This spring marks the 25th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide and the 10th year since the Tamil genocide in Sri Lanka. The world knows what happened in Rwanda. What about Sri Lanka?
The 1994 Rwandan genocide evokes shame, despair, and revulsion.Yet, the events warrant reflection and remind us about the risks of looking the other way.
Significant links connect racial science in colonial southern Africa with the holocaust of the European Jews. Colonial racial science also contributed to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
The prospects for reconciliation are bleak. Formal gestures by the government to nudge the opposition parties to join an intra-Burundi dialogue have consistently failed.
The “quick fix” nature of the Arusha Peace Agreement seems to have come back to haunt Burundi. Ethnic protests threaten to tear the country apart, leading it to the path of a failed state.