🇷🇼 Rwanda: From Killing Fields to Africa's Beacon of Hope

《100 Days of Darkness, 30 Years of Rebirth》 When my plane landed in Kigali, the "Land of a Thousand Hills" stunned me—spotless streets, flower-lined roads, orderly motorcycle taxis with helmets. Cafés and galleries thrived, a world apart from the Rwanda of tragedy I'd imagined. But at the Kigali Genocide Memorial, that serene facade shattered. The 1994 genocide wasn't random violence. It was the culmination of: • Colonial poison 🇧🇪: Belgium's "ethnic ID cards" divided Rwandans into Tutsi, Hutu, Twa, promoting "Tutsi superiority." • Post-independence reversal : Hutu elites then oppressed Tutsis, with massacres seeding hate since 1959. On April 6, 1994, President Habyarimana's assassination ignited hell. In 100 days: ☠️ Over 1 million slaughtered—neighbors killing neighbors 📻 Hate radio called Tutsis "cockroaches" 🔪 Machetes, farm tools turned weapons ✝️ Hotel des Mille Collines became a refuge, saving 1,200+ (later immortalized in Hotel Rwanda). This wasn't unique: • 1904 Namibia: Germans exterminated Herero tribes • Holocaust: 6 million Jews murdered • Cambodia: Khmer Rouge executed 2 million Yet in Rwanda, the world watched—UN peacekeepers even withdrew. Same logic across history: "You don't belong, so you must die." At the memorial's exit, a stone whispers: "If you understand but stay silent, you're complicit." We remember not for revenge, but to never repeat. 🌱 #RwandaRises #NeverAgain #GenocideRemembrance