Rwanda Genocide, 15 years or 50

This week in April marks the 15th anniversary of the death of the President of Rwanda and President of Burundi when their plane was shot down on it's approach to Kigali. That incident triggered the slaughter of between 800,000 and one million Rwandans, many of them women, children and infants. The streets lay littered with corpses, the rivers ran red with their blood and their souls cried out to the world for justice. The 7th of April commemorates the start of one of the deadliest and most brutal 100 days in world history, as the world sat back and said it is just African tribes fighting as usual. What a sad legacy for the rest of the worlds powers to bear, with the greatest burden to be on the shoulders of the UN. Our world peace keeping force that was here and not only stood by but packed up and left the country.

Was this something that just happened in the blink of an eye or the shooting down of one aircraft? No, this had been going on since the late 1950's with prison camps or death camps situated in areas' of Rwanda that were known for Malaria, drought and tetis flies. The world knew of these atrocities and still did nothing, the UN was here and still did nothing. The evidence was there that something was going to happen, the stock piling of thousands of machetes, (for a future sugar cane production), the hate speech and denial of basic human rights.

Now, in 2009 the world is here to look back and say how sad, to give aid in order to help rebuild, to voice the opinion it could never happen again. I pray it does not. Not in Rwanda or any where else in the world. God, not history will be the final judge.