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VISITING RWANDA
by Dervla Murphy
Lilliput Press, L15.99, pp. 246
WE WISH TO INFORM YOU THAT TOMORROW WE WILL BE KILLED WITH OUR FAMILIES
by Philip Gourevitch
Picador, L16.99, pp. 356
The Tutsi of Rwanda have been called `the Jews of East Africa', a characterisation which, on the whole, they approve of. Like the Jews, they were a people without a country, discriminated against and persecuted. Also, like the Jews, they suffered unimaginable horrors at the hands of a regime embarked on their systematic destruction. Both peoples share a strong sense of betrayal, of having been abandoned by the rest of the world in the hour of their greatest need. As a consequence, they feel they can rely only on themselves to ensure their own survival.
There is, however, a crucial difference between the Jewish and the Rwandan experiences of genocide: today in Rwanda perpetrators and victims have to live side by side, as part of the same society. This is perhaps the most intractable problem faced by the present authorities: reconciliation between Hutu and Tutsi is at present both inconceivable because of the recent legacy of hatred and indispensable if the country, and indeed the region, are to have a future. For it is precisely the...