Ever since she lost her parents and multiple family members 18 years ago, Chantal Mudahogora has been working on moving forward.Then, every year, April comes around.“Every time of the day, it’s a reminder of where we were at that point,” said the 45-year-old survivor of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. “It brings back memories and memories as if they were happening today.”On Saturday, the Alzheimer Society counsellor joined about 100 local Rwandans and community members in commemorating the 18th anniversary of the Genocide at an event, Saturday, organised by the Rwandan Community of Hamilton.The event, which was held at the Armenian Community Centre in Stoney Creek, featured talks by Western University genocide studies professor Amanda Grzyb, the retired personal staff officer of General Romeo Dallaire, Major Brent Beardsley, and the High Commissioner of Rwanda in Canada, Edda Mukabagwiza.Over one million people were killed in 100 days after Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, died when his plane was shot down above the Kigali airport on April 6, 1994.On Saturday, Beardsley spoke candidly about the international community’s failure to intervene and stop the Genocide, despite reports from Dallaire to the UN about the imminent massacres.Rwanda was not seen as an important mission to the outside world and did not have desired resources to incite political will, he said. “When people say they didn’t know what was going on in Rwanda, it’s because they have a very, very selective memory of what they were told”.The UN peacekeeping forces in Rwanda did not have enough background information on the history or culture of the country and did not have access to intelligence about the key players or their intentions leading up to the killings, Beardsley said, adding they did not even have a detailed map of the country.“I’ll be the first one to say it … Our mission failed.”Mudahogora, who came to Hamilton in 1998 and is general secretary of the local Rwandan community, lived less than a kilometre away from the United Nations peacekeeping forces’ headquarters in Kigali and was working for the Red Cross’ international committee at the time.As killings began, she called her contacts and even her boss for help, asking them to come rescue her from her home, but they were all told to stay put, Mudahogora said.To this day, she is unable to talk about the details of what she saw and how she survived, but Mudahogora said she looks to the day when she and her fellow survivors are ready to share their stories.“There’s a part of us that was really killed,” she said. “We are still trying to grasp back that piece which is missing, which I don’t think we will (ever) have … Eighteen years don’t mean much because, for us, we’re still learning how to put one foot in front of the other.”
