Denis Gathanju moved to tears while touring the Genocide Memorial
KIGALI, Rwanda.
The tiny central African nation of Rwanda has enjoyed phenomenal economic growth and political stability in a volatile portion of Africa where economic prosperity and political stability have been relegated to simple memories for an ageing generation and the current generation can only hear tales from a past that was.
But while the economic and political stability of this land of a thousand hills has been celebrated and hailed by all across the continent and the entire world, it remains an open secret when you look back. On a recent trip to Kigali, Rwanda, though on a tight schedule, my hosts were happy to take me around the city and show me new developments coming up here and infrastructural upgrades there.
A painful stopover
And as the sun was setting on this small city, we made a stopover. Seeing all the growth and development and the beaming faces of people in Kigali is enough to take you away from the realities of a dark chapter in Rwanda's history. As I was driven into a compound on the other side of the city, I knew something was different about this place. I tried to read the faces of my hosts in vain, they were plain blank. They suddenly turned from jovial, cheerful people into emotionless beings. And as they ushered me into the compound, I knew this was not your everyday place.
"Denis you have to see this," one of my hosts whispered to me.
Human cruelty while the world turned a blind eye
The silence at the Genocide Memorial Center in Kigali is palpably tangible, I could hear myself breath. I was a young boy when the Genocide in Rwanda happened. At the time, I could not comprehend the magnitude of the events, but walking into the center, just a few years after witnessing the horrors of the post-election violence in Kenya as an adult, my heart sunk.
I tried to fight tears as I walked through the center, but I lost the fight, especially when I got to the bottom of the center, where human skulls and skeletons are on display. I shed more tears when I got to another room where there were big photographs and posters of some of the innocent young children who lost their lives during the massacre. Looking at their innocent faces and reading how each child met its death at the hands of ruthless, heartless men; broke all resistance in my body. I just could not contain myself.
For 80 days, Rwanda bled as more than 800,000 people met a painful death. And for 80 days, the world turned the other way as one of the largest human massacres in human history unfolded.
For me, the biggest question that lingered on my mind and still remains in my mind is ....
How can we do this to ourselves?
Rwanda moves on
But while the demons of the genocide are well-known and documented in this tiny country, what really caught my eye is the hospitality and the warmth of the Rwandese people, many of whom lost a relatives while other lost entire families in the genocide.