‘Never again,’ again and again
This week marks the 22nd anniversary of the Rwandan Genocide — an unspeakable atrocity where one million Rwandans were murdered in a three- month genocidal onslaught that began April 7, 1994. What makes the event so unspeakable was not only the horror of the genocide itself, but the fact that it was preventable. No one can say that we did not know — we knew, but we did not act.
Eight years ago, the Canadian Parliament passed a unanimous motion, which I introduced, designating April 7 as a National Day of Reflection on the Prevention of Genocide. We are invited to remember not only the horrors of genocide, but also to reflect and act upon its lessons. For although the world vowed “never again” after the unprecedented horrors of the Holocaust, it has happened again and again.
As former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan lamented on the 10th anniversary of the Rwandan Genocide, “Such crimes cannot be reversed. Such failures cannot be repaired. The dead cannot be brought back to life. So what can we do?”
The answer is that the international community will only prevent the killing fields of the future by heeding the lessons from past tragedies. What, then, are these lessons, and, what is it that we can do?
The first lesson of the Rwandan Genocide, as well as the Holocaust, is that these genocides occurred not simply because of the machinery of death, but also because of state- sanctioned incitement to hate and genocide. Indeed, as the case law of the Rwandan Genocide demonstrates, these acts of genocide were preceded by an orchestrated dehumanization and demonization campaign against the minority Tutsi population in Rwanda. This included invoking epidemiological metaphors of Tutsis as “inyenzi,” or “cockroaches,” as a prologue to, and justification for, their extermination.
On this 80th anniversary year of the Nuremberg race laws, the international community must bear in mind — as the Supreme Court of Canada also affirmed in the Léon Mugesera case — that incitement to genocide is a crime in and of itself. Taking action to prevent it, as the UN’s Genocide Convention mandates us to do, is not a policy option; it is an international legal obligation of the highest order. This is what the Responsibility to Prevent — the centrepiece of the Responsibility to Protect — is all about.
The second lesson, dramatized by the Rwandan Genocide, is the danger of indifference and the consequences of inaction — hence the Responsibility to Act and Protect. Simply put, while the United Nations Security Council and the international community dithered and delayed, Rwandans were dying.
Accordingly, as we remember Rwanda, we must recommit ourselves to prevent and protect the victims of mass atrocities in our time. Indeed, while urgent protective action was desperately needed in Syria, repeated appeals for help over the past five years fell on the deaf ears of the international community. We must break this cycle of indifference and inaction if we are truly to learn the requisite lesson.
The third lesson is the danger of a culture of impunity that repeatedly emboldens those intent on committing mass atrocities, and the corresponding responsibility to bring these war criminals to justice. If the last century — symbolized by the Holocaust and the genocide in Rwanda — was the age of atrocity, it was also the age of impunity. Few of the perpetrators were brought to justice. Just as there must be no sanctuary for hate and no refuge for bigotry, so, too, must there be no sanctuary for the perpetrators of the worst crimes against humanity.
And that is why, as minister of justice, I initiated the first- ever prosecution under the War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity Act of Rwandan of war criminal Désiré Munyaneza, who was convicted of
such crimes by Canadian courts. Despite this, the culture of impunity continues to abound. Consider Sudanese President Omar al- Bashir, who continues to evade justice and accountability for his role in the Darfur genocide; or the impunity of Syrian leaders for their ongoing war crimes and crimes against humanity, aided and abetted by their Russian and Chinese enablers who vetoed numerous Security Council resolutions to refer Syrian criminality to the International Criminal Court.
The fourth lesson is the persistent danger of violence against women during mass atrocities — of rape, in particular — as a weapon of war. Evidence from the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda shows the systematic use of sexual assaults during the genocide as a means of continued degradation, humiliation and torture, while rape in Syria emerged not just as a consequence of atrocity, but as an instrument for pursuing it.
The fifth lesson is the danger of assaults on the most vulnerable in society. Simply put, the Rwandan Genocide occurred not only because of the vulnerability of the powerless, but also because of the powerlessness of the vulnerable, who are the first targets of oppression and violence. Regrettably, this pattern has also found expression in Syria, with the targeting and torturing of children, the 12.5 million people displaced and the plight of close to five million refugees.
The sixth lesson is the cruelty of genocide denial — the denial of the Rwandan Genocide — an assault on memory and truth, not unlike the case of Holocaust denial. In its most obscene form, some people actually accuse the victims of fabricating the crimes perpetrated against them. Remembrance of the Rwandan Genocide is itself a repudiation of such denial, which becomes more prevalent with the passage of time.
The seventh lesson is the importance of remembering the heroic rescuers, who remind us of the range of human possibility, those who stood up to confront evil, including our own Gen. Roméo Dallaire.
May the Rwandan Genocide be an occasion not only for remembrance, but to learn the lessons of the crime whose name we should even shudder to mention — genocide.