Seventy-seven tonnes of guns, mortars and other rubbish is lying in Durbs harbour — ready to be shipped to Zim. From China, with love. It makes me sick; it makes me want to vomit, cry, shout, kick, and scream. It really wants to make me hurt someone. Really bad. And for a non-aggressive person, that is quite something.
This entire “arms in Durbs” saga is taking me back in time — 14 years, to be exact — when Rwanda was ripped apart by one of the bloodiest episodes of human history: the genocide of 1994. We had moved back to Holland a couple of years before that, simply because my dad’s employer had decided that our time as expats had come to an end.
Anyway, quite a bit before Hutu militias started hacking Tutsi civilians into pieces — including quite a few of my former classmates and friends/colleagues of my folks — a short article appeared in the newspaper. I remember it very well, as back in the days Rwanda never made the news whatsoever. Barely a soul outside of Africa knew about this country’s existence or location.
The story — which I still have — stated that there were rumours about a shipment of thousands of machetes that was on its way to Rwanda. From China, with love. “To clear the land,” a spokesperson was quoted. The world didn’t blink. Not only once.
Until April 7 1994, that is.
While the world realised that there was actually a country called Rwanda, I learned what was really meant with “to clear the land”.
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