Rwanda forum held
By Kate Forbes | August 5, 1994Five speakers at a lunch-time forum on Rwanda yesterday said political upheaval in the East African country is often ignored by the Western media as a reason for the slaughter of nearly one million people. More than 50 Dartmouth community members attended the forum on the terrace of the Collis Center. Government Professor Gene Lyons, who also directs the Dickey Center's United Nations Institute, mediated the forum. He began the forum by listing the three things that would be discussed: the Rwandan land and people, the obligation of the interHe said there are two elements of the tragedy: the genocide of the Tutsi people and the two million refuges fearfully remaining in Zaire while an indeterminate number still exist inside the country. "We need to arrange conditions in some sense so that people who are outside will feel safe in coming home," he said, "at the same time emphasizing that as an African problem, it's the Africans who are going to solve it." Kasfir said the crisis was not caused by an on-going ethnic quarrel between the Hutu and Tutsi tribes.