The Foreign Service Journal, April 2004

A P R I L 2 0 0 4 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 47 he Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in 1948, soon after the end of World War II. Its preamble was clearly influenced by the atrocities of that conflict, assert- ing that “disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind.” Yet 10 years ago, in April 1994, despite the promises of “never again” uttered in the wake of the Holocaust, the international community failed to respond when ethnic massacres exploded across Rwanda. An estimated 750,000 men, women and children were brutally slaughtered in the tiny Central African country of Rwanda. It was one of the worst cases of genocide in the 20th century. Despite warnings of imminent disaster from United Nations officials, diplomats and others in Rwanda, the United States and other leading countries refused to intervene. When the killing began, most foreigners were evacuated, leaving behind a small, helpless contingent of U.N. peacekeepers who could do little more than protect themselves. Even as the grim death toll brought on by machete-wielding ethnic Hutu fanatics mounted, no action was taken. For a while the U.S. State Department refused even to acknowledge that what was happening in Rwanda was, in fact, genocide. Only after nearly three-quarters of a million ethnic Tutsi and reconciliation-minded Hutu were butchered was there any sort of concerted international relief effort — and that, bizarrely, went mainly to assist the killers and their sup- porters after they were forced to flee into neighboring countries by Tutsi-led Rwandan rebels who eventually halt- ed the bloodshed. Discovering A Massacre There were many major massacre sites scattered across the country. But none was perhaps more emo- tionally overpowering than the one in the small, remote eastern Rwandan town of Nyarubuye, where in late May 1994 I was among the first journalists to discover hundreds of corpses in and around a church. The following is a verba- tim record of the words I dictated live to tape as I approached, and then walked through the site. We’ve just driven several kilometers along a dirt road north from the Rwandan border town of Rusumo and we’ve arrived in a small town called Nyarubuye. And right here on the ground in front of me is the decomposed corpse of a child, its skull bleached white, its dress still lying on what is left of the body. In the tall grass nearby, anoth- er body. ... This body has been flattened, its skull crushed. These bodies are lying in front of a church. Just in the courtyard here in front of the church I can count 10 bodies, assorted body parts. ... There’s a decapitated child. We’re now about to go into the church itself and right on the steps is a body. And inside the church are several more bodies, again badly decomposed. ... Obviously people fled R EMEMBERING R WANDA : A N E YEWITNESS TO THE H ORROR I N A PRIL 1994, AN ESTIMATED THREE - QUARTERS OF A MILLION MEN , WOMEN AND CHILDREN WERE BRUTALLY SLAUGHTERED IN THE TINY C ENTRAL A FRICAN COUNTRY OF R WANDA . I T WAS ONE OF THE WORST CASES OF GENOCIDE IN THE 20 TH CENTURY . B Y A LEX B ELIDA T Currently assigned to the Pentagon, Alex Belida is a senior correspondent with the Voice of America who has spent more than 30 years in international broadcasting. He is also the IBB representative to AFSA’s Governing Board. Among a handful of reporters who attempted to chroni- cle the bloodshed, often at great personal risk, Belida, then VOA’s East Africa Bureau chief, traveled to Rwanda as the killing went on. He drew on some of his original broadcast scripts to prepare this article. The views are his own. CIA World Fact Book