** Please visit our website: http://www.africanassociation.org **
Forwarded message from
Aili Tripp, Director, Women's Studies Research Center
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Marie-Béatrice Umutesi will be in Madison from November 15-17. If you would
like to meet with her during that time please
contact me at [log in to unmask]
Ms. Umutesi will be discussing her book Surviving
the Slaughter: The Ordeal of a Rwandan Refugee in
Zaire (2004) at the November 17 brownbag at noon
(cosponsored by the African Studies Program and
the Women's Studies Research Center). An English
version of the book was recently published by the
University of Wisconsin Press. The book is
launching a new series on Women in Africa and the
Diaspora that is co-edited by Stanlie James and
Aili Tripp.
This is the link to the University of Wisconsin Press ad for the book:
http://www.wisc.edu/wisconsinpress/books/3918.htm
About Surviving the Slaughter: The Ordeal of a Rwandan Refugee in Zaire
In this firsthand account of inexplicable
brutality, day-to-day suffering, and survival,
Marie-Béatrice Umutesi sheds light on a genocide
that targeted the Hutu refugees of Rwanda after
the victory of the Rwandan Patriotic Front in
1994. Umutesi's documentation of these years
provides the world a history that is still widely
unknown. This poignant autobiography is more than
a testimony to the lives and humanity lost; it is
a call for those responsible for the atrocious
crimes-and the devastating silence-to be held
accountable.
About 300,000 were killed in these massacres.
Marie-Beatrice Umutesi was a university-trained
woman who was working with women's associations
in Byumba, Rwanda, before she was forced to flee
to Congo in desperation along with hundreds of
thousands of other refugees. Today she works in
rural development projects in Cameroon.
In 1993 Umutesi was forced to flee from Byumba to
Kigali and then in 1994 she fled to Congo/Zaire
with members of her family and several other
children. Two years later they were forced to
flee from one refugee camp to another while being
pursued by the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front
(RPF) soldiers that had taken over Rwanda in
1994. She and other refugees walked, sometimes
ran, 2,000 kilometers from Bukavu to Mbandaka,
through the rainforests of Zaire. They were
hunted down not only by Rwandan soldiers but also
by other marauding armies. They died by the
thousands in gruesome attacks by Rwandese forces,
but also from hunger, disease, and exhaustion.
They were ignored by the international community
and betrayed by humanitarian associations,
especially the United Nations High Commission on
Refugees, that hunted them down to deliver them
into the hands of their murderers as part of a
repatriation effort.
As renowned historian of Africa Jan Vansina
eloquently put it in a review of the manuscript:
"She tells in unadorned, honest, and
straightforward language what happened to her and
to her companions: what they saw, what they felt,
what rumours they heard during their flights or
in the camps, their fears, their hopes, their
disappointments, their illnesses, deaths, and the
horror of it all. This account testifies above
all to what humanity itself consists of in its
greatness, depravity, and resilience. There are
no enemy groups in this book; members of all of
them were equally stricken. . . [ the testimony
is] "so powerful and moving that it reaches an
unintended literary greatness."
***************************************************************************
At the ASA meeting Umutesi will be participating in a panel:
Friday, 10:45 am - 12:45 pm
(IV-O3) Roundtable to discuss book, Surviving the
Slaughter: The Ordeal of a Rwandan Refugee in
Zaire (Fuir ou mourir au Zaire) by Marie-Béatrice
Umutesi
Chair: Aili Tripp, U of Wisconsin-Madison
Marie-Béatrice Umutesi
Alison Des Forges, Human Rights Watch
Catharine Newbury, Smith College
Danielle de Lame, Royal Museum for Central Africa
Aliko Songolo, U of Wisconsin-Madison
***************************************************************************
If you have any questions do not hesitate to contact me.
Best,
Aili
--
Aili Tripp, Director
Women's Studies Research Center
University of Wisconsin-Madison
108 Ingraham Hall, 1155 Observatory Dr.
Madison, Wisconsin
USA 53706
Office: (608) 263-2053
Fax: (608) 265-2409
Email: [log in to unmask]
Web: http://www.womenstudies.wisc.edu/WSRC/index.htm
--
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Anita H. Makuluni * Madison WI * [log in to unmask]
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