Mr. Speaker, two years ago the House unanimously adopted a motion designating April 7 as the National Day of Reflection on the Prevention of Genocide.
I rise today in remembrance and commemoration of the 16th anniversary of Rwandan genocide, of horrors too terrible to be believed but not too terrible to have happened, where one million Rwandans, mostly ethnic Tutsis and Hutus, were murdered in less than 100 days.
But the worst horror is not only that of the genocide itself but that this genocide was preventable. No one can say that we did not know. We knew but we did not act.
And so, as the Security Council and international community dithered and delayed, Rwandans died.
Indeed, the great tragedy is not only how many Rwandans were murdered but how so few intervened to save them, ignoring the compelling lesson of history that the Rwandan genocide occurred not simply because of the machinery of death but because of indifference in the face of incitement and atrocity.
Never again.