The University of Alabama at Birmingham
Office of Media Relations
November 19, 1999
Contact: Gail Short
205-934-8931/[email protected]
AUTHOR RECALLS HORROR IN RWANDA
STORY: On April 6, 1994, UAB anthropologist Chris Taylor, Ph.D., was hiding inside his home in Kigali, Rwanda, as extremist Hutu militias carried out what became one of the worst mass killings in world history. In his new book "Sacrifice as Terror: The Rwandan Genocide of 1994" (1999), Taylor gives a personal account of his life in Rwanda leading up to and during the massacre of the Tutsi minority that left a million people dead. He also examines the political and historical factors that gave rise to the genocide.
WHAT: In "Sacrifice As Terror," Taylor details the growing ethnic tensions between the Hutus and Tutsis. Then on April 6, 1994, the plane that the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi were riding in was shot down in Kigali, the Rwandan capital. Hutu militias seized upon the moment and began killing Tutsis. The violence spread and Taylor's neighborhood became a war zone. Several of Taylor's close friends, neighbors and colleagues were killed.
"The Hutu extremists militias in Rwanda did not possess 'technicals,' [automatic weapons] nor did most of them have firearms of any sort. Most were un- or under-employed adolescent males armed with clubs and machetes and imbued with the assurance that they were acting out the will of their country's leaders with the support of the majority of their compatriots. They could have been neutralized without an enormous loss of life on the part of an intervening force."
Taylor also examines elements of Rwandan culture that served as a subtext for the violence, including the notions of being and personhood, good and evil and the growing prominence of women in economic and professional life. One of the earliest casualties in the genocide was Rwanda's female prime minister, Agathe Uwiringiyimana.
WHO: Taylor is an associate professor at UAB (the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He studies the cultural and social conditions effecting behavioral change in people at risk for HIV infection in central Africa. He is author of the 1992 book
"Milk, Honey and Money: Changing Concepts in Rwandan Healing."
CALL: Chris Taylor, Ph.D., at 205-934-8429, or e-mail at [email protected].
Review copies of "Sacrifice As Terror" are available at 1-800-996-6987.
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