I beg to move,
That this House commemorates the 20th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, when over the course of a 100-day period in 1994 at least 800,000 Rwandans were murdered; and calls on the Government to reinforce its commitment to the Responsibility to Protect Doctrine and to working within the UN to promote international justice and to avoid mass atrocities which are still committed across the globe today.
I am delighted to have the opportunity, on my birthday, to open today’s debate marking the 20th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, a 100-day period in 1994. That appalling episode left almost 1 million dead, 3 million refugees, a region riddled with insecurity, and a country and a people struggling to comprehend the enormity of the horrors inflicted on them.
To all the Tutsis and moderate Hutus who died, 7 April 1994 marked the beginning of 100 days of hell—100 days of rape, torture, murder and unspeakable horrors. It was the beginning of 100 days that took nearly 1 million lives. For those who bore witness to Rwanda’s genocide, it was a time that humanity seemed to forget. The Rwandan genocide saw wives become widows and children become orphans. Roughly three quarters of the Tutsi population were eliminated, and Rwanda suffered greatly. Attackers burned down churches with hundreds or thousands of Tutsis inside and slaughtered their victims with machetes. Hundreds of mass graves were dug across the country to bury the victims of what was a long-planned killing spree.
As Linda Melvern, the journalist and author, said in one of the Committee Rooms of the House on 26 March to those of us commemorating the genocide:
“Here was the direst of all human situations. The crime of genocide—the intent to destroy a human group…There were no sealed trains or secluded camps in Rwanda. A planned and political campaign, the genocide of the Tutsi took place in broad daylight.”
On the 20th anniversary of the genocide, people are talking again of tribes in Rwanda—the Hutu tribe, the Tutsi tribe—but it is important to remember that the Hutus and Tutsis were the same before colonial rule created a divide. They lived in the same space on the same hills, spoke the same language, had the same religion and often intermarried. The only difference was a superficial judgment on appearance and occupation. In 1994, Rwanda was 85% Hutu, 14% Tutsi and 1% Twa.
As many Members will know, the catalyst for the Rwandan genocide came about on 6 April 1994, when President Juvénal Habyarimana was killed when his plane was shot down as it came in to land at Kigali airport. Immediately, a pre-planned policy of extermination of all Tutsis was triggered, and throughout the entire country, right down to every village, Hutus turned on
their Tutsi neighbours and slaughtered them. The Hutus who attempted to intervene or prevent the violence were also killed.
The international community should have responded to the Rwandan genocide, but in 1994 it collectively failed to do anything to help the Rwandan people in their hour of need. The Americans had been traumatised by the “Black Hawk Down” incident in Somalia the previous October, making the Clinton Administration unwilling to intervene, especially in Africa. Regrettably, Britain did nothing, having no interest in a former Belgian colony. France, much to its shame, continued to support the interim Rwandan Government even after it became clear that they were driving the planned genocide.
The international response to the Rwandan genocide was woeful, as was the lack of action by the United Nations. There were dreadful misreadings of what was happening, and the plight of the Tutsis was ignored, with many people refusing to acknowledge that the events taking place were a genocide of the Tutsis. Indeed, not one Government called on the perpetrators to stop the genocide. Not one UN member state severed diplomatic ties. Not one Government called for the representative of the interim Rwandan Government to be suspended from the chamber of the UN. The international community turned its back on Rwanda and left the Tutsi people to their fate.