Customer Reviews

Life Laid Bare: The Survivors in Rwanda Speak

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I would just like to note some mistakes in both publisher review summaries;

(1) The killings took place over a 3 month period; not 3 days. The three month period was April - June 1994, though lesser violence continued into July and onwards.

(2) The amount of Tutsi left dead at the end of the massacres totaled close to 1,000,000. There are 'neat' estimates around 500,000, but the most accurate place the victim toll at 800,000 to 937,000+. At least.

The author puts a lot of information concerning the attitudes, fears, and unrest still prevelant in Rwanda. Survivor's guilt is an understandable emotion of the Tsutsi's that remain. And, quite obviouly, trusting those Hutus who were complicit in the genocide is a serious problem even now.

This compilation of interviews with various survivors of the Rwandan Genocide is one of great depth. I read this work during my graduate studies for a Holocaust and Genocide studies MA. Considering the amount of material I have read that is similar in content to this work, I was not expecting such a strong and visceral reaction. At one point in the work, I was unable to keep reading and had to leave the book while I wept. It is not often that this reaction comes to me at this point. The suffering is palpable throughout these interviews and this is a must-read work for anyone interested in human rights, genocide, war, peace studies, history or life in general.

How lucky one should consider oneself when one realizes the suffering these poor, innocent victims of racial hatred had to endure! Faith and God and love for each other were the saving factors for each of these individuals. Personal accounts of their suffering brought reality to this genocide which, like any other genocide, is created by jealously, envy and pure hatred for other human beings. May God forgive us for such evil.