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ONLY a few years ago in the nation of Rwanda, 800,000
citizens were brutalized and murdered by their own neighbours.
Though Hutu and Tutsi tribes are the same ethnic group,
share the same language, live and work together, and share the same
Christian (mainly Roman Catholic) religion, Tutsis and supportive Hutus
were slaughtered by people with whom they had co-existed peacefully for
generations.
The result of endless hatemongering, prejudice,
jealousy and lies, the Rwandan genocide has become a lesson, which must be
taught to all peoples – and to future generations.
Genocide survivor Regina King will speak October 20
about her experiences during this tragedy of human evil, and about her
current restoration work. Now a Canadian citizen completing her doctorate
at the University of Toronto, King – who is a Tutsi – will be
sharing her story at Victoria’s ‘Dare to Care’ Global
Missions Exposition.
BCCN asks: How could
one half of a society turn and kill the other half?
“People were made to feel different, even from
school age. Tutsis became dehumanized. We were called snakes and
cockroaches.
“I lost two brothers. I lost many other family
members and friends. I lost all my uncles, many cousins and
others.” Many of the killings were grotesquely sadistic.
“They cut us with machetes. They would have
Tutsis set off grenades on ourselves. They would have us kill each
other. We were marched at gunpoint for kilometres, while they looked for
other Hutus who could kill us in more painful, horrible ways. They marched
us on until finally we reached a roadblock with lots of people
around.”
The chaos, she says, facilitated her escape. “My
sister and I were able to just walk away into the crowd. Of my group,
some ran away, some were killed, some women were raped. Only seven of
us survived.”
Today, King travels regularly between Canada and Rwanda
– helping survivors and collaborators alike to put their lives back
together, to experience healing of some kind.
“It is not easy to tell someone who has lost
everyone in their family that they can be who they are, and go back, and
feel that life has meaning. We have people suffering from depression.
Some are dying of AIDS that they contracted from rape. We have people
who lost everything, and could not recover.”
Yet, despite all this evil, King is not bitter.
“I am not a person who holds hatred, sadness, anger or even joy
inside, without trying to share it with others. I think being expressive
helps me to deal with it better. If I do not talk about what happened, I
think I would die.”
Dare to Care takes place at Emmanuel Baptist Church,
October 18 – 21.
Contact 250-592-2418, or:
ebcvictoria.ca/missions/daretocare2007
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