The Killing Ground: A Journey to Rwanda

Introduction

Rwanda. Even the name evokes an uncomfortable response. Perhaps it's the unusual juxtaposition of the two consonants at the beginning of the word, alien to the Western eye. Is it RUE-WAN-DA or ER-WAN-DA? Is one or the other silent? Is there some other rule with which I'm not familiar? Or perhaps it's the fact that I've read the press accounts and the Human Rights Watch reports of what happened there - even argued the issue on a radio show. Maybe all of the above. Maybe more.

It's discomfiting to admit that the image of a screaming mob of bloodthirsty, machete-wielding savages pops up from some Robert Ruark-inspired Mau Mau horror story and strikes a chord deep within, provoking a terrified, primal, sphincter-tightening response. The idea of such unreasoning, overpowering, incomprehensible rage has always been at the root of my deepest fears.

Whatever; as events unfold and the name comes up on my radar screen, there's the uncomfortable sense, call it premonition, that I'm going to see Rwanda and it's going to leave its mark.

Early in the summer of '94, as confused stories of genocidal slaughter in Rwanda were being overtaken by reports of a mass exodus of refugees, Barbara Francis, my old friend from the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) called and asked if I'd consider a trip there. The refugee situation was horrific, unprecedented in size, with hundreds of thousands pouring out of the country and an overwhelmed and under-supplied effort by the UNHCR was not getting the help it needed. Perhaps, she thought, a quick trip there would generate some press coverage and greater public support.

I agreed to the idea in principle and she said she'd check with Geneva and get back to me.

Events quickly overtook us, however, as the flood of refugees, particularly into Goma, Zaire, and the resultant cholera epidemic caught the attention of the world's press and the chaos became grist for the daily papers and evening TV screens. With Geneva's approval, Barbara and I debated the idea of going anyway, since the UNHCR's efforts deserve all the attention they can get, but with the incredible strain on the staff on the ground there already, we finally decided that the last thing they needed was to have to pull someone away from the important work in order to walk me through it all. So we'd wait.

A couple of weeks later I got a call from Richard Walden at Operation USA, who wanted to know if I'd go with him to Goma to help deliver a plane-load of medicine they'd had donated. He still had to work out the logistics of getting the plane, but thought we'd probably be able to take off within a week or two. There was even the possibility that Jonathan Estrin, my compadre from the Somalia trip two years ago (and now President of the Board of Operation USA) would be able to go with us.

As the days flew by and the situation in Goma went from horrible to impossible, dates for departure came and went and still no plane. Richard introduced me to the representative from the new government of Rwanda (prior to its recognition by the Clinton Administration) who was heading for Washington to give them a sense of the situation in the country from his perspective, but nothing anyone could do seemed to be successful in springing loose a plane to deliver the medicine. (By this time, while the U.S. Government had finally decided to respond to the humanitarian emergency in Goma and other areas, the only planes allowed to fly in were from the U.S. military and Richard was having a hell of a time getting any cooperation from them in spite of the fact that he was sitting on 60 thousand pounds of much needed medications.)

So, as the world watched on CNN, bodies stacked up like cordwood in and around the refugee camps and finally, painstakingly, the U.S. military and the humanitarian organizations operating under the aegis of the UNHCR got the situation in hand.

Then in the Fall, about the time I was getting ready to leave on a trip to Cuba, Barbara called again. She was going to put together a trip to Rwanda at the end of the year, she thought, and try to get some members of the Writer's Guild to go, a la the Somalia/Bosnia expedition of a couple of years ago. Would I come?

So it began.