hate that was spewed on them and then they cut the tall trees, or searched for those UNAmericans.

[ColbertWatcher]

15. Thank you.

I read Husb2Sparkly's post earlier and replied with a link to this one in the hopes it would be so obvious.

And seeing by your reply it is.

I just wonder if it is to everyone.

[JustAnotherGen]

17. I'm not certain it is

I'm amazed at the number of people who denigrated Cynthia McKinney (Paul Begala comes to mind), the dismissive attitude towards Naomi Wolf, and the castigating over the years of MoveOn - and the fact that Greg Palast is NOT getting the media coverage he should be getting right now.

I'm going to Borders today to see if Wolf's latest book is out. And I'm going to cross my fingers that more people wake up and see what COULD happen in this country.

I truly fear those people at Palin rallies that have jumped the shark to hate . . .

[machI]

16. Kick