Philip Gourevitch. We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda. New York: Farrar Straus and Giroux, 1998, 356 pp. $25.00. ISBN: 0-374-28697-3. Now also available as paperback.

If you have not yet read a book about Rwanda and the genocide that occurred there in 1994, this book by Philip Gourevitch would be a good one with which to start. Based primarily on a collection of interviews conducted by the author over a period of three years following the genocide, some of the stories portray - in a very graphic way - the brutality that occurred during those horrific days.
It is not a history book by any means; but it does touch on the history of the region. The book is written from a pro-Tutsi standpoint. This seems inevitable, as this last genocide wiped out 800,000 people - mostly minority Tutsis - within a 100-day time period. It is also clear that the Hutu militias (interahamwe) were responsible for most of the killings.

The book addresses the negative impact of colonialism and the effect it has had on the region by dividing areas geographically (ignoring territorial and political traditions) with no regard for the people who actually lived there. Gourevitch also looks critically at the role of countries such as France and the United States, and the manner in which they allowed the conflict to escalate into genocide.

Gourevitch challenges the idea that mass violence between the two groups is a historical matter and bound to re-occur. "(T)he next time you hear a story like the one that ran on the front page of The New York Times in October of 1997, reporting on ‘the age-old animosity between the Tutsi and Hutu ethnic groups’, remember that until Mbonyumutwa’s beating lit the spark in 1959 there had never been systematic political violence recorded between Hutus and Tutsis - anywhere." (p. 59).

The book’s title comes from a handwritten letter dated April 15, 1994, addressed to the Hutu pastor Ntakirutimana, by seven Tutsi pastors of the church in which they worshipped. The letter read: "Our dear leader, Pastor Elizaphan Ntakirutimana, How are you! We wish to be strong in all these problems we are facing. We wish to inform you that we have heard that tomorrow we will be killed with our families. We therefore request you to intervene on our behalf and talk with the Mayor. We believe that, with the help of God who entrusted you the leadership of this flock, which is going to be destroyed, your intervention will be highly appreciated, the same way as the Jews were saved by Esther. We give honor to you." (p.42).

The training of Hutus to kill Tutsis was announced over the radio and printed in newspapers prior to the killings (p.18). It was no secret. Although the United Nations was warned of this impending genocide they, too, ignored the warning. On January 11th 1994, Major General Dallaire sent a fax to the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations requesting protection for an informant from the interahamwe who had leaked information that the forced registration of Tutsis in Kigali was for the sole purpose of exterminating them (p.104). Having been warned by Dallaire that a genocide was being planned (and having ignored his warning), following the genocide, UN Secretary General Boutros-Ghali remarked that "such situations and alarming reports from the field, though considered with the utmost seriousness by the United Nations officials, are not uncommon within the context of peacekeeping operations" (p. 106).

Seventy five percent of the Tutsis in Rwanda were killed by early May. So many people were killed that the rivers were clogged with bodies; and as one man said, "The bodies fell down in the stream, and I used those bodies as a bridge to cross the water and join the other people in the evenings" (p.31).

When I started reading this book, some of the questions I wanted answered were (1) how could people who had been neighbors and friends one day decide to go out and kill each other? (2) what is it about human nature that allows this? and (3) what sort of people are capable of such deeds? Although I did not feel the book addressed these specific questions, it did present a complex set of societal factors to try to explain the genocide. It would have been interesting for the author to have asked the Hutus he talked to how they felt about killing family members and old friends who were Tutsis. It is hard, however, to ask these questions when the people one is speaking to are denying they ever did such things. The one and only man who admitted to Gourevitch that he had indeed killed people added, "I had to do it or I’d be killed. So I feel a bit innocent" (p. 309). Gourevitch notes: "As we settled in, he (Girumuhatse) announced that one reason he had been under pressure during the genocide was that he had been told to kill his wife, a Tutsi." (p. 309).

The massive flight of refugees to Zaire following the genocide is addressed, with emphasis on the fact that many Hutus fled so as not to be prosecuted for the deeds they had committed. The world’s sudden attention to the cholera epidemic that occurred in Zaire shortly thereafter was greater than it had been during the entire genocide. Raids by Hutu militia back over the border into Rwanda to kill those Tutsis who had survived were also ignored by the international community.

The role of so-called humanitarian organizations is deeply criticized by Gourevitch, as they were seen at times to merely be contributing to the conflict. "As a Swiss delegate for the International Committee of the Red Cross told me, ‘When humanitarian aid becomes a smoke screen to cover the political effects it actually creates, and states hide behind it, using it as a vehicle for policymaking, then we can be regarded as agents in the conflict.’" (p. 269).

One person Gourevitch talked to said: "We don’t have oil, so it doesn’t matter that we have blood, or that we are human beings." (p. 315). Indeed, after reading this book, it seems difficult to understand with all the warnings we were given that "the world" did not do something sooner. Finally, there is a crucial reference made to the UN International Tribunal for Rwanda and its efforts at justice and truth-seeking following the genocide. Gourevitch leaves one wondering whether such institutions really have any meaningful impact.

Although this book may be hard to read, due to the gruesome stories it includes, I believe it is well worth reading; and it will give readers an informed idea of what occurred during the genocide. We must not forget that such genocides occurred in the 1990s not only in Rwanda, but also in other parts of the world. We would do well to remember the slogan Gourevitch saw in Rwanda, imprinted on a T-shirt: GENOCIDE. BURY THE DEAD, NOT THE TRUTH.

Cath Byrne