A couple days ago I read a tweet calling October “an awareness month for the Genocide against the Hutus”, it is important to understand not only is this the insulting act of claiming a double genocide, but it is also the telling of wrong history.
The month of October should remind us of the thousands of Tutsis who had been oppressed in many other instances before April 7th 1994. There are alot of events that show us the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi was not a single, random event, it had been planned.
30 years ago, on October 4th 1990, a curfew was imposed on Kigali and throughout the night, gunshots were heard across the city. This was a staged assault by FAR.
The next day, Habyarimana, used the assault as an excuse to round up thousands of Tutsis and Hutu moderates who were then sent to the famous 1930 Prison and/or the Ruhengeri Prison. My parents were among the 10,000 Tutsis sent to 1930.
Even though they were never charged with any crime, they were accused of participating in the assault on Kigali, more specifically, of being “ibyitso bya” FPR. Some were only jailed for a few days/weeks while others like my parents were jailed for 6 months.
Even after all of that, they still considered themselves the lucky. A lot of Tutsis never made it, they were tortured/beaten so much, they sustained lifelong injuries while others were simply killed.
As many of our families remember October 5th (and as we celebrate October 1st), we are reminded how the scope of genocide ideology took more lives than we’ll probably ever imagine or account for.
From killings, imprisonment, refugee waves, there are countless lives that were lost/permanently affected throughout the decades that led up to the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsis.
It is important that we always call out denialism of the Genocide Against the Tutsis. A genocide can never have two sides to a story. 🙏🏿
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