Photograph by Sebastião Salgado
This photograph of Salgado’s is, without a doubt, the most graphic photograph used yet in my blog. It captures the paralyzing scene of the “burial” of 4,000 Rwandan refugees. These people have all died at the refugee camp in Kibumba because of various health difficulties, such as cholera, dysentery, and starvation. Because there are so many corpses, tractors (like the one shown in this picture) pile the bodies up against mounds of volcanic lava and then cover up these stacks with heaps of earth.
“Scholars of these sorts of events say the killers, armed mostly with machetes and clubs, nonetheless did their work five times as fast as the mechanized gas chambers used by the Nazis” (Amanpour). These are the words of former U.S. President Bill Clinton, who held the position as president throughout this awful event. To present a more tangible understanding of just how terrible the Rwandan Massacre was, Wikipedia claims that from the massacre’s window of approximately 100 days, “estimates of the death toll have ranged between 500,000 and 1,000,000, or as much as 20% of the total population of the country” (Wikipedia). The Rwandan Massacre was indeed genocide. It was born out of a history of much contention and open differences between the nation’s two major ethnic groups – the Hutu and the Tutsi. The contentions peaked when Hutus established control in the government and began to exercise ideologies that the Tutsi planned to enslave the Hutu. Spreading ideas such as this by means of propaganda, a significantly large portion of the nation’s Hutu population began “cleansing” the nation of
Machetes and machine guns were the tools used to “cleanse” the nation. What they really did was stain the lands red with blood. So many lives were broken and altered forever because of these long 100 days. Even today the story of the Rwandan Massacre is told and retold again and again. Hopefully we can learn from the mistakes of our past and avoid another catastrophe such as this one. But, ultimately, it is up to us.
Works Cited
“Rwandan Genocide”. Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 2010. Web. 4 Feb. 2010.
Salgado, Sebastião. Photograph. Migrations: Humanity in Transition. Aperture.
What has ever been cleansed by a machete or machine gun? Many times in history nations have claimed that mass genocide is a way of cleansing their land. Killing never solves the root of conflict though. Often it temporarily puts one faction in control, but the hate and contention only grow stronger. When the killing stops the repercussions do not. The problem is the hate that is passed on for generations. The children do not know why they do what they do, but it is justified to them by the way they have grown up.
ReplyDeleteIt is just so tragic what happened in Rwanda. To think that we were still watching Barney when these people were running for their lives. It has been quite the eye opener reading "Left to Tell." Reading the first hand account of the genocide and then seeing this picture just makes it so real. It is a terrifying reality.
ReplyDelete