When Juan Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest
I used to think that in Africa, the craziest, most violent people were Somali's. However, since I've spent the last weekend reading about Rwanda, I'd have to say that the Rwandese could actually be a close second and maybe even first.
Strange story #1:
When Juvenal Habryimana seized power in 1973 in a bloodless coup, he ordered many of his opponents killed. However, he could not bring himself to kill the president he had deposed (Mr. Kayibanda). Habryimana came from northern Rwanda, a region that had strong belief’s in cults. Habryimana himself relied on shamans and Mganga’s for advice. So, when it came to figuring out what to do with the former president Kayibanda, Habryimana believed that if he spilled the ex-presidents blood, bad spirits would plague him and so he nixed that plan.
So, instead of killing him, he locked the ex-president and his wife in a house and surrounded the house with soldiers and decided instead to starve them to death. According to the book, “the deposed president and former first lady spent their last days desperately eating pages of books in their library and pieces of foam from their sofa cushions.” Is this some crazy shit or what?
Strange Story #2:
In 1996, Paul Kagame decided to send his Inkontanyi fighters to Zaire in order to help Kabila topple Mobutu. Mobutu had been supporting Hutu insurgents who were launching hit and go attacks from camps in Zaire that were located along the Rwandese border.
Anyway, on May 17, 1997, the day after Mobutu fled Zaire, the Inkontanyi fighters stormed into Kinshasa and made a bizarre discovery and one that solved the mystery of what had happened to president Habriyamana’s body (after his plane was shot down in 1994). It turned out that Mobutu had obtained the body and enshrined it at a private mausoleum. One of Mobutu’s last acts before he departed Zaire was to order that Habriymana’s body be cremated. To this day, no one has ever discovered how Habryimana’s body ended up in Mobutu’s palace.
KE: Puhleeze… this is not you… this is kumekucha…
All humans are capable of extreme brutality given the right conditions.
Read on the following:
- British Gulag in Kenya
- Khmer Rouge in Cambodia
- Stalin in the USSR
- Hitler in Europe
- Kenya in January 2007!
African conflicts pale in significance when compared with atrocities in other places. But that does not justify them.
NB: The rebels in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Northern Uganda have definitely committed worse atrocities than the Somalis & the Rwandese.
I think it is morbid to compare who has committed worse atrocities than the other.
Kei O
Can u tell me more about the british Gulag in kenya?
Mzeiya
This is a factual book written by an American Journalist called Caroline Elkins about the way the British behaved during the state of the emergency in Kenya in the 1950s. The full title is as follows:
“Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenya”
There are harrowing stories told by both survivors and perpetrators of the British counter-insurgency campaign against the Mau Mau in the 1950s.
That Britain actually perpetrated these atrocities is beyond comprehension – especially because it is the very things they had accused Hitler of doing afew years earlier during the 2nd World War.
I highly recommend the book – but be prepared to be shocked.
Mzeiya
Did you know that over 3000 people were hanged by the British between 1952 and 1956 in Kenya???????
Coldtusker:
What? All this information is coming from my own reading of the book “A Thousand Hills”. Get the book and read it. I just finished reading it. Besides, I don’t plagarize because I don’t have to.
KE: The stories may be true but they could be mere stories esp the second one… The stories seem ‘fiction’ to make the book more interesting…
I meant the blog post is different – not in keeping with entrepreneurship -
Strange stories indeed.
I also read about the Liberians and Sierra Leonians eating the vital organs of their fallen enemies. They eat the heart, liver and kidneys raw. Yuk!
No let me correct that, I actually saw the former rebels interviewed on a documentary and they did confess to eating their enemies. Apparently, this is to prevent their dead enemies’ spirits from haunting them. It is part of their culture.
The brutality witnessed in South Africa recently was also shocking – especially the burning of that poor Mozambiqan man sorrounded by laughing South Africans.
I lost my respect for South Africans on that day.
So… did the Liberians and Sierra Leonians say what the stuff tasted like? Chicken?
Before anyone starts spouting obscenities about my question… I am not the one eating human parts. And it is not part of my culture to eat human parts.
culture? barbarism… on the other hand want not, waste not…