We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda

Rating:
Summary: This never had to happen
Review: Considering all the attention and accolades given to "Schindler's List", it's appauling that less than a full year later, a genocide occurs. I didn't even know about Rwanda's massacre until I read an article in Newsweek in 1999. How is that possible? Gourevitch's book tells the awful truth about the world's inaction regarding this poor, black country. It's a sad commentary on the world we live in when this slaughter does little more than supply an insincere "how terrible" utterance from the sidelines. Is the global community really this ugly? Read this book and think about what it means to be human. People are so willing to help the tsunami victims - victims of a natural disaster, yet where was/is the relief for the shattered lives of Rwanda? Victims of a crime that COULD have been prevented or at least lessened. This book, this subject, warrants your time, and active conversation with others. Rwanda's genocide of 1994 was preventable. Mr. Lempkin surely weeps from his grave.

Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Work.
Review: I liked the book so much that I felt a sudden sorrow as I read the last page. I just wanted to keep reading on and on. I have read a lot of articles and books on Rwanda, but this one is just exceptional. This is the closest I have come to comprehending what took place in Rwanda. The book uses several key individuals to narrate the stroy of all other
Rwandans and their experiences in the genocide. Philip Gourevitch did an extraordinary job, and I think the book is very well-deserving of its five-star rating. I could hardly keep my fingers off the book for the whole period.

The book explains how the "international community" not only sat and watched the genocide unfold, but also demonstrates how this "international community" HELPED the Hutu extremists kill more people by feeding and funding them. There were many times when I stopped reading and simply glared into the ceiling to ask myself if what I was reading was really true. Doctors killed patients, doctors killed fellow doctors, patients killed doctors, neighbours killed fellow neighbours, and family members and friends killed each other. Some priests, nuns, and prominent politicians also carried their machetes and rifles and helped out too. Children as young as seven were also participants in the horror. Whole villages were wiped out in a matter of days, and whole families were decimated. What is most striking is that the genocide started long before 1994. Numerous Tutsis were being massacred in the 50's and 60's (and further on)...and nobody did anything. April 1994 was largely a culmination of the impunity that had been tolerated for decades. One does wonder how all the survivors today live knowing that the very killers who killed their families are living among them, unpunished.

Gourevitch also goes into the camps in North and South Kivu (near the border with the DRC), and explains the workings of Hutu malitia there. He intelligently delves into the post -'94 politics of Uganda, Rwanda, and the DRC - as well as the workings of Mobutu and other politicians. I had a much deeper understanding of politics in Central Africa when I finished the book. The book also ends with an interview with Rwanda's current president (Kagame), and his own insight into what happened, and also what's in store for Rwanda's future.

I would recommend this book any day. In fact, I advise anyone who gets the chance to go ahead and read it. It gave me a better appreciation of life, the sad reality of world politics, and a profound sense of regret for what happened in Rwanda. I don't take it lightly either, that I finished this book on my birthday.