Horror Breeds Horror

The world reeled in disbelief at the bloody carnage in Rwanda when the dominant Hutu population turned against their Tutsi neighbours and slaughtered them relentlessly, despite the presence of a UN peacekeeping force that proved incapable of sheltering the helpless Tutsi population. General Romeo Dallaire has recounted the horror of that time in history in his "Shake Hands With the Devil" account of the massacre of Rwandan Tutsis.

General Dallaire was tasked by the United Nations to enforce a peace agreement between the government of Rwanda and the rebel forces of the Rwandan Patriotic Front. The government was largely represented by Hutus, the rebels by Tutsis. A reversal of fortunes for the Tutsis, who under the former Belgian colonial rule were the dominant tribe, with the Hutus subservient; the Tutsis were given the plum government jobs, the Hutus languished.

A reversal of fortune between the two tribes took place before Belgium left Rwanda as imperialism died a needed death, but the antagonism between the tribes merely flourished, becoming deadlier with time as aggrievement and resentment bred hatred. A not-unusual situation anywhere in Africa where tribal affiliation generally led to aggression against tribes competing for status and recognition resulting in greater economic opportunities for the successful tribe.

General Dallaire soon understood that despite the facade of peace negotiations the governing Hutu had no intention of reaching a detente, but planned to eliminate their Tutsi rivals, making use of propaganda to turn the Hutu - who had largely lived in peace with their Tutsi neighbours - against them. As is usual in such tribal societies young men were being successfully inculcated with an unstoppable ideology of entitlement and were prepared to attain their end by engaging in mass murder.

The Rwandan genocide followed in the footsteps of another failed UN peacekeeping mission, in Somalia. The ferocity of the atrocities there remain unabated with an Islamist insurgency leaving over a million people internal refugees. When Rwanda's Hutu president's airplane was shot down by ground-to-air missiles in 1994, the ruling Hutu launched their deadly rampage against the Tutsi and moderate Hutu population, wiping out almost a million people in three months of battle.

When the bleeding finally stopped and intervention came rather late in the day, Hutu militias made their way elsewhere to avoid arrest and incarceration. Like South Africa, Rwanda set up a "truth and reconciliation" commission for the purpose of having survivors face their tormentors, apportioning blame and equable sentencing, and allowing forgiveness so everyone could go back to living together in peace and harmony.

The process, while flawed, has since resulted in normalcy assuming its position in the life of the country. As though the wildly lunatic mass murders had never taken place. And now life has become so "normal", so devoid of fear, that sorrow has been drowned in attempts to trivialize and minimize the horror of 25 years ago. Now beauty pageants take their place in the life of Rwandans, post-genocide. How sublimely human.

For comfort we unerringly turn to frivolity. The Miss Nyampinga contest has taken a place of honour, a search for the ultimate in Rwandan female beauty. The beauty pageant is being hailed as a device to perform two national services; advancing equality of the sexes and assisting national unity. "The contest encourages women to assert their intelligence and personality, through intelligence and personality", according to the founder of the Miss Nyampinga competition which takes place at the National University of Rwanda.

"She must be pretty, in her face and body...she must have small eyes but we don't look at the nose. Here in Rwanda, we have a problem with the nose". Most certainly, since the shape of the nose was signal in identifying Tutsis during the 1994 genocide. From the inchoate murderous history of neighbour turning against neighbour, religious clerics fomenting against the "others" and encouraging their flock to murder, comes beauty pageants to heal the wounds.

So where has all that murderous dementia evaporated to? Congo. Where a collection of militias resulted from the exodus of Hutus from Rwanda assembling to become the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo. Who busied themselves, among other things, roaming the countryside of the Democratic Republic of Congo, murdering and raping as they proceeded. The Congolese government army has links with the militias.

Efforts to disarm and repatriate the former Rwandans have been beset by obstacles. Upon apprehension, Congolese government authorities attempt to hold them accountable for the murders and rapes of Congolese civilians, rather than send them back to Rwanda. Meanwhile the chaos that has resulted in Congo has infected the civilian population to a great degree. Atrocities are common and seemingly unstoppable.

Attacks on the civilian population by the Hutu militias fleeing Rwanda drove hundreds of thousands of villagers into squalid disease-ridden internal refugee camps. Malnutrition is rampant, and children become mortally ill through exposure to filth. And around the camps and the villages thousands of women and girls are continually raped by government soldiers, rebels and militia fighters alike, according to international aid groups.

And the ongoing sexual violence that began with the fighters appears to have infected the local population, making neighbour turn against neighbour, that all-too-familiar pattern. "Now there are more and more civilians that are the perpetrators. It appears that it's almost infiltrating within the culture", according to Jennifer Melton, a program manager for the International Rescue Committee.

The United Nations speaks of its diminishing ability to provide adequate food rations to the internal refugee camps, because it is unable to deal with the increasing flood of displaced Congolese. "Thousands more people have run for their lives in recent months and are now in urgent need of help", according to Charles Vincent, director of WFP's Congo section, pleading for assistance from the developed world.

The families who had formerly relied on subsistence farming to feed themselves have been forced to miss critical planting seasons due to the war. Militias continue to loot food supplies and farming equipment. Villagers are increasingly being pushed off their land and into refugee camps by a Tutsi general's forces, along with those of the Hutu militias. What, exactly, has been solved?

Africa, one country after the other, becomes an abysmal failure.