A nurse who survived the Rwandan genocide and wrote the first civilian testimony of the massacre said Myanmar’s persecution of its Rohingya Muslim minority amounts to genocide and is a “shame on the world’s conscience”.
During the genocide, Yolande Mukagasana, 65, lost her entire family, a three-month murder spree of 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus that started 25 years ago.
Mukagasana wrote “Not My Time To Die” after escaping to Belgium, a book documenting her escape and her husband and three children’s murder, trying to avoid ethnic persecution from occurring again.
But a military campaign in Myanmar showed in 2017 that drove some 730,000 ethnic Rohingya to neighboring Bangladesh “genocide is still happening,” Mukagasana told reporters on Thursday.
“I myself saw the first signs of genocide in Rwanda when I was five years old. Because I was a Tutsi, I was called a snake and a cockroach,” she said.
“Now I am 65 years old and I still see genocide happening. It makes me furious. It shames us all.”
Extremist Hutu propaganda on radio and in magazines referred to the Tutsis minority as cockroaches and a mortal threat during the Rwandan genocide.
Similar language, Mukagasana noted, is being used today in Myanmar, where extremists on social media have called the Rohingya or other Muslim dogs, maggots and rapists and encouraged them to be shot.
The United Nations said the crackdown on Myanmar was carried out with “genocidal intent,” including mass murders, gang rapes, and rampant arson.
“I feel so disappointed. How can the world still allow people to hate others for their differences?” said Mukagasana.
In April 1994, when a plane carrying Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana was shot down and the genocide began, her book recounts how her life running a health clinic in the capital Kigali was shattered.
Government soldiers and allied extremist militias began attempting to exterminate the Tutsi minority in villages throughout the densely populated country. Men, women, and children were shot, burned alive, clubbed to death.
Mukagasana, a comparatively rich Tutsi woman, feared that she was a target and hid her three kids and a relative with a Hutu identity card.
“I was walking toward death in order to protect my children and I hoped they would survive,” she said.
“But months later I said goodbye to them again at the mass grave and it tore me apart. I still have a piece of the earth where they were buried,” she said.
Overall, over 100 days of slaughter that wiped out 70 percent of the Tutsi minority population killed 800,000 persons.
Among the legacies of the genocide is the International Criminal Court, which emerged from the courts to explore and prosecute those responsible for the crimes played in Rwanda and during the 1990’s Balkan wars.
While Mukagasana commended her own nation for enhancing women’s rights, many of whom have been abused during the genocide, she claims strong countries and global bodies like the UN are failing those in need.
“The UN and other great powers have tools to protect humanity, but they have failed us. How many times must I hear the words ‘never again?’”
During a week of holy celebrations in Rwanda celebrating the life of those killed during the genocide, the English translation of “Not My Time To Die” by Zoe Norridge of King’s College London was released in April.