Rwanda Massacre (1994)
George (Intro):
First though tonight… we look at what lies behind those images from Central Africa that’ve been horrifying us all for six weeks now –the internecine slaughter in Rwanda.
But, you don’t have to prepare yourself for even more grotesque scenes.
In this report, Peter George looks at the cause of the civil war that started back in early April when the news got out of a killing spree that has since left half a million Rwandans dead and millions homeless.
It’s since become clear that the genocide (triggered by the probable assassination of the Rwandan president) was part of a plan by members of his Government to destroy a fragile agreement to bring democracy to the tiny, land-locked African nation.
When the agreement with the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front shattered, Government forces, controlled by the majority Hutu tribe began systematically murdering the minority Tutsis, and anyone who opposed them.
Although some scenes are disturbing, Peter’s report is not another catalogue of Rwandan horror.
Amidst all the devastation, he’s actually found a particularly moving human story, set in what is (minus the horror) an extraordinarily beautiful country.
Church service
00:53
For thirty years, the churches of Rwanda have been the only safe haven when bloody civil wars have swept through the country.
1:04
So it was to the churches that thousands fled when the massacres began in April, urged on by official Government radio.
1.16
And it was to the churches that Government troops and militiamen came to violate that sanctuary, to slaughter them with guns and grenades, with bayonets and machetes.
Church service fades
1.28
Rural/ idyllic Rwanda
It looks like a paradise of fertility and tranquillity.
Rwandans call it “the land of a thousand hills,” Africa’s smallest nation, and with almost seven million inhabitants, one of the most crowded countries on earth.
PTC
In a country that is normally teeming with people, there is an awful silence across much of Rwanda today.
Quiet village
1.50
Hundreds of thousands (possibly millions), of innocents have fled their homes, terrified of both sides in a civil war that became genocidal after the Rwandan President’s plane was shot down a few weeks ago.
Soldiers walk out of a house
2.23
Now, waiting in the wings, is a new elite: one that claims it will bring not only peace, but democracy to this benighted country.
2.34
Rose Kabuye follows soldiers out of a house, goes over to car, packs bags and gets into a car.
Rose Kabuye is a major in the rebel army: the Rwandan Patriotic Front.
Under last year’s failed peace agreement between the Government and the Front, she was to have become a member of parliament.
Driving POV establishing shots of Rwanda
The Patriotic Front now controls more than half of Rwanda: it’s army remorselessly closing in on Government troops.
Rose introducing presenter to villagers
Rose’s job is to win the hearts and minds of a people terrified by a war they cannot understand: traumatised by killing beyond their comprehension.
Rose and PG meet a villager.
PG: ‘So every member of his family and all his village were killed eh?’
Rose: ‘His family and then the whole…’
PG: ‘all his broad family?’
Rose: ‘the village. Even the village.’
PG: ‘Out of how many? So how many was that that were killed?’
Rose: ‘About 600 people.’
PG: ‘About 600 dead? In one village?’
Soldiers. Children. Rose enters a village.
It is a conflict portrayed and oversimplified as one of tribal warfare between Rwanda’s vast majority of Hutus and its 8% Tutsi minority.
3:40
Rose greeting villagers
Herself a Tutsi, Major Rose Kabuye is out to convince the people (especially these Hutu villagers), that the Patriotic Front will obliterate the ethnic divides that the Government has manipulated to hold on to power for 30 years.
Rose talking to villagers.
‘When you see the RPF you should come out and talk to us. But if you see anybody bad, you should identify them and then tell us who they are. If you don’t tell us who they are, they’ll come back and make trouble in the future.’
Old man stands up
3:56
Man in tattered shirt.
To the Hutu villagers, she portrays the rebel army as the best and only chance for peace in a nation now notorious for bloodbaths.
Rose and PG
Rose: ‘First of all I told them who I am and I showed them that they shouldn’t be scared, that they should start their normal lives.’
PG: ‘Do you think they were afraid because you came from the RPF?’
Rose: ‘There is one old man who said that he was a bit afraid, but the rest say that it’s normal; they’ve been meeting with some of us already- there’s no problem.’
4.12
Rose and husband
Born in exile, of parents who fled earlier massacres, Rose and her husband David have been fighting with the rebel army since it first crossed into Rwanda from Uganda four years ago to start its long campaign.
Rose: ‘We have to give security to our people; you can see most of them are displaced, either they’re in hiding, so they must stop and think that [what] the RPF will do is to set you up- the people.’
David: ‘The RPF [has been] fighting this war for about four years, so if we’re not convinced that we were doing the right thing, I think we would not be here.’
Hospital, groans etc.
4.40
Injured people: girl/woman turns around to reveal bandages on her back and front.
This is what happens when a Government, desperate to cling on to power, unleashes the primitive fears and ancient prejudices of an ill-educated people.
There was no spontaneous massacre. The killing was efficient: well planned.
David sitting on bench.
Woman and a kid.
David talking to PG.
PG: ‘David, tell me about this woman’s extraordinary story.’
David: ‘she saw a group of militia in the army together with some soldiers, and they all came to the house and gathered them somewhere with the rest of the population in the neighbourhood, and started hacking them: hacked on the neck, both legs, both arms; she had four children: two died; she has two with her here also who are also hacked. And then they realised that pretending to be hacked would save them; so stayed in the dead bodies in the group of dead bodies for a week.’
Doctor and nurse bend to tend patient.
Doctor: ‘how are you feeling?’
Patient: ‘I am feeling better,’
For survivors there’s only the most basic treatment at improvised hospitals.
5:12
Doctor speaks to PG
Doctor: ‘This patient is injured by bayonet, in the stomach.’
PG: ‘She’s in very grave danger of losing her life, is that right?’
Doctor: ‘Yes, if nothing is done in two days she can die.’
7:06
Hospital shots and exteriors of patients washing/cooking
Government-backed militias in almost every town and village systematically attacked Tutsis and thousands of others: anyone suspected of opposing the Government.
It went beyond ethnic violence. Hutus like Dr Sosthene Bucyana turned for help to the rebels to be rescued from the mayhem.
PG and doctor outside
‘But these injuries have been done in some cases by their neighbours, how are they ever going to live with them again?’
‘Some people have been killed or injured by some neighbours because of ideas from politicians. Otherwise people live together, the common people live together. They share everything in their lives without problems.’
Orphan boy (Urimbenshi) sitting/ talking
Louis: ‘When all those Hutus went away they started killing all the Tutsi with grenades and guns.’
7:45
Urimbenshi is one of countless orphans who have watched their parents slain before their eyes in recent weeks, and their siblings hacked to death.
Urimbenshi: ‘That’s when me and my friends ran away through a banana plantation. When the militiamen saw us they shouted out that we were RPF and they attacked us with machetes.’
8:30
Orphans
These children have been orphaned in the past few weeks- there are thousands of them.
And there’ve been generations of orphans and exiles since 1962 when Belgium pulled out from a colony whose tribal rivalries it had exploited to quell and rule the people.
8:48
Crying child.
In the intervening years, each generation of children has seen other massacres, civil war and brutal repression, leaving a legacy of scepticism amongst Rwandans that the patriotic front- the RPF- has inherited.
Antoine Rutayisire: orphanage leader.
‘It will depend on the influence the RPF is going to have in the country, because when you look at their politics, particularly because they’re against that err… thing of ethnic apartness, I think they will manage well for this society.’
Researcher
‘Do you believe the RPF any more than you’ve believed anyone else?’
Antoine:
‘I don’t know, I am waiting to see.’
10:21
Soldier woman cleans children’s nails
It is for the cause of future generations that the RPF (like many liberation movements) justifies its fight. David and Rose Kabuye left their baby son behind with family in Uganda to come and fight the war.
David and Rose
David: ‘Of course it’s difficult to leave your child, especially when both parents are going, but again I think, we both thought that it would even be better for that child if we tried and, if we try to liberate our country.’
Rose: ‘Yes, I made that [decision] for my son and for other sons, for the people of Rwanda, for the Rwandese people.’
10:44
Soldiers stand around while cows are milked.
Behind the frontlines, there is already a nonchalance amongst Patriotic Front soldiers: the arrogance of an army that has watched the opposition crumble before it and believes victory is nigh.
10:56
Soldiers sit at gate and listen to the radio.
But the war of words is as vicious as ever… the voice of a desperate Government broadcast 24 hours a day urging its population to still greater slaughter.
David translates the radio broadcast.
David: ‘It preaches that the Tutsi should eliminate the Hutu, [I mean] the Hutu should eliminate the Tutsi and that the Tutsis should be cleared from the face of Rwanda.’
PG: ‘Why is it that it er… you laugh so much about it? What is it that amuses you so much about it?’
David: ‘It’s because whatever they say is extraordinary, it’s not even… it’s unreasonable, it’s untrue, it’s so funny.’
11:08
Tito Rutaremara, Rwandan Patriotic Front
‘Those people who have been manipulated you can forgive them when they crime because you can’t punish the whole country.’
11:53
Two-shots
Tito Rutarmara was slated to lead the Patriotic Front in Rwanda’s parliament under last year’s failed peace agreement.
P: ‘But what’s going to stop your soldiers from killing people out of hand if they suspect that they’ve been involved in massacres?’
T: ‘No, our soldiers first and report they know what they’re fighting for. They know it, they know our protocol programme, they know that they need the unity of country; and then they’re politically sensitised: they can’t do it.’
12:06
Refugees in Byumba
The town of Byumba is deep in rebel-held territory. But the people held here are not its residents; they fled as fighting raged around them: now a flood of refugees has taken their place.
Hutu or Tutsi, they find their lives in the hands of the Patriotic Front.
13:05
Opposition leaders around a table
Among the destitute, members of a former elite: the few opposition politicians who survived the terrible slaughter in the capital Kigali; one of them, the nation’s Finance Minister, was found hiding and almost starved in his home.
Talking with PG around a table
PG: ‘So tell me sir, the people sitting around, at this table, are they Tutsi or are they Hutu or what?’
Bonadventure Ubalijoro: ‘Er we are mixed, so we can show you who are Hutus…
13:24
Hutus in the group raise their hands. There are 5.
Though not allied to the Patriotic Front, they argue the movement is now the only hope for unity, and for peace in Rwanda.
Tutsis in the group raise their hands.
Bonadventure Ubalijoro: ‘And the others are Tutsi:’
PG: ‘Four?’
Bonadventure Ubalijoro: ‘Yeah.’
Bonadventure Ubalijoro: opposition leader.
‘Maybe we have to put together all our different ideas to build the country.’
13:31
Banana-leaf tent city
Building tent
Neither peace, nor normality will come easily to this tiny country.
Millions are on the move: their families shattered, crops abandoned, possessions gone.
They gather together for safety, building meagre protection with banana leaves from a rainy season that drenches them daily.
13:52
People demolishing tent and sticks
Then moving on again, searching for more secure refuge and for international aid agencies that will supply them with food.
14:56
Starving children, some with big bellies
The enormity of the problem would crush the resources of a Government- let alone a rebel army.
16:39
Long shot of Rose and PG walking through camp
There is a burning anger in the Patriotic Front that the UN withdrew most of its armed peacekeepers when the massacres began, yet now considers returning when holocaust is over.
Rose and David talk to PG
PG: ‘So from the point of view of food and the point of view of medicine and so on, is that, that is beyond your resources to deal with?’
Rose: ‘Definitely because the only food we can afford is for our soldiers, and the little medicine we have is just for our soldiers.’
PG: ‘The Rwandan Patriotic Front has been quite critical of the international community for its lack of action on this and yet you still rely on them for help don’t you?’
Rose: ‘The lack of action is that the thing they could have done is the most important thing was to save lives, and in the time of need they didn’t do anything.’
17:54
Rose in refugee camp
The Patriotic Front has a clear message for the UN and countries like Australia, which may send in troops: it will accept aid and protection for refugees but it will not tolerate peace-keepers who stand in the way of victory.
Bonadventure Ubalijoro
PG: ‘Are you saying that the rest of the world can now mind its own business and you will solve your own problems?’
Bonadventure Ubalijoro: ‘Well we say that we still need the international community; we have lots of people who are suffering and who need to eat but we need humanitarian aid.’
PG: ‘But you will solve your own political problems, is that what you’re saying?’
Bonadventure Ubalijoro: ‘Well I think that we will solve our own political problems and if we need any help we will call our friends and tell them to come and help us.’
19:13
Machete shots. People carry pangas
The weapons of massacre are still in the hands of the people, for the panga (the machete) is both daily work tool and the means by which neighbour has killed neighbour for generations.
Rwanda has now gone well beyond the brink; yet a war has still to be won or lost, and starvation and disease threaten.
21:43
Abandoned banana tents
PTC
There have been reports of the summary execution of militiamen and some accusations that Patriotic Front soldiers have killed civilians, but we’ve run across no evidence of that since we’ve been here.
23:16
Deserted village
For now, the scent of death in almost every village is nauseating: sweet, sickly, appalling.
Wide shot of a skeleton in doorway.
Rwanda is not alone in witnessing what havoc the power hungry can wreck when ancient fears and prejudices are set aflame.
23:32
Choir sings
But there’s something unique about the scale of this catastrophe.
23:37
Hands held out in supplication.
If the Patriotic Front (and the international community) acting together, fail to deliver on the pledge of peace and unity, he cycle of disaster must continue into the next generation.
END
George (Intro):
First though tonight… we look at what lies behind those images from Central Africa that’ve been horrifying us all for six weeks now –the internecine slaughter in Rwanda.
But, you don’t have to prepare yourself for even more grotesque scenes.
In this report, Peter George looks at the cause of the civil war that started back in early April when the news got out of a killing spree that has since left half a million Rwandans dead and millions homeless.
It’s since become clear that the genocide (triggered by the probable assassination of the Rwandan president) was part of a plan by members of his Government to destroy a fragile agreement to bring democracy to the tiny, land-locked African nation.
When the agreement with the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front shattered, Government forces, controlled by the majority Hutu tribe began systematically murdering the minority Tutsis, and anyone who opposed them.
Although some scenes are disturbing, Peter’s report is not another catalogue of Rwandan horror.
Amidst all the devastation, he’s actually found a particularly moving human story, set in what is (minus the horror) an extraordinarily beautiful country.
Church service
00:53
For thirty years, the churches of Rwanda have been the only safe haven when bloody civil wars have swept through the country.
1:04
So it was to the churches that thousands fled when the massacres began in April, urged on by official Government radio.
1.16
And it was to the churches that Government troops and militiamen came to violate that sanctuary, to slaughter them with guns and grenades, with bayonets and machetes.
Church service fades
1.28
Rural/ idyllic Rwanda
It looks like a paradise of fertility and tranquillity.
Rwandans call it “the land of a thousand hills,” Africa’s smallest nation, and with almost seven million inhabitants, one of the most crowded countries on earth.
PTC
In a country that is normally teeming with people, there is an awful silence across much of Rwanda today.
Quiet village
1.50
Hundreds of thousands (possibly millions), of innocents have fled their homes, terrified of both sides in a civil war that became genocidal after the Rwandan President’s plane was shot down a few weeks ago.
Soldiers walk out of a house
2.23
Now, waiting in the wings, is a new elite: one that claims it will bring not only peace, but democracy to this benighted country.
2.34
Rose Kabuye follows soldiers out of a house, goes over to car, packs bags and gets into a car.
Rose Kabuye is a major in the rebel army: the Rwandan Patriotic Front.
Under last year’s failed peace agreement between the Government and the Front, she was to have become a member of parliament.
Driving POV establishing shots of Rwanda
The Patriotic Front now controls more than half of Rwanda: it’s army remorselessly closing in on Government troops.
Rose introducing presenter to villagers
Rose’s job is to win the hearts and minds of a people terrified by a war they cannot understand: traumatised by killing beyond their comprehension.
Rose and PG meet a villager.
PG: ‘So every member of his family and all his village were killed eh?’
Rose: ‘His family and then the whole…’
PG: ‘all his broad family?’
Rose: ‘the village. Even the village.’
PG: ‘Out of how many? So how many was that that were killed?’
Rose: ‘About 600 people.’
PG: ‘About 600 dead? In one village?’
Soldiers. Children. Rose enters a village.
It is a conflict portrayed and oversimplified as one of tribal warfare between Rwanda’s vast majority of Hutus and its 8% Tutsi minority.
3:40
Rose greeting villagers
Herself a Tutsi, Major Rose Kabuye is out to convince the people (especially these Hutu villagers), that the Patriotic Front will obliterate the ethnic divides that the Government has manipulated to hold on to power for 30 years.
Rose talking to villagers.
‘When you see the RPF you should come out and talk to us. But if you see anybody bad, you should identify them and then tell us who they are. If you don’t tell us who they are, they’ll come back and make trouble in the future.’
Old man stands up
3:56
Man in tattered shirt.
To the Hutu villagers, she portrays the rebel army as the best and only chance for peace in a nation now notorious for bloodbaths.
Rose and PG
Rose: ‘First of all I told them who I am and I showed them that they shouldn’t be scared, that they should start their normal lives.’
PG: ‘Do you think they were afraid because you came from the RPF?’
Rose: ‘There is one old man who said that he was a bit afraid, but the rest say that it’s normal; they’ve been meeting with some of us already- there’s no problem.’
4.12
Rose and husband
Born in exile, of parents who fled earlier massacres, Rose and her husband David have been fighting with the rebel army since it first crossed into Rwanda from Uganda four years ago to start its long campaign.
Rose: ‘We have to give security to our people; you can see most of them are displaced, either they’re in hiding, so they must stop and think that [what] the RPF will do is to set you up- the people.’
David: ‘The RPF [has been] fighting this war for about four years, so if we’re not convinced that we were doing the right thing, I think we would not be here.’
Hospital, groans etc.
4.40
Injured people: girl/woman turns around to reveal bandages on her back and front.
This is what happens when a Government, desperate to cling on to power, unleashes the primitive fears and ancient prejudices of an ill-educated people.
There was no spontaneous massacre. The killing was efficient: well planned.
David sitting on bench.
Woman and a kid.
David talking to PG.
PG: ‘David, tell me about this woman’s extraordinary story.’
David: ‘she saw a group of militia in the army together with some soldiers, and they all came to the house and gathered them somewhere with the rest of the population in the neighbourhood, and started hacking them: hacked on the neck, both legs, both arms; she had four children: two died; she has two with her here also who are also hacked. And then they realised that pretending to be hacked would save them; so stayed in the dead bodies in the group of dead bodies for a week.’
Doctor and nurse bend to tend patient.
Doctor: ‘how are you feeling?’
Patient: ‘I am feeling better,’
For survivors there’s only the most basic treatment at improvised hospitals.
5:12
Doctor speaks to PG
Doctor: ‘This patient is injured by bayonet, in the stomach.’
PG: ‘She’s in very grave danger of losing her life, is that right?’
Doctor: ‘Yes, if nothing is done in two days she can die.’
7:06
Hospital shots and exteriors of patients washing/cooking
Government-backed militias in almost every town and village systematically attacked Tutsis and thousands of others: anyone suspected of opposing the Government.
It went beyond ethnic violence. Hutus like Dr Sosthene Bucyana turned for help to the rebels to be rescued from the mayhem.
PG and doctor outside
‘But these injuries have been done in some cases by their neighbours, how are they ever going to live with them again?’
‘Some people have been killed or injured by some neighbours because of ideas from politicians. Otherwise people live together, the common people live together. They share everything in their lives without problems.’
Orphan boy (Urimbenshi) sitting/ talking
Louis: ‘When all those Hutus went away they started killing all the Tutsi with grenades and guns.’
7:45
Urimbenshi is one of countless orphans who have watched their parents slain before their eyes in recent weeks, and their siblings hacked to death.
Urimbenshi: ‘That’s when me and my friends ran away through a banana plantation. When the militiamen saw us they shouted out that we were RPF and they attacked us with machetes.’
8:30
Orphans
These children have been orphaned in the past few weeks- there are thousands of them.
And there’ve been generations of orphans and exiles since 1962 when Belgium pulled out from a colony whose tribal rivalries it had exploited to quell and rule the people.
8:48
Crying child.
In the intervening years, each generation of children has seen other massacres, civil war and brutal repression, leaving a legacy of scepticism amongst Rwandans that the patriotic front- the RPF- has inherited.
Antoine Rutayisire: orphanage leader.
‘It will depend on the influence the RPF is going to have in the country, because when you look at their politics, particularly because they’re against that err… thing of ethnic apartness, I think they will manage well for this society.’
Researcher
‘Do you believe the RPF any more than you’ve believed anyone else?’
Antoine:
‘I don’t know, I am waiting to see.’
10:21
Soldier woman cleans children’s nails
It is for the cause of future generations that the RPF (like many liberation movements) justifies its fight. David and Rose Kabuye left their baby son behind with family in Uganda to come and fight the war.
David and Rose
David: ‘Of course it’s difficult to leave your child, especially when both parents are going, but again I think, we both thought that it would even be better for that child if we tried and, if we try to liberate our country.’
Rose: ‘Yes, I made that [decision] for my son and for other sons, for the people of Rwanda, for the Rwandese people.’
10:44
Soldiers stand around while cows are milked.
Behind the frontlines, there is already a nonchalance amongst Patriotic Front soldiers: the arrogance of an army that has watched the opposition crumble before it and believes victory is nigh.
10:56
Soldiers sit at gate and listen to the radio.
But the war of words is as vicious as ever… the voice of a desperate Government broadcast 24 hours a day urging its population to still greater slaughter.
David translates the radio broadcast.
David: ‘It preaches that the Tutsi should eliminate the Hutu, [I mean] the Hutu should eliminate the Tutsi and that the Tutsis should be cleared from the face of Rwanda.’
PG: ‘Why is it that it er… you laugh so much about it? What is it that amuses you so much about it?’
David: ‘It’s because whatever they say is extraordinary, it’s not even… it’s unreasonable, it’s untrue, it’s so funny.’
11:08
Tito Rutaremara, Rwandan Patriotic Front
‘Those people who have been manipulated you can forgive them when they crime because you can’t punish the whole country.’
11:53
Two-shots
Tito Rutarmara was slated to lead the Patriotic Front in Rwanda’s parliament under last year’s failed peace agreement.
P: ‘But what’s going to stop your soldiers from killing people out of hand if they suspect that they’ve been involved in massacres?’
T: ‘No, our soldiers first and report they know what they’re fighting for. They know it, they know our protocol programme, they know that they need the unity of country; and then they’re politically sensitised: they can’t do it.’
12:06
Refugees in Byumba
The town of Byumba is deep in rebel-held territory. But the people held here are not its residents; they fled as fighting raged around them: now a flood of refugees has taken their place.
Hutu or Tutsi, they find their lives in the hands of the Patriotic Front.
13:05
Opposition leaders around a table
Among the destitute, members of a former elite: the few opposition politicians who survived the terrible slaughter in the capital Kigali; one of them, the nation’s Finance Minister, was found hiding and almost starved in his home.
Talking with PG around a table
PG: ‘So tell me sir, the people sitting around, at this table, are they Tutsi or are they Hutu or what?’
Bonadventure Ubalijoro: ‘Er we are mixed, so we can show you who are Hutus…
13:24
Hutus in the group raise their hands. There are 5.
Though not allied to the Patriotic Front, they argue the movement is now the only hope for unity, and for peace in Rwanda.
Tutsis in the group raise their hands.
Bonadventure Ubalijoro: ‘And the others are Tutsi:’
PG: ‘Four?’
Bonadventure Ubalijoro: ‘Yeah.’
Bonadventure Ubalijoro: opposition leader.
‘Maybe we have to put together all our different ideas to build the country.’
13:31
Banana-leaf tent city
Building tent
Neither peace, nor normality will come easily to this tiny country.
Millions are on the move: their families shattered, crops abandoned, possessions gone.
They gather together for safety, building meagre protection with banana leaves from a rainy season that drenches them daily.
13:52
People demolishing tent and sticks
Then moving on again, searching for more secure refuge and for international aid agencies that will supply them with food.
14:56
Starving children, some with big bellies
The enormity of the problem would crush the resources of a Government- let alone a rebel army.
16:39
Long shot of Rose and PG walking through camp
There is a burning anger in the Patriotic Front that the UN withdrew most of its armed peacekeepers when the massacres began, yet now considers returning when holocaust is over.
Rose and David talk to PG
PG: ‘So from the point of view of food and the point of view of medicine and so on, is that, that is beyond your resources to deal with?’
Rose: ‘Definitely because the only food we can afford is for our soldiers, and the little medicine we have is just for our soldiers.’
PG: ‘The Rwandan Patriotic Front has been quite critical of the international community for its lack of action on this and yet you still rely on them for help don’t you?’
Rose: ‘The lack of action is that the thing they could have done is the most important thing was to save lives, and in the time of need they didn’t do anything.’
17:54
Rose in refugee camp
The Patriotic Front has a clear message for the UN and countries like Australia, which may send in troops: it will accept aid and protection for refugees but it will not tolerate peace-keepers who stand in the way of victory.
Bonadventure Ubalijoro
PG: ‘Are you saying that the rest of the world can now mind its own business and you will solve your own problems?’
Bonadventure Ubalijoro: ‘Well we say that we still need the international community; we have lots of people who are suffering and who need to eat but we need humanitarian aid.’
PG: ‘But you will solve your own political problems, is that what you’re saying?’
Bonadventure Ubalijoro: ‘Well I think that we will solve our own political problems and if we need any help we will call our friends and tell them to come and help us.’
19:13
Machete shots. People carry pangas
The weapons of massacre are still in the hands of the people, for the panga (the machete) is both daily work tool and the means by which neighbour has killed neighbour for generations.
Rwanda has now gone well beyond the brink; yet a war has still to be won or lost, and starvation and disease threaten.
21:43
Abandoned banana tents
PTC
There have been reports of the summary execution of militiamen and some accusations that Patriotic Front soldiers have killed civilians, but we’ve run across no evidence of that since we’ve been here.
23:16
Deserted village
For now, the scent of death in almost every village is nauseating: sweet, sickly, appalling.
Wide shot of a skeleton in doorway.
Rwanda is not alone in witnessing what havoc the power hungry can wreck when ancient fears and prejudices are set aflame.
23:32
Choir sings
But there’s something unique about the scale of this catastrophe.
23:37
Hands held out in supplication.
If the Patriotic Front (and the international community) acting together, fail to deliver on the pledge of peace and unity, he cycle of disaster must continue into the next generation.
END