Sixteen years after the Rwandan genocide, it remains difficult to write about Rwandan history. For many, the moral shock of the Rwandan genocide was so overpowering that it eclipsed all subsequent events in the region. Massacres that came after were always measured up against the immensity of the genocide: If 80,000 refugees died in the Congo, that may be terrible but nonetheless minor compared with the 800,000 in Rwanda. The Rwandan government may have overstepped, but isn’t that understandable given the tragedy the people suffered?
