Day 4 - Between mandate and colony

While the world looked the other way, Belgium took its responsibility against all governing agreements and took part in UNAMIR. Did we still have an obligation to Rwanda even though we severed all ties with our colony in 1962? Or maybe it was our way of making up for a not-so-successful mandate? Was it our way to make up for the fact that we made the difference in ethnicity so official and emphasized it? Or did it finally dawn on us that we failed Rwanda (then still Ruanda-Urundi) and instead of preparing our mandate for an independent existence, we did everything in our power for the mighty motherland. In any case, we failed Rwanda for a second time in April 1994. With much worse consequences this time. The deaths of nearly one million Rwandans for only one reason: they had the wrong ethnicity. It was not the first genocide, nor will it be the last, if we look at the world around us.The moral question: did the death of ten Belgian paratroopers outweigh the million Rwandan victims that would cost the genocide? In other words, was the withdrawal of our troops justifiable? In our sometimes inhuman world, not every life is worth the same. We do not miss any sleep over humanitarian crises as long as we are not involved ourselves. When ISIS began its advance in the Middle East, it was just a footnote in the newspaper or news. Yazidi women were raped, held hostage and sold as sex slaves, gay people were murdered by throwing them off buildings. People were stoned. And yet we did not budge. But when ISIS also began to kidnap,  held hostage and behead white people, the western world was turned upside down. As if the life of a Yazidi woman does not have the same value as that of a white man. These differences are also noticeable in Africa. Healthcare, which we regard as a fundamental right, is really only accessible to the wealthy and to white tourists. Where we, as whites, end up in the very well-equipped private hospitals, only a run down nursing post is available for a poor black person. Medical care should be the same for everyone and should not depend on rank or status.Is human life worth the same everywhere? Obviously not. Any lost human life in any war and on whichever side one fights in that war is one too many.To come back to the key question: did the death of our soldiers outweigh a million victims? The answer must of course be ‘no’. How painful  for the families and for us as a nation. The world looked the other way. We watched from a distance as the citizens of our former colony slaughtered each other. It was the lack of empowerment and incorrect assessments, both military and political, in Belgium and internationally that led to the genocide.

Only in 2000, then Prime Minister Guy Verhofstad, apologied on behalf of the Belgian people :

‘In the name of my country

I pay tribute to the genocide victims

and in the name of my country, my people,

I beg I ask for forgiveness’.

Belgium will always be part of Rwanda's history, just as Rwanda will forever be part of our past. Once joint it is difficult to cut the umbilical cord completely. But in the end, after infinite grief, our child became as they say, ‘the land of a thousand hills and a million smiles’.