Remarks by Ambassador Samantha Power at the Commemoration of the International Day of Reflection on the Genocide in Rwanda

Watch Speech

I’d like to start by thanking the Secretary-General and each and every one of you for making a point of being here tonight to pay your respects to the people of Rwanda. And thank you, Miss King, after everything that you have been through, for taking on the difficult, really excruciating, task of sharing your experience. We are in awe of your courage and your resolve.

When the killing began in the southern Rwandan town of Nyakizu, in April 1994, many of the Tutsi fled to a ridge surrounding the town. Thousands gathered on a peak known as Gasasa. They brought with them children and the elderly, cattle, and whatever other valuables that they could carry. As a survivor later recounted, on April 20th, 1994, Hutu attackers, “surrounded the hill, taunting us, watching us…Then a person blew a whistle, and they all came together and began climbing the hill toward us.” Hiding behind a tree, the man heard a local official use a loudspeaker to tell the attackers to ignore the livestock and focus on killing people, promising that they would be compensated later. The man watched as the attackers approached a woman nursing her baby. “Don’t worry,” an attacker said, “we’ll give you something to drink,” and then he hacked the woman to death with a machete.

A day after the massacre in Gasasa – at the university in the nearby city of Butare – soldiers appeared at the entrance of the school cafeteria. As students entered, soldiers checked their names against a list. Tutsi were pulled aside and their names were crossed off. Meanwhile, students who belonged to a Hutu Power group went room to room in the dorms, searching for the remaining Tutsi. They found some hiding under their beds. The Tutsi students were taken to a nearby forest, where soldiers began to execute them. One of the few students who managed to escape said of the forest, “There were bodies everywhere – many, many of them.” Unable to find her way out through the trees by night, this student was forced to hide among the bodies until it was light. A mass grave later found near the university contained some 600 bodies – most of them students.

When we talk about the 800,000 Rwandans killed in the genocide, it is easy to begin to think of the genocide as a single, undifferentiated act of barbarism. In reality, however, it was made up of so many individual atrocities like the ones in Gasasa and Butare – day after day after day, for one hundred straight days.

We gather today for many reasons. First and foremost, we gather to share in the enduring grief of our Rwandan brothers and sisters, who suffered such a searing and immeasurable loss, and who suffer that loss still every day.

But in commemorating, we must do more than mourn. We must remind ourselves that so much of the Rwandans’ suffering was preventable. Preventable by earlier recognition of the facts on the ground and a rapid, united international condemnation and action. Preventable by adding peacekeepers, rather than withdrawing them, as happened, and giving those blue helmets a more robust, clearer mandate than UNAMIR had in 1994. And preventable by more individuals in places high and low, being upstanders rather than bystanders.

As we reflect on the past, we must prevent atrocities in our present. When we remember the massacre of Tutsi on the hilltop of Gasasa, how can we not think of the Yazidis who were surrounded on Mt. Sinjar, or the victims of ISIL whose bodies are being exhumed this week from mass graves in Tikrit? How can we not think of the Palestinians trapped in Yarmouk? Indeed, the suffering Yarmouk’s 18,000 residents are enduring right now – as we gather here – makes clear that the bar for the international community to protect civilians cannot be limited to acts of genocide alone. After all, when we hear about the Kenyan university students in Garissa – pulled from their dorm rooms and executed – are we any less horrified than we are in retelling the story of Tutsi university students massacred in Butare as part of a singular crime?

As we see these parallels, we would do well to learn from our Rwandan colleagues, who honor what happened not only through memory and grief, but also through action in the present. When violence in the Central African Republic threatened to reach genocidal proportions, Rwanda sent its troops to serve as peacekeepers – a role in which they have committed themselves above all to protecting civilians.

So today, we say to Ambassador Gasana, to Miss King, and to all of our Rwandan colleagues and friends: we join you not only in mourning, but also in your seeking to build a world where other people do not have to endure what you did.

Thank you.

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