on betrayal...

why didn’t you leave?” tell me that they really thought the UN would take care of them. one survivor, who lost her mother, sister, and three brothers, said, “we thought the UN was in rwanda, if the UN is here, nothing major will happen to us.” she clearly believed that the UN would protect her and her family; i have never heard a survivor say, ‘we knew the RPF would protect us.’ in fact the opposite — survivors have said that they weren’t even aware of the RPF until they entered Rwanda from Uganda in 1990 to liberate it, and even then most Tutsi inside Rwanda did not identify with the RPF, let alone look to it for protection or survival. so is it that the breach of trust is between the UN and survivors, not between survivors and the RPF…?

“kigali sluts for CHOGM”

so blares the main headline from rwanda’s Newsline newspaper. in a country where it is illegal to discuss ‘genocide ideology’, meaning any references veiled or overt to the manipulation of ethnic identities that gave rise to the 1994 genocide, and in the same country which considers women the backbone of its reconstruction and reconciliation efforts, i am amazed that such a headline can go unnoticed.

here are some tidbits from the story…

next to the front page headline, “kigali sluts for CHOGM” is a picture of the Queen of England in her Sunday best. Teal hat and dress, strings of pearls, the works…. on page two, where the text of the story is found, the following caption: “Elizabeth II: The Queen of England might dine with Rwandan sluts”. I have no idea what CHOGM is, nor is this revealed in the story. something do with the commonwealth heads of government; i’m guessing the ‘m’ stands for meetings. will the queen show up? is she a head of government?

instead, we are informed that rwandan sluts have been busy applying for visas to to kampala, uganda where the Commonwealth Heads of States will meet in November 2007. the sluts are going now “to get used to the place”.

when questioned about the visas for the many young girls going to kampala on rwandan passports, an immigration official replied, “every Rwandan has a right to have an international passport”. our intrepid reporter then notes, “Rwandan sluts always flock to Kampala and other towns mostly during weekends for greener pastures”. this quote is my favourite, “according to one prominent pimp who is based in Kampala, ‘the presidents and visitors who are coming here need to enjoy and therefore we must prepare ourselves to get money out of them’.

sigh. why do women lack agency even when they are the subject of the damn article!? never mind the million and one other comments that i could make here….