I have talked about the Rwandan genocide in past posts, and I think it is worthy to bring up the anniversary of that horrific event. Truly awful. –Matt
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“We Were Lying in Pools of Blood”
April 12, 2009
On the 15th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, survivors recall how the world abandoned them in their hour of need
by Michael Abramowitz
Thousands fell silent last week at a hillside memorial here in Kigali, the capital city of Rwanda, as Karasira Venuste told the story of how the world community, as represented by blue-helmuted U.N. peacekeepers, abandoned him and 5,000 other Tutsi near this exact spot 15 years ago.
On the morning of April 7, 1994, Venuste and his neighbors in a nearby village heard the news on the radio that the plane of Rwanda’s Hutu president had been shot down the night before. Thinking of the threats and violence directed at his fellow Tutsi over the past several years, he believed it likely that he and his neighbors would be blamed by the government and its allies for the assassination.
“We are done for,” Venuste thought to himself. “We are finished.”