THE McCain Institute on Rwanda 20 Years After By Eucharia Mbachu Washington DC It was exactly 20 years ago that the world was awoken by the horrendous ethnic cleansing in Rwanda that left 800.000 people dead. It was 20 years ago that the then President Bill Clinton and the United Nations President looked the other way while genocide was going on in Rwanda. It was 20 years ago that the then 6 year old Clemantine Wamariya was moving from one refugee camp to another. It is today that the McCain Institute gathered men and women to discuss about what went wrong in Rwanda 20 years ago and to find solutions on how to prevent any such occurrence again. Genocide is heavy and loaded with hate, ethnic cleansing and wiping out of a community or race. It was not limited in Rwanda alone; we had seen this over and over again throughout history. We saw it the evil reincarnation of Adolf Hitler’s genocide (The Holocaust from 1939-1945) We saw it in the ‘The Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution in China” (1949-1976) The Rwandan Massacre (1994) Partition of India (1947) North Korea (1945-present) Expulsion of Ethnic Germans after World War II (1945) The Killing Fields of Cambodia (1975-1978) Genocide In Uganda 1971 to 1985 The Biafran War 1967-1970 In May 1967 civil war broke out between the Igbos of the Eastern part of Nigeria and Nigerian government. The Igbos declared the Biafran Republic and seceded from the Federal Republic of Nigeria. As a punishment, the Nigerian government blocked any access of contact from the world either by land, by sea or by air as a way to starve the Igbos. Between 1966 -1970, two million Igbos died through massacre and starvation caused by kwashiorkor, a disease caused by malnutrition especially in children and women. Bosnian Genocide, nearly, 150, 000 were killed Bosnians were murdered by the Serbs in order to impose their rules over the ethic Bosnians. The regime of terror against the Isaaq tribe in Somalia was by the orders of Ziad Bare. .Almost 6 million Jewish were systematically massacred, gassed to death, and other inhumane ways of using the then modern technology to commit the genocide . The Jewish Holocaust was the worst of all genocides in human history. (Source Genocide Association) On Thursday May 1, 2014 the McCain Institute organized a leadership voices panel in honor of Ambassador Richard S.Williamson. The purpose of the conference was to assemble a panel of speakers who were knowledgeable about the issues of genocide and political violence in various parts of the world. During the event, Ambassador Kurt Volker, the Executive Director of the McCain Institute for International Leadership, Arizona State University, took us back to twenty years ago when the world was shocked by news of violence, bloodbath, callous ethnic cleansing, and the rape of women in Rwanda in the Great Lakes Region of the African continent. Eight hundred thousand men, women and children Rwandan lost their lives due to the failure of the Hutu-led government and the international community to put in place policies that would have prevented the genocide at the most appropriate moment. Addressing the meeting, Ambassador Volker asked whether “we have learned from the events of 1994”. This meeting celebrated the legacies of the late Ambassador Rich Williamson whose contributions to public affairs and leadership are evident in his writings. His report on “The United States and the Responsibility to protect civilians from genocide, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity” provided a lead to the panel discussion. Mike Abramowitz drew a parallel between the Rwandese Crisis and the Holocaust against the Jewish people in Europe, focusing on the conditions and circumstances that converged in the making of a case of holocaust in the West or in Africa. As the Director of the Jewish museum in Washington D.C. he generously shared lessons learned from the Nazi phenomenon and the significant methods and strategies developed to contain such atrocities from happening again. He emphasized the need to learn from history and the imperative to provide adequate instructions about hatred, violence and bloodbath against targeted peoples. He insisted on how the political climate at any given situation influenced the outcome of genocide. Building on these assumptions, he suggested political education as a means for the opponents to the supporters and perpetrators of genocide to learn from the experiences of the Jewish people who worked spiritedly to prevent its reoccurrence. Frederic C. Hof talked about genocides around the world, from Europe during the Second World War to Cambodia in Southeast Asia. Linking those atrocities, now immortalized by Hollywood movies such as “Killing Fields” and “ Hotel Rwanda”, he went ahead to explain the crisis in Syria where the political climate in the world since the U.S. intervention against Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, changed matters drastically. Eliza Massimina focused primarily on the relationship between human rights and the question of genocide. Focusing on the idea that human rights primarily are the main bones of contention. “Your humanity cannot be appreciated if both society and state conspired against your ethnic group”, she said.. She further said that “the life of a community is meaningless if and when the circumstances for an ethnic group are in jeopardy because of bad leadership”. To her, the quest for solution lies in the deep understanding of defending the rights of peoples as well as individuals to enjoy civil and human rights simultaneously. In her view, the struggle for remedies against potential genocide rests in political communication and political education. This mantra was widely shared and it echoes throughout the conversation. Clemantine Wamariya, a human right advocate and a Rwanda Genocide Survivor talked how she was personally affected by the genocide in her country of origin. Being mindful of the gravity of the situation in Africa and beyond, she re-echoed the need for political education. Clemantine urged the audience to focus on mindfulness about what happened in Rwanda 20 years ago. .These lessons are personal, autobiographical and psycho-historical to her. At the end, Senator John McCain thanked all present and promised a continued effort by the McCain Institute to work tirelessly for the respect of the human dignity throughout the world. I asked the panel about the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo and how to characterize it as genocide. “No”, they answered, because it is not an ethnically genocide. It is well documented that about 5 million Congolese had died since the1960s. The war in DRC has no tail, that is lasted this long. The tail and the head are still to be connected. The M23 sponsored by the Rwandan government and the Museveni of Uganda had added to the Congolese instability. The UN has intern to contain the war. During refreshment, in one to one conversation with Senator McCain, I asked the question about Boko Haram in Nigeria and why the United States has not come to the Nigerian assistance. “It is a case of poor leadership that is what it is, poor leadership”, he repeated, without elaboration. Frankly, to me, Senator McCain has opened a new door to Africa and global matters by focusing on genocide. In his concluding remarks of from all indication the question of leadership remains paramount to the Senator and Statesman from Arizona. Eucharia Mbachu is the President of Voices of Women and Children in Africa and Diaspora. for more information, please go to WWW.vowac.org
Posted on: Sat, 03 May 2014 01:06:53 +0000
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