To be honest, I went back to Africa in 2023 for one main reason. I wanted to trek to see the gorillas in the wild in Rwanda before my body failed me. However, the trip was so much more than the gorillas, as you will read in the following paragraphs. I traveled with a great tour group called OAT, Overseas Adventure Travel, with 9 other American tourists and two Rwandan guides. (Click on any highlighted links below for more information)
On day one, I entered my hotel in Kigali, called the Hotel des Milles Collines (which means 1000 hills). This was the actual film location of the famous movie “Hotel Rwanda”. This was the true story of the Rwandan genocide, the systematic slaughter of about 800,000 Tutsis in 100 days led by the Hutu-led assault. If you saw the movie, you may recognize the swimming pool.
Our guidebook forewarned us that it would be difficult learning about the genocide that became an organized assault on April 7, 1994. Sure, I knew about the death camps built by the Nazis in the 40s, but I didn’t realize what I would experience in the following days outside Kigali in the Nyarubuye Roman Catholic Church in Kibungo, now referred to as the Nyarubuye massacre. We spent a couple hours at the church where the Tutsi slaughter of families took place. Its presentation was poignant and painful.
The most horrific was the barricaded church where the Tutsi refugees took harbor and were then allowed to be massacred with the knowledge of the church staff. The bomb blast of the barricaded front door where entry was gained was a strong symbol of determination and shear brutality of their killers.
The clothing of the dead remained in the church pews that we were forbidden to film. Of the very few who survived it was revealed that the church staff and priests told the Tutsis that “their fate was willed by God, they were ‘cockroaches’ of the community, and they must die.” Pope Francis recently visited Rwanda in 2017 to ask for forgiveness for such a horrific act committed by the Catholic church.
I was sickened, nauseated, and felt tremendous grief of this government sponsored slaughter of innocent men, women, and children in the House of God. I thought the greatest impact of this memorial was over as I began my museum tour. But the worst was yet to come. The museum guided me through the exhibition called “Wasted Lives,” the timeline in parts of the world where genocide had occurred including the Holocaust, the Balkans, Cambodia, and Namibia. Over and over again, humankind never seems to learn that the killing of others who don’t look or believe like we do has NO merit or lasting impact. By the time I exited the museum, two hours later, every cell in my body was drained.
My fellow tourists and I were somber on our bus ride back to our hotel. One summed it up by saying “each genocide throughout the world was government sponsored, planned, and organized by the leaders of that country.” Hate that permeates so deeply that it justifies the extinction of a species, tribe, or an ethnic group is absolutely the most heinous crime possible. Think twice before you vote for anyone who supports hate.
Having no personal experience and little understanding about genocide, I never thought that the 1990 slaughter of the people in my village in Zorgowee, Liberia as genocide. I wrote about this in my memoir Epilogue, In Search of Pink Flamingos. Yes, I knew it was in response to hate and revenge, but I never considered it as literal obliteration of an entire ethnic group of the Mano and Gio in Liberia. When President Doe’s soldiers pursued the Gio and Mano wherever they lived in the entire country and elsewhere, including the refugee camps in Ghana and Ivory Coast, he had ethnic cleansing as his mission.
When the people you love/loved and cared about, including children, were innocently killed because they were of the same ethnic group as the warring opponent, the pain in my heart and soul ran very deep. I cried then and I cry now. It was less than a year ago that I learned the complete story of the massacre of the people in my village that occurred 23 years earlier. Read my previous blog entitled “War and Reunion” to learn more.
Of course, all was not doom and gloom in my visit to Rwanda. Many of you have read about the reconciliation after the genocide 28 years earlier led by World Vision. But to see the country thriving, and warring ethnic groups now living together in villages was heartwarming. OAT took us directly to a village where that happened. We sat in a large circle with Hutus and Tutsis now living together harmoniously.
We were able to query the villagers about how this transpired and how long it took. This Tutsi village now has a Hutu Chief (first photo) chosen by the villagers. The second photo is a Tutsi leader who lives there also. If we had not seen it firsthand, it would have been hard to believe. See the wonderful villagers below.
So many lessons were learned about genocide and I departed Rwanda with a renewed hope of humankind. Maybe there is hope for us all.
P.S. Did I see the gorillas in the wild? YES! I will include this story in another blog.
Your reply and comments below are always welcome for our readers
Susan E. Greisen 
Thank you for talking about this genocide. It is unbelievable what humans can do to each other because of their differences. It needs to be known. I would like to think this type of thing will never happen again- but it will. We never learn.
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This blog has been brewing in my brain since my visit three months ago. Yes, it was hard to write and relive the decimation of my village in Liberia, yet these stories must be told until the deaf ears finally listen.
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This blog has been brewing in my brain since my visit three months ago. Yes, it was hard to write and relive the decimation of my village in Liberia, yet these stories must be told until the deaf ears finally listen.
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Susan, thank you for this important post. As I read it, I wondered why the term “ethnic cleansing” when it is really “ethnic killing”.
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Thanks for writing Janie. Maybe ethnic cleansing makes it sound more politically correct. How sick is that?
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Susan, though we have yet to meet face to face, this latest of your writings is indeed powerful, such a wake-up call! I’m sharing it with my kids, my siblings and anyone else I know who would be interested ..I was fortunate in Bolivia, through the many years of living there, not to have experienced such an atrocity..Yet, Bolivia, with its
many coups and laws of separation, did indirectly have its own way of “Maintaining” a status quo- the haves vs the have-nots, the Kamba-Kolla quantitative, the indigenous vs the colonists, if you will.
Yes, why does the human being put such chaos, such terror, such animosity upon others? A question that will never resolve itself as long as man with a free will uses it as such.
Like you, it’s hard for me to understand such actions. Thank you for sharing your story.
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Patty, thanks for writing. I see this blog has touched many of my followers. Yes, please share this with your family and friends. It is one way to understand what much of our world endures on a daily basis as many of us sit in our bubble of security of our own home. We can stop hate that begins on our own turf. We must!
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God’s blessing on all nations,
Who long and work for that bright day,
When o’er earth’s habitations
No war, no strife shall hold its sway;
Who long to see
That all men free
No more shall foes, but neighbours be.
France Preseren, 1848
Slovenia
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How beautiful Marty. Thank you for sharing that message from so many years ago. Will we ever learn?
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Genocide is the word for what happened in Liberia. It is so hard to understand that it happens every day somewhere. We are intelligent people, yet hate goes on. We must stop it now and it should begin on our own turf. Thank you for sharing.
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Hello Sally, you’re key word is that it does happen everyday in the world. Somewhere, some place, a person or an ethnic group is being erased from the earth. Hate, greed and power are what drives this insanity. Each of us has one thing in our grasp to help; and that is our vote.
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Wow! What a moving story! You never really hear about other ethnic genocides often besides Rwanda, but it happens frequently. I was thinking of your story about your village in Liberia as I was reading this. I can’t imagine all my friends in Liberia being murdered. This must weigh heavy on you!
Thx for sharing! Can’t wait to hear about the gorillas!
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Hate leading to genocide is such a terrible thing. Liberia genocide is so little talked about but it happened on both sides in retaliation to each others hate. I’m praying for long lasting healing and peace there!
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