Genocide Tourism

Towards the end of our day, I asked our guide what tourists to Rwanda would do if they didn’t want to learn or see Genocide related things. The short answer is not much. Being was such an overwhelming event, that’s what you come and see in Kigali.

It was Umuganda today, so things don’t really get back to normal until 2:00 in the afternoon and our guide had to sweet talk our way into the two churches which were memorial sites of massacres, Nyamata and Ntarama. Piles and piles of skulls and other bones are piled row on row. Many skulls featured obviously machete wounds which gashed or completely severed many skulls. I found the worst part was the blood stained wall which babies and small children were thrown against. Nearby was a long pole used to kill babies in the womb. The depth of man’s potential inhumanity is truly staggering.

Ntarama Memorial Site

The holes in the walls and windows are from the murderers breaking into the crowded church where many hundreds were gathered for sanctuary.

Can you imagine 267,000 people buried in one spot, here at the main Kigali Memorial Centre? There are many mass graves here which one photo can’t encompass. Words are not enough.

Kigali Memorial Centre Mass Graves

The Memorial has a section for other genocides of the last 200 years. From the Germans in East Africa, to the Turks in Armenia to Hitler to Pol Pot to the Balkans (and I missed some). I couldn’t help but think of how now we are watching Anti-Semitism grow right in front of our faces, while Israel becomes more and more isolated and Muslim hatred for Jews notably in the Middle East and Europe seems to deepen. Genocide doesn’t happen overnight. It is nurtured.

Sure we drove by a market, a president’s house and saw various other places with our hired driver. But after touring three genocide memorial sites, anything else becomes inconsequential. I hope I sleep OK tonight.