Headline: Bush in Rwanda and the Human Face of Darfur
President Bush laid a wreath at the memorial of the victims of the Rwandan genocide yesterday. The genocide claimed 800,000 Rwandans, a lot of them children, mostly over the span of 100 days in 1994. Bush's trip to Africa has been a series of somber scenes. While touring the museum to this genocide, the topic of another — the Sudanese genocide in Darfur — came up.
President Bush has received criticism for not sending troops to Darfur. He said yesterday:
I still believe it was the right decision. But, having done that, if you’re a problem solver, you put yourself at the mercy of the decisions of others, in this case the United Nations. And I’m well known to have spoken out by the slowness of the United Nations. It is — seems very bureaucratic to me, particularly with people suffering.
Adding a very human, firsthand account to the Darfur tragedy, a New Zealand nurse, Lisa French Blaker, has just written a book called Heart of Darfur, recounting her two years of service in the region. For more about her powerful experience, read more. It was a period of time that she said "broke her heart." She said:
Part of my disillusionment and my broken heart, when I think of Darfur, is the many that we failed and the many that we lost. There were times that government and Janjaweed troops forced us out of a village, and took us away from the people that we were trying to help, and we lost them.
Though Blaker tells horrifyingly sad tales, there are also stories of hope. Treating a sick, dying, new mother, she tells of her transformation. "Slowly, we turned her into a smiling, singing, dancing lady. It was magical." A perfect metaphor for hope for a region in conflict.
It makes me want to read her book immediately, and with a box of tissues. How about you?
