Monday, April 22, 2013

Samantha Bray- Outside Reading Post 3


Rwanda Genocide


Yesterday, I got the chance to meet Jack Hanna. If you don’t know who he is, he does a TV shows about his adventures of working with animals. He travels all over the world to study and save these animals. One thing he talked about yesterday was Rwanda. He said he’s travelled there every year for more than 30 years. About 20 years ago there was a mass genocide in Rwanda, killing somewhere between 500,000 and 1,000,000 people in a span of less than 100 days. Hearing about this from someone who was so much a part of their culture, it really intrigued me and I decided to look it up. The problem was between two power groups in the country. The genocide that occurred was highly supported by the government, because many of the people in the group who organized the genocide were also held high power government positions. This mass killing wiped out about 20% of the country’s population. This kind of act is so sad. These government people were killing innocent people just because they didn’t agree with them, or they were trying to make peace between the two groups. It’s so sad to see something like this happen in another country. This also makes me thankful to live in such a privileged nation, where even when the times get tough, we stick together.

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