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Rwanda: Genocide Starts With Incitement To Hate

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  • Rwanda: Genocide Starts With Incitement To Hate

    RWANDA: GENOCIDE STARTS WITH INCITEMENT TO HATE
    Irwin Cotler

    AllAfrica.com
    http://allafrica.com/stories /200904080626.html
    April 8 2009

    Kigali -- Today marks the 15th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide,
    where close to one million Rwandans - mostly ethnic Tutsis and Hutu
    moderates - were murdered in a three-month genocidal onslaught that
    began on April 7, 1994.

    The Canadian Parliament, in a unanimous motion, has designated
    April 7th as a national day of reflection on the prevention of
    genocide. Indeed, April has been designated in the United States as
    Genocide Prevention Month--as the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust,
    Srebrenica, and Rwanda - in an eerie convergence - all began in what
    T.S. Eliot has called "the cruelest month."

    < And so, this day - this month - invites us not only to remember the
    horrors of genocide, but to reflect and act upon their lessons. For
    the while the world vowed "Never Again" after the unspeakable horrors
    of the Holocaust - and once again after the atrocities of the Rwandan
    genocide - "Never Again" has happened again and again, symbolized most
    recently by our entering upon the sixth anniversary of the genocide
    by attrition in Darfur.

    In Darfur - where some 400,000 people have died, 3 million have
    been displaced, and 4 million have been left in desperate need of
    humanitarian assistance - all the warning signs were present--yet we
    failed to act to prevent it.

    As Kofi Annan lamented on the 10th anniversary of the Rwandan Genocide,
    "Such crimes cannot be reversed. Such failures cannot be repaired. The
    dead cannot be brought back to life. So what can we do?"

    The answer is that the international community will only prevent
    the killing fields of the future by heeding the lessons from past
    tragedies. What are these lessons, and as Annan asks, what can we do?

    The first and foremost lesson of the Holocaust and the genocides
    that followed, from Srebrenica to Rwanda, is that they occurred
    not only because of the machinery of death, but also because of the
    state-sanctioned incitement to hate. It is this teaching of contempt,
    this demonizing of the other--this is where it all begins. As the
    Canadian Supreme Court recognized, and as echoed by International
    Criminal Tribunals in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, the Holocaust
    did not begin in the gas chambers--it began with words.

    In the aftermath of the 60th anniversary of the Genocide Convention,
    the international community must bear in mind - as the jurisprudence
    from the Rwandan genocide, including the Mugesera case decided by
    the Canadian Supreme Court, has reminded us again and again - that
    incitement to genocide is a crime in and of itself. Taking action to
    prevent it, as the Genocide Convention compels us, is not a policy
    option; it is an international legal obligation of the highest order.

    The second lesson is the danger of indifference and the consequences of
    inaction. For genocide has occurred not only because of the machinery
    of death and a state-sanctioned culture of hate, but also because
    crimes of indifference and conspiracies of silence. What makes the
    Rwandan genocide so unspeakable is not only the horror of the genocide,
    but that this genocide was preventable. Nobody can say we did not
    know; we did, but we did not act. Just as no one can say that we do
    not know what is happening in Darfur.

    The third lesson is the danger of a culture of impunity. If the last
    century was the age of atrocity, it was also the age of impunity. Few
    of the perpetrators were brought to justice. Just as there cannot be
    a sanctuary for hate or a refuge for bigotry, neither can there be a
    haven for war criminals and for perpetrators of the worst of crimes
    against humanity.

    The fourth lesson is the danger of assaults on the most vulnerable in
    society. The Holocaust and genocides that followed occurred not only
    because of the vulnerability of the powerless, but also because of
    the powerlessness of the vulnerable. In these tragedies, it is often
    the most vulnerable of the vulnerable - the brutalized children,
    women victimized by massive sexual violence, fleeing refugees -
    who are the first targets of oppression and violence. It is our
    responsibility to empower the powerless while giving voice to the
    voiceless, wherever they may be.

    The fifth lesson is the cruelty of genocide denial--an assault on
    memory and truth, a criminal conspiracy to whitewash the worst crimes
    in history. In the most obscene form, as in the case of Holocaust
    denial, it will actually accuse the victim of falsifying this
    "hoax." Remembrance of the Rwandan genocide is itself a repudiation of
    such denial--which is becoming more prevalent with the passage of time.

    Finally, we should recall the heroic rescuers--those who remind us of
    the range of human possibility; those who stood up to confront evil,
    prevailed, and transformed history.

    May April 7 - and the genocides of this month - be an occasion not
    only to remember, but to learn the lessons of the crime whose name
    we should even shudder to mention.
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