« No boobies for you...but drill all you want. | Main | Too bad we didn't buy them (liberals) a ticket to become human shields in Iraq. »

March 02, 2005

Hotel Rwanda

A few weeks ago our friends at Center Field posted a review of the movie Hotel Rwanda. I posted a comment saying that I'm not sure whether I want to see the movie or not. You see, my parents survived the Rwandan genocide and it's a subject which sparks an immediate and fairly profound emotional reaction in me. But, I promised to post a follow-up about my parent's experience.

Part of the delay comes from my attempt to get permission from the Oregonian to reprint an interview with my parents which they published in April of 1994 right after my parents first arrived back in the United States. Turns out they have a policy against granting reprint permission for any organization which is political. This blog qualifies, apparently. But, I was told that I can use up to 10% of the interview without permission. So, here goes.

I actually don't need to reprint the entire interview. There's nothing in it which I hadn't heard directly from my parents at the time. But, I'll blockquote any quotes from the Oregonian piece.

Early April 1994, Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana and Brunidian President Cyprien Ntaryamira were in Tanzania trying to negotiate a peaceful resolution to the decades old rivalry between the two dominant tribes in both countries, the majority Hutu and the minority Tutsi. As they flew back to Rwanda the plane was reportedly shot down with a surface-to-air missle just short of the airport in Rwanda's capital, Kigali, killing both men. Fighting ensued between the two tribes in Rwanda.

My parents were both working for the Adventist University of Central Africa, which is in the Western part of Rwanda, at the time. My dad was the farm manager and my mom was the grounds/landscaping manager.

From the home of Kathy Kamberg's mother, the couple spoke yesterday about the horrors they endured and the slaughter of men, women and children they witnessed.

According to Dale Kamberg, bands of Hutus came onto the university campus in search of Tutsis who had sought safe haven.

The Hutus knew where to find the Tutsis. During past conflicts, members of one tribe or the other would flee to the university campus seeking refuge from their attackers, Dale Kamberg said.

In the last four years, it was the Tutsi rebels from whom the Hutus would try to escape. But this time, it was Hutu villagers out for blood.

Rwanda is a former Belgian colony and the official language is French. Similarly, neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo (the former Ziare) used to be a French colony and it's official language is also French.

My dad knew just enough French to kinda sorta make himself understood. But, my mom is fluent. My point in mentioning this is that she told me that when President Habyarimana left for Tanzania for the peace conference some of the prominent radio stations started airing tracts by a virulent Hutu group in French. My mom told me that what they were saying was remarkably similiar to how the Nazi's had spoken about Jews during WWII. She said that the primary difference was that it was Hutu talking about Tutsi rather than German Aryans talking about Jews. The degrading, dehumanizing rhetoric was the same, though. And as the genocide broke out the radio stations broadcast exhortations by these Hutu urging people to slaughter Tutsi, again using rhetoric very much akin to how the Nazis talking about exterminating Jews as if it were no more horrific than putting a rabid dog down. Very matter of fact... calm... couched in nationalistic language and presented as a moral imperative.

The Hutus used clubs, machetes, hand grenades and makeshift weapons to beat and fatally stab Tutsi men, women and children, the Kambergs said.

``That evening when the president was killed, the Tutsis came on campus and the Hutus came looking for them, and that's when the killing started,'' Dale Kamberg said Friday.

According to Kamberg, the Hutus particularly enjoyed clubbing their victims to death. Inflicting a slow, brutal death was their goal, he said. The real tragedy in all this, he said, is that victims and assailants all knew each other as neighbors.

``They've lived in the same village all their lives,'' he said. ``Everyone knew everyone.''

Soon after the killings began, there weren't many Tutsis left to kill, Kamberg said. Some Hutus took the opportunity to settle scores with members of their own tribe, contends Dale Kamberg. Chaos and lawlessness reigned.

In all, 238 dead bodies were hauled off the campus, Kamberg said. Of that number, about 50 were students whom the Kambergs knew well and by name.

Dale Kamberg said he looked out his window and watched in horror as the killings were carried out. He often turned away, unable or unwilling to watch the brutal slayings.

But death came to the Kambergs' front door.

Among the dead were teen-age girls Kamberg saw being chased by boys who were barely teen-agers themselves. The girls were running for their lives.

Kamberg said the girls ran to his front door and began pounding on it to be let in. But the boys were upon them at once, imposing their death sentence.

Had the Kambergs opened the door, they might have been killed themselves, either by the boys or by older Hutus who had viewed them as Tutsi supporters.

Powerless to help the girls, the Kambergs could only suffer in silence as the pounding grew strong and then diminished.

``There was not a single thing we could do,'' Dale Kamberg said. ``They pounded so hard their hands bled and left our door blood-stained. That was the worst experience for my wife and me.''

After the girls' bodies were taken away, all Dale Kamberg could do was go out and wash away the blood.

During the killings, the Kambergs felt very unsafe, even though no foreign nationals lost their lives on the campus.

``We tried to sleep and we couldn't,'' he said. ``We tried to eat and we couldn't. I still can't sleep more than four or five hours.''

Still dogging Kathy Kamberg is ``the helpless frustration of not being able to help those African nationals who needed to be transported out of the country and protected from their pursuers,'' she said.

``When you've worked for 10 years like we did over there, you have some very personal friends,'' she said. ``My profound sadness is that those were my personal friends who were being killed.''

My parents had actually only been in Rwanda for a couple years. Prior to that they had been across the border in what used to be known as Ziare. There my dad taught industrial arts at a secondary school. He had been an industrial arts teacher here in Oregon before going to Africa.

Ironically when the rebel Tutsi militia led by the current Rwandan President fought their way into Rwanda to sieze control from the genocidal Hutu, vast numbers of Hutu fled to an area in Eastern Ziare which was just a few short miles from where my parents had lived and taught for 8 years.

My parents and other foreign nationals were finally evacuated by Belgian soldiers and taken across the border into Ziare, from where they made their way back to the United States post haste.

An estimated half million people lost their lives in a few short weeks in Rwanda. With few exceptions the "civilized" world looked the other way until the worst of it was over.

Note This all happened almost 11 years ago. For an update on a current genocidal hotspot go check out Tom's post on Genocide in Darfur. Then call your Congressional representatives and give them a piece of your mind. Please.

Posted by Kevin at March 2, 2005 05:16 PM