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« Die Sprache spricht als das Geläute der Stille »
(Martin Heidegger, Unterwegs zur Sprache)
In 1994, before, during and after the genocide during which around one
million people were killed, most of them civilians, I gave hundreds of
interviews, reports, conferences to all kind of audiences, newspapers,
TV, radios and the general public. And afterwards I think this was not
only the right action to take but also the right therapy.
At the end of 1994, I decided not to talk any more about the Rwandan
genocide and declined all the invitations I was receiving about it. I
just wanted to go back to silence and to invisibility as it suits an
ICRC delegate and because of my rather shy and discreet personality.
Almost 8 years have gone since the genocide was committed and by being
here I am once again talking about it. Not because I am less shy today
than 8 years ago, not because I need to be visible again - I wish I were
never visible again - but because I still have some kind of debt, or
better to say, some kind of duty towards all those who died in Rwanda in
1994 and who were given so little attention later on that some of us
think that the Rwandan genocide can be considered as a ``case study''.
For those who died and especially for those who survived, it is
certainly not and it will never be a ``case study''.
It is because of them that I am here today. You may kill as many people
as you want or as you can. You cannot kill their memory. The memory is
the most invisible and resistant material you can find on the earth. You
cannot cut it like diamond, you cannot shoot at it because you cannot
see it, nevertheless it is everywhere, all around you, plenty of
silence, unsaid suffering, whispers, absent looks. Sometimes you can
smell it and then the memory clearly speaks like the whisper of silence.
Sometimes the smell is still unbearable, even when things have been
forgotten for decades.
Prevention, neutrality and reporting
In July 1993, two weeks before the Arusha peace agreement was signed by
President Habyarimana and Alexis Kanyarengwe, we met President
Habyarimana. When we talked about the danger of anti-personnel mines on
the front line, President Habyarimana told us he was fully aware of it,
but added: « The main danger is actually that the hearts and minds of
the Rwandan people are mined ». This was a ``preventive'' message.
One month later, after the Arusha peace agreement had been signed, I met
the President of the MRND, the governmental party, Mathieu Ngirumpatse,
and asked his opinion about the very recent peace agreement. He told me
the following: « Sir, don't believe too much in it… In Africa peace
agreements are too often just scraps of paper ». Just another message of
``prevention''.
A couple of weeks later, around 50 civilians were killed in the
demilitarised zone monitored by the UN troops led by General Romeo
Dallaire. Immediately a very aggressive campaign was launched against
General Dallaire by the Radio-Television Libre des Mille Collines
accusing him in a very cynical way not to be able to identify and
punish the responsible people for the killings. Another message of
``prevention'' by provoking people against the UN peacekeeping forces.
In January 1994, the situation in Kigali was very tense. So it was in
February when one Minister, Félicien Katawasi [Gatabazi], and the President of the
extremist party CDR, Martin Bouchiana [Bucyana], were killed.
Sporadic fighting in the north
Then the dialogue between the Government and the Rwandan Patriotic Front
(RPF) stopped. Sporadic fighting took place in the northern part of the
country.
Just before Easter, the Dean of the diplomatic corps convoked me. He
advised me to be on the alert for something bad could happen very soon.
Prevention. I asked all my people not to leave the town.
As Christoph Plate says: « It is not until war breaks out or famine is
rife or there is a massacre that people begin to wonder what caused it.
The period prior to the disaster then becomes a news item or a
background story. Reports in the media can indeed influence conflicts,
but they can hardly ever prevent them » (Journalists' reports cannot
prevent conflict in International Review of the Red Cross, No 839, p.
617-624, 30 September 2000).
The Rwandan genocide was so well covered by the media, especially by the
western media, that everyone could follow it on TV, radio or in
newspapers every day. One could say that it was transmitted live, at
least live enough to inform the governments and public about what was
really happening there.
ICRC speaks of ``systematic carnage''
The ICRC contributed to this media coverage and reporting like it may be
never had done in its almost 130 years of existence at that time. On 28
April 1994, some three weeks after the beginning of the genocide, the
ICRC called on the governments concerned including all members of the
Security Council to take all possible measures to put an end to the
massacres. The words used - « systematic carnage », « the extermination
of a significant portion of the civilian population » - left no room for
doubt about what was going on.
« After half a million, sir, we stopped counting... »
At the same time, BBC London called us in Kigali and asked us what our
estimate of the number of people killed was. We said at least 250,000.
One week later they called again. We said at least 500,000. And once
again the following week. And then we said: « After half a million, sir,
we stopped counting ». We were never asked the same question again.
At the beginning of May, I was invited by General Romeo Dallaire to meet
with the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ambassador
José Ayala Lasso. When we came to figures, I was told I was exaggerating.
I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to General
Dallaire's courage, actions and always helpful pieces of advice. He
saved many lives, among them that of our medical coordinator who had
been hit by shrapnel of a rocket launched by the RPF on an ICRC convoy
on its way from Kigali to Gitarama on 19 May.
Massacred in a Red Cross ambulance
Prevention: zero. Reporting: ineffective. Maybe with one exception: on
14 April, in the presence of the Rwandan armed forces, militiamen killed
six wounded civilians who were on their way to our hospital in a Red
Cross ambulance. The Radio-Television Libre des Mille Collines
announced that the Red Cross was transporting « enemies of the Republic
disguised as fake wounded ».
Explanations, protests, at our request the ICRC headquarters issued a
strong press release which was immediately broadcast everywhere by the
BBC and Radio France Internationale, among others, boomerang effect on
the field, new explanations, the Rwandan Government and media became
aware of the considerable deterioration of their image, corrections,
awareness campaign on the right of the wounded to be taken care of and
on the role of the Red Cross… Some kind of test: we could have been
killed for that statement but we were not and the Red Cross ambulances
could restart their work without problems.
The killing of six wounded people allowed us to save thousands of
others, 9,000 altogether between April and July according to the
statistics of our makeshift hospital. Speaking out is always dangerous
in such situations, exceptionally it may be effective.
"How can you be neutral in front of genocide?"
Neutrality: THE key point. Many of you will ask: how can you be neutral
in front of genocide? Of course you cannot be neutral in front of
genocide. But the genocide is happening in front of your eyes every day.
It is a fact. As a Red Cross worker, you really don't have the political
- not to mention the military - means to stop it. All you can try to do
is to save what can be saved, leftovers, wounded, and when I say
wounded, maybe I am wrong, I should say people not finished off by
machetes or screwdrivers. And it was really the case during the first
weeks when we were evacuating wounded people - all of them Tutsis - to
our hospital.
And that is when problems start. Humanitarian neutrality means first to
be on the side of the victims, of ALL the victims. But when the victims
belong to the same category, then their executioners start to look at
you with suspicion. This must have been the reason why, after having
given a very difficult interview to the Rwandan National Radio, the
Radio-Television Libre des Mille Collines started to broadcast that I
was without doubt a Belgian national, which was simply a death sentence.
I was talking with the government authorities in Gitarama when I was
informed about that. I immediately asked them to call the
Radio-Television libre des Mille Collines and to ask it to correct its
declaration. They did it in a very efficient - although not very elegant
- way, by broadcasting that I « was too courageous and too clever to be
a Belgian national ».
Mixed population at the hospital
A couple of days later, the Radio-Television libre des Mille Collines
was targeted by the RPF. One of their most famous announcers, Noël, was
badly injured in one of his feet and was brought to our hospital… I felt
on the safe side: our hospital just started to have a mixed population
and this trend increased continuously in the following weeks when
wounded militiamen and members of the armed forces had no other place to
go to be taken care of but our poor makeshift hospital, which became
some kind of a sacred place, a strong symbol and demonstration of
neutrality.
In mid-April, the new Prime Minister, Jean Kambanda, asked us to
evacuate the dead bodies from the streets of Kigali. I refused, asking
to stop the killings first. Then the authorities decided to use the
common law prisoners to evacuate the bodies, but they had no fuel for
the trucks. We gave them the fuel. I learned a couple of days later that
they evacuated 67,000 bodies from the streets of Kigali, a town with
200,000 inhabitants before 6 April.
Later on, because of the lack of chlorine and aluminium sulfate, Kigali
was left without water. We provided the necessary products and could
thus postpone the death throes of the central pumping station. And so
on. These humanitarian gestures were duly appreciated.
One millimetre of humanity
This might explain why - at our request - the Minister of Labour and
Social Welfare, Jean de Dieu Habimeza, went personally to an orphanage
close to Gisenyi and, with the full support of the Rwandan armed forces,
saved 300 children of a certain slaughter by the militiamen; it could
also explain why 35,000 people could survive in Kabgayi, another 8,000
in Nyarushishi camp, the only survivors of the prefecture of Cyangugu;
why another 600 orphans in Butare. And so on. Maybe 70,000 people all
together, just one millimetre of humanity out of kilometres of horrors
and unspeakable suffering.
The most incredible event I personally witnessed happened at the very
beginning of July, just before the RPF took over Kigali: six
heavily-armed militiamen came to our hospital. They were drunk, but
surprisingly not aggressive at all; they had one prisoner, a young Tutsi
lady; they told me: « This woman has been with us for the past three
months, she is a nurse, we are about to leave the town, we have decided
not to kill her despite the fact that she is a Tutsi, as a nurse she
will be more useful in your hospital than dead… »
I never received a better acknowledgment of the efficiency of neutrality.
War is destruction, negation of life. Humanitarian action works within
this subtraction. It tries to reduce it. In case of a genocide, it may
seem a stupid gamble, since it's well-known that genocidal logic is the
complete negation of the humanitarian spirit and of the law.
Whenever you can reduce this negation it is a miracle. And the memory
never forgets miracles.
