[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 57 (Tuesday, April 8, 2014)]
[House]
[Pages H3040-H3042]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
REMEMBERING THE RWANDAN GENOCIDE
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 3, 2013, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Cleaver) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
General Leave
Mr. CLEAVER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members
may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and
include extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Missouri?
There was no objection.
Mr. CLEAVER. Mr. Speaker, my Special Order deals with the very
difficult and even painful subject of Rwanda.
Mr. Speaker, there is an ancient story about Rwanda. It is one from
which a number of meanings can be extracted.
We are here today because we remember the victims of the horrific
events in our world's history. We honor survivors and recognize the
steps that have been taken to remedy the atrocities that have occurred.
Over and over, you will hear people on this floor, Mr. Speaker, say
that things that have happened in our history that were horrific and
inhuman shall never happen again. Things like American slavery and the
European extermination, mainly by Germany, of Jews throughout Europe
should never happen again.
{time} 1745
So we must continue to fight for justice as the international issues
come to our consciousness. And we know that, as time moves on, there
will be additional tragedies around the globe.
Rwanda has certainly experienced its share, if not more than its
share, of tragedy. This ancient parable in Rwandan is, God spends the
day elsewhere, but he sleeps in Rwanda--Imana yirirwa ahandi igataha I
Rwanda. For those of us who are familiar with the creation story, we
know that God worked for 6 days and then rested. The Rwandan people
believe that God, on the seventh day, came to Rwanda to rest from his
work the previous 6 days.
Rwanda is 1 mile above sea level, about what Denver, Colorado is. And
because of its elevation, Rwanda is paradisiacal, in the sense that the
climate is cooler in Rwanda than it is in many of the other parts of
Africa, certainly sub-Saharan Africa, and the greenery is like that of
no other place in Africa, and it will rival even some of the beautiful
spots in the Caribbean.
It is also a fabulous place, the Rwandans thought, for God to come to
rest.
Well, in a country of seven million, at least in 1994--who knows what
the population is today, after many of the atrocities, but the people
believed that God could rest there in this beautiful, this lush, very,
very receiving and welcoming land, without being interrupted.
Now, all cultures, all religions choose to elevate its land or its
people. For example, the Jewish people, understandably, refer to the
Sea of Galilee as a sea. For those who know geography, you know that
the Sea of Galilee is actually a lake.
The Jordan River--before I went there for the first time, back in
1994, I envisioned the Jordan River as something comparable to the
Mississippi River or something comparable to the Missouri River, which
is about 2,000 miles across the country.
The truth of the matter is, there were certain points of the Jordan
River that I actually jumped over. And it flows down into the Dead Sea,
which is, again, not a sea, but another lake.
So it is understandable that people will declare something to be a
little more than it really is. So the Rwandan people, believing that
God came to their country, this paradise, 1 mile above sea level, was
something that, I think, many of us would have done had we been
Rwandans.
I also know that there were people who would question how could God
sleep in a place with all of the genocide that has taken place there,
with all of the violence against the men and women and children, and
even violence based on tribal ethnicity. But the Rwandan people still
believe that God sleeps in their country.
I believe that God sleeps in Rwanda, but I also believe that He is
awakened because of what has happened. God can neither sleep nor
slumber where there is injustice, where there is wrong, where there is
murder, and so God has had an unrestful amount of time, unrestful
nights in Rwanda since the beginning of the great genocide.
800,000 people, Mr. Speaker, mostly ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus,
died at the hand of Hutu extremists during a 100-day period; a 100-day
period.
That would be killing all the people of my hometown of Kansas City,
Missouri, the largest city in our State, and all the people 221 miles
away in St. Louis. Both cities would be completely exterminated if they
lost 800,000 people.
But the Rwandan people lost 800,000 people in 100 days. That is seven
individuals, seven human beings created by God, murdered every 7
minutes.
Ten thousand victims were killed each day. Just think about it:
10,000 human beings created with the hands of the alms-giving God. And
then someone stole their lives for something as petty as ethnicity,
something as petty as a different language.
So when you think about hundreds of thousands of victims who were
murdered, there are hundreds of other thousands of victims who were
infected with HIV, as the Hutu extremists raped, as a tool of violence,
women and young girls.
The killing ended once Tutsi rebel forces attacked and retook the
country.
When I think about what we have done and what we have spent in lands
around the world, to tragedies no less repulsive, I have to raise the
question, why has the United States been asleep, lo, these many years?
I think that our children and our children's children will look back
on the nineties, in particular, and wonder, where were the Americans?
Where was the United States while this happened?
Now, 20 years after all of the genocide, Rwanda has moved stunningly
in a new and positive direction. I am very pleased that they have, and
all Americans should be pleased. But there still is much work to be
done.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Welch).
Mr. WELCH. Mr. Cleaver, I appreciate you doing this.
You know, it is just staggering to think about what happened and all
of those people going about their daily lives 20 years ago, on April 7,
and knowing they are going to die, knowing their loved ones are going
to die.
It is so unspeakable that we can't, I can't really imagine what it
would be like to live in that country, to live in a neighborhood where
you know your moment is coming, where you have a child who is going to
die before your very eyes, where your daughter is going to be raped and
then killed.
To have this sense of the horror of what is taking place, it is
unspeakable. But the realization that the world is going to ignore it,
and that happened, day in and day out. Most of us didn't even know
about it. There would be reports, but it would be in a distant place.
It wasn't anything that you could do anything about.
It was only as the stories fully came out and the horror was fully
revealed that the collective gaze of the world that was not acting--
there were all kinds of reasons why I suppose we couldn't or we didn't.
But just try to put yourself in the place of the family, up and down
that country, where the word is going from one village to another, from
one community to another, from one family to another, that you have got
to do everything you can to get out.
And where you live in a community where the majority is going to kill
you if they find you, where, as you hide and try to conceal yourself or
your kids, you can't figure out how to feed them,
[[Page H3041]]
and you have got to come out into the light of day and put yourself at
the mercy of your luck, where do you find or meet somebody who might
give you a meal so that you can carry on another day.
It is not anything that I can imagine, just the wholesale use of
murder in ethnic cleansing, in order to achieve a political goal.
What is an amazing thing is what Mr. Cleaver just told us, about the
recovery of Rwanda. These people go on.
Imagine living with the heartache that will never leave you, that you
lost a son or daughter, a parent or grandparent. How do you get
yourself up and start all over again?
How do you deal with the hatred that you have to fight because it
will consume you and prevent you from carrying on yourself?
How do you do that?
The people in Rwanda are doing that and rebuilding that country,
rebuilding their economy, and facing life on a day-in-and-day-out
basis.
But having a moment to pause and remember is, I think, humbling for
all of us. The capacity that we have, as people, to go awry and do
things that never, in a million years, do we think was possible,
reminds me of just how fragile life is and how really, in a lot of
ways, fragile good governance is. You can't take it for granted.
I think all of us here know that there are forces that can get
unleashed which, once they are, have an enormously powerful and
destructive tendency. The challenge for all of us is to create ways
where we can resolve conflict in peaceful and civil ways. The work of
that is the work of this Congress and the work of this democracy.
It is fragile. It isn't anything we can ever take for granted. It has
to be with that purpose of allowing people to find ways to resolve
differences peacefully.
So this is an amazing moment, 20 years after the beginning of the
slaughter of 800,000 innocent people, and a slaughter by very cruel and
very painful and very relentless efforts.
So thank you so much, Mr. Cleaver, for allowing us to have this
moment of reflection.
Mr. CLEAVER. Thank you to Mr. Welch, who is a very conscientious
Member of this body. We appreciate his sensitivity, as well as that of
many others who probably will not be here on the floor.
I will state again, because Congressman Welch has mentioned it, that
is 800,000 people, 800,000 people killed, murdered in 100 days. 10,000
human beings killed every 24 hours in this world during our lifetime.
So the Rwandans' ancient parable about God sleeping at night in
Rwanda is only partially true. God could not sleep nor slumber with
this kind of tragedy taking place anywhere in a world that He created
for freedom and justice and peace and harmony.
Mr. Speaker, I yield as much time as he may consume to the gentleman
from the Fifth District of Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the whip of the
Democratic Caucus.
{time} 1800
(Mr. HOYER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. HOYER. Never again. We intone those words, ``never again.'' We
intone those words because we have seen horror and felt guilt that it
happens on our watch, and so we say ``never again.''
Mr. Speaker, I had the honor of chairing the Commission on Security
and Cooperation in Europe. That commission was formed as a result of
the signing of the Helsinki Final Act in 1975 by Gerald Ford and
leaders of 34 other European nations, including the Soviet Union,
including West Germany, including East Germany. Never again.
The extraordinary Holocaust that cost the lives of millions and
millions and millions and millions more; not only in the Holocaust,
where 6 million Jews were taken from us, taken from their families,
taken from their countries, taken from life, but millions more in
Russia, Ukraine, and literally in scores of other venues murdered.
They were murdered not because of their engagement in war, not
because of their engagement in crime, but because of who they were,
what religion they had, what ethnic background they claimed--murdered--
murdered because of what they were, and the murderers did not like what
they were--not their character, not their intellect, not their conduct,
but who they were.
So here we are, 20 years later, having watched as genocide was,
again, perpetrated in Rwanda. The genocide in Rwanda, the 20th
anniversary of which we mark this week, provided Americans with one of
our most painful examples of a failure to act, but not Americans alone,
Mr. Speaker. The entire civilized world waited, watched, lamented, but
did not stop the genocide.
America and much of the world waited far too long to become involved
in Rwanda, and even then, international peacekeepers were not given a
mandate for the resources to stop the killing.
I am sure many of us, Mr. Speaker, saw the movie ``Hotel Rwanda.''
Nick Nolte played the blue-helmeted colonel who was in charge of the
U.N. unit. When carnage was occurring and the colonel that Nolte was
playing was watching, someone asked: Why aren't you doing something?
And his response was: because that is not our mandate, it is to report.
I will say, in a minute, that thousands of lives were saved by the
blue helmets and by others, but the U.N. mandate was not to stop it,
but to report it.
President Clinton has expressed regret that the United States did not
act in time to save lives, saying last year, ``If we'd gone in sooner,
I believe we could have saved at least a third of the lives that were
lost.''
Now, the figure of 800,000 is being used, but that is an estimate. It
could be as little, perhaps, as 500,000 and as many as 1 million-plus.
It is estimated that more than 1 million men, women, and children were
killed in a span of--as my friend from Missouri, Reverend Cleaver--
Congressman Emanuel Cleaver has said. 1 million in 100 days, 10,000
victims every day, 7 people shot or hacked to death with machetes every
minute, every minute, and the world watched and wrung its hands and
said how wrong that was, and the machetes kept hacking.
More than just killing, the Rwandan genocide left hundreds of
thousands of people infected with HIV as a result of another implement
of war that those who perpetrate genocide have used, rape, a crime not
of sexual desire, but of violence, of injury, of hate.
Widows of murdered men were infected and, in many cases, left to bear
the children of their rapist. The children, of course, were infected,
too.
The violence left 400,000 orphans, small children who then had to
learn at a young age how to care for their younger siblings on their
own.
Mr. Speaker, the Rwandan genocide provided the world with yet another
lesson in our shared responsibility not just to say the words ``never
again,'' but to mean them. Mr. Speaker, we are our brother's keeper,
and our brother needs our vigilance and our help, as we need his; and
we are our sister's keeper, just as well.
Just as the genocide displayed humanity's darkest side, it also
provided us with proof of human courage and defiance in the face of
evil. From the outnumbered U.N. peacekeepers who saved lives wherever
they could--and that ability was far too limited--to the individual
Rwandans who risked death and rape to protect their neighbors, we
acknowledge those few moments of moral clarity in the midst of great
evil.
I said that I was the chairman of the Commission on Security and
Cooperation in Europe. Mr. Speaker, 250,000 Bosniaks lost their lives
in a genocide perpetrated by Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic.
We finally acted in that case and saved literally hundreds of
thousands of more, deposed Milosevic, and put him in the dock for war
crimes in the Hague, but not before 8,000 souls in Bosnia were gunned
down and murdered in Trebenista. The U.N. troops failed to stop that--
again, insufficient resources.
So, Mr. Speaker, as we mark this 20th anniversary of the genocide in
Rwanda, I join my colleagues in mourning those who were killed and in
recognizing the many changes Rwanda has undergone over the past two
decades. We all wish Rwanda continued success in its efforts to take
from the ashes a successful society and to protect the safety and
freedom of its people.
[[Page H3042]]
I hope Americans across the country will take some time this week to
reflect not only on the Rwandan genocide, but on all genocides, to
remember its horrors and to promise never to let our Nation sit idly by
as a genocide takes place. Mr. Speaker, it is a complicated conclusion,
too long, too often delayed.
I want to thank my colleagues for joining me to recognize this solemn
anniversary. I want to thank, in particular, my dear friend from
Missouri, Emanuel Cleaver, who preaches to his flock, who preaches to
his constituents and, yes, who preaches to all of us to look to the
better nature of our souls, to reach out, to lift up, to protect, to
give solace, to give sympathy, to give empathy, to give understanding,
and to be our brother's keeper.
Mr. CLEAVER. I thank the distinguished whip for his comments and for,
frankly, requesting that we have the opportunity this evening to
remember those horrific events in world history.
As the whip said, we must declare ``never again,'' and it must be
real and serious; and, if necessary, we must redouble our efforts
against evil anywhere it presents its ugly head.
The pain that I am still feeling here tonight is because, since 1995,
the international tribunal has indicted 95 individuals. Let me go back
and remind you, 800,000--it could be many more--died, 95 individuals
have been indicted, and there have been 49 convictions.
Now, if there is a person with a heart anywhere on the planet, that
heart should be broken right now, knowing what happened to the Rwandan
people, what happened to women, little girls, children. The world shall
not tolerate this again.
I would like to now yield to the distinguished Congressman from the
Ninth District of Memphis, Tennessee, Mr. Steve Cohen.
Mr. COHEN. I thank the gentleman from Missouri for yielding, and I
appreciate the whip for bringing this hour to the attention of Members
of Congress and the opportunity to speak on this historic 20th
anniversary of this slaughter.
I had the opportunity to visit Rwanda in the company of one of the
great men who served in this House, Congressman Donald Payne of New
Jersey. Congressman Payne had made several trips to Rwanda and several
trips to Africa.
We visited the memorial there to the victims, which is a very special
place in the world, burial spots and flowers and plaques and the museum
company there, too. It made a great impression on me, and it would make
a great impression on anybody.
One thing that came out of the trip was my realization that today, in
Rwanda, the Hutus and the Tutsis get along and that what was horrific
20 years ago, in one of the most horrific ethnic cleansings--or
attempted ethnic cleansings and hate, atrocities, murders, over time,
the Rwandan people have overcome them.
The distinctions are no longer present, and the people do get along.
Obviously, because of the horrific situation, there is an imbalance in
the populations, and I am sure there are still some memories; but we do
need to learn, as I am sure has been said, about when we turn to
thinking of other people as different because we are all the same.
There was a time a little after this, I think it was about 1999, when
I was at Union Station. President Clinton was there, and we had some
time to talk, and he related how the Human Genome Project that Dr.
Francis Collins--now the head of the NIH--was heading up and how that
we are all 99.96 percent the same, and we are.
He mentioned the Hutus and the Tutsis and how they were just so, so,
so, so, so alike, but the minor differences that were visible caused
them to have this awful, awful, horrific genocide.
It pained President Clinton. Whip Hoyer mentioned that this is
something that he brought up before, that it was a mistake while he was
President not to intervene. It was right after the difficulty that we
had in Mogadishu with the helicopter and the way the American soldiers
were killed and horrifically treated in the streets of Mogadishu by the
Somali groups there.
It was a reticence to get involved in another situation in Africa,
and it is a tight line sometimes to determine when you go in and when
you don't. Well, the President made a mistake there, as he has admitted
over the years.
If we look at other situations that might present themselves to us,
as Members of Congress, we have to realize the United States of America
has a special place in the world.
We are the only country that has the ability to see that mankind
doesn't engage in horrific genocides again, so when the opportunity for
the United States to get involved and prevent a slaughter, prevent a
genocide, the United States has a responsibility.
Inasmuch as it is difficult after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to
commit our troops to action when situations like Rwanda present
themselves, it is incumbent upon us, I think, to support--whoever is
the President--in taking the proper actions to preserve humanity.
{time} 1815
So I thank Whip Hoyer for calling for this hour and Mr. Cleaver for
leading it, and I just wanted to add my thoughts and my reflections
after having visited Rwanda with a great Member of Congress, Donald
Payne.
Mr. CLEAVER. Thank you, Mr. Cohen.
Mr. Speaker, may I inquire about the remaining time?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman has 28 minutes remaining.
Mr. CLEAVER. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
____________________