 Shakalin Murakate is a renowned human rights activist and genocide survivor. She was born in Rwanda and was only nine years old when she lost her parents and six siblings to the 1994 genocide. She was inspired to share her story of survival and hope for the first time in 2001. Since then, Murakate has delivered hundreds of lectures on genocide prevention and human rights. She's also addressed the UN General Assembly and regularly participates in human rights conferences. Murakate is the founder and president of the Genocide Survivors Foundation, which educates people about the crime of genocide and raises funds to support survivors. Greetings! I'd like to begin by saying how honored I am to participate in this critically important symposium. And I'd like to thank Rob Raymond, Evelyn Ryman, and the entire team at the Nexus Institute for having invited me to participate in this timely and much needed discussion. As you heard in my introduction, my name is Shakalin Murakate and I am one of the survivors of the 1994 genocide against Tutsis in Rwanda. This is a genocide that began in April of 1994 and lasted for approximately 100 days. And in those 100 days, it is estimated that over a million people were murdered. So how did that happen? How is it that Rwanda became an environment where neighbors killed neighbors, where teachers killed their students, where priests and nuns participated in the killing of their fellow church members and in the case of ethnic intermarriages where people killed even their family members? To begin, I always emphasize that it's important to always remember that genocide as a crime is not something that happens overnight. Genocide, as we have seen time and time again, is a step-by-step process. Like the Holocaust and other genocides which preceded it, the 1994 genocide in Rwanda did not arise in a vacuum. Hutus, who are the majority ethnic group in Rwanda, did not just get up one day and want to murder their Tutsi neighbors. The genocide was a step-by-step process. The pre-genocide Rwanda had a number of what I would like to call risk factors which created an environment for the genocide to happen. And I would like to begin by talking about some of those risk factors that led to the genocide. Firstly, when I was born in Rwanda in 1984, I was born in a country which had an ethnic-based ID system. This meant that when you were born in Rwanda, you were labeled either Hutu, Tutsi, or Tua, those being the three ethnic groups in Rwanda. The ethnic-based identification system was introduced in Rwanda by the Belgians when they colonized Rwanda as an effort to divide the Rwandan population. Because as we know, the theory of colonialism was that of dividing in order to conquer. Unfortunately for us, when Rwanda became independent from Belgium in 1962, the Hutu-led government, which took power, chose to continue this same ethnic-based ID system, which the Hutu government used to monopolize power and to discriminate Tutsis in every aspect of the Rwandan society. So growing up in Rwanda, I knew that I lived in a country where my ethnic group, Tutsis, did not have the same basic rights as Hutus, did not have the same privileges. Secondly, the pre-Genocide Rwanda was also an environment where anti-Tutsi propaganda flourished. The Hutu-led government had this narrative of Tutsis being foreigners, being invaders who had come from Ethiopia and other parts of East Africa and had oppressed Hutus during the monarchy system. So at the very early age, Hutu children were told that Tutsis were not true Rwandans like themselves, whether they were foreigners, and they did not deserve the same rights and privileges as Hutus. Thirdly, the pre-Genocide Rwanda was a country which had a culture of impunity. So while the 1994 genocide is the largest killing of Tutsis in Rwanda, and it is only widely known in Western countries, it was not the first killing of Tutsis. Tutsi massacres took place in Rwanda in 1959 and throughout the 60s and 70s. And whenever the Hutu-led government ordered these massacres, the massacres went unpunished. So before the 1994 genocide, Rwanda was an environment where Hutus had come to believe that it was okay to kill Tutsis, that in fact it was their civic duty to kill Tutsis whenever the government ordered it. Finally, and in continuing to show that the 1994 genocide in Rwanda was not an event that happened all of a sudden, it's important to talk about the intensification of the dehumanization campaign which preceded the genocide. In October 1990, a civil war began in Rwanda between the then Hutu extremist government, which was controlling Rwanda, and the Rwandan patriotic front, which was an army made up mostly of Tutsi exiles who had been forced out of Rwanda as a result of the previous Tutsi massacres that I mentioned. But the RPF or the Rwandan Patriotic Front was also made up of Hutu moderates who were also opposed to the Hutu extremist government. And when this civil war began in 1990, life of Tutsis, like my family in Rwanda, became increasingly worse. Tutsis were portrayed in Rwanda's widely-read newspapers and on the radio as spies, as cockroaches, as snakes, and as a sickness which needed to be gotten rid of. By the time the genocide began in 1994, Hutu civilians in Rwanda understood that their Tutsi neighbors were an enemy which they needed to get rid of. I'm giving all this background again to emphasize that really by the time the genocide began in April of 1994, the physical and mental preparation for the genocide had been taking place years before, and the risk for unimpending genocide were very clear. And if the international community had the political will to prevent the genocide, there is no doubt that this genocide could have been prevented. But unfortunately, as we know, the international community failed to act despite the ample warnings of unimpending genocide. And because of all the physical and mental preparation for the genocide, when the actual killings began, they were very efficient. On April 6, 1994, when the extremist Hutu-led government called on Hutu civilians to kill the enemy, namely the Tutsis, Hutu civilians in masses picked up machetes and clubs and other barbaric instruments and went from door to door killing Tutsis, men, women, and children indiscriminately. When the genocide began, life for us as Tutsis in Rwanda became a living nightmare. I was nine at the time, and I always say that prior to the beginning of the genocide, while I was aware of all the discriminatory measures against my ethnic group, while I was aware of all the injustices that had been committed against my ethnic group, I always say that I was nevertheless a happy child. I had laid a relatively happy childhood. I had my parents. I had four brothers and two sisters, so I was born in a very large family. I had many aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, and like any other nine-year-old child, I had goals and dreams. And I did not think that something such as that which occurred in Rwanda in 1994 would take place and that my dreams and my goals would be brought to such a tragic end. But in the days that followed the beginning of the genocide, myself and all Tutsis in Rwanda found ourselves in an environment where each day when we survived, we did not know whether we were going to leave to see the next day. During the genocide, I was exposed to horrors that no child or really anybody should ever have to experience or be exposed to. Today, 26 years after the genocide, I'm still haunted by the memories of when I used to watch as Tutsimen women and children were being murdered around me and knowing that at any time I also could be killed. I am haunted by the memories of when I used to watch children whose arms and legs had been hacked off. And I am haunted by the memories of the nights when I used to listen to Tutsi toddlers and babies cry for parents who they will never see again. During the genocide, like all survivors, I came face to face with death many times and each time I thought that that would be my last day on earth. But I survived initially due to a Hutu family who hid me, my grandmother and a cousin in his home. And after we're discovered, I later found a refuge in an Italian priest owned orphanage which had existed in Wanda prior to the genocide. And these two Italian priests had made the decision to stay in Wanda during the genocide at the risk of their own lives in an effort to try and save children like myself who were being haunted simply because of our ethnicity, because of our Tutsi ethnicity. And it is in that orphanage that myself and many other children survived. But in the aftermath of the genocide, I would discover that while I have been one of the survivors, I learned that neither my parents nor my four brothers or two sisters had survived. I will never forget the day that I learned that one day during the genocide, my Hutu neighbors, people whose children I grew up playing with and going to school with and going to church with, these Hutu neighbors had found my parents and all my siblings in their hiding places and had taken them to a nearby river where they proceeded to murder them one by one and to throw their bodies in that same river. Their bodies never to be found, never to be buried, never to have a proper tombstone. My grandmothers, my uncles, many of my aunts and cousins suffered a similar fate. Some of them were burned alive, others were beaten to death, others were buried alive and many of them were buried in mass graves. After the genocide, as you can imagine, it was very difficult for me to understand what had occurred in Wanda, how it is that one day I was a child with family and that I had found myself in an environment where I was being hunted and where my family had been murdered simply because of their ethnicity. I was one of the lucky genocide orphans in that I had an uncle who had left Wanda few years before and was at the time living in the United States. And after learning that I had survived and that my parents and siblings had been killed, my uncle decided to adopt me and to bring me to the United States. So in 1995, a year after the genocide, I found myself coming to this country, where I began learning English and trying to start a new life. For a long time after arriving in the United States, I was hunted by the nightmares of what I had witnessed. I had no desire to talk about my experience because I myself was so struggling to understand what had happened in Wanda. And it was not until 2001, at the age of 16, when I had the honor of meeting a Holocaust survivor by the name of David Gertzman, who came to my high school class and spoke to us about his experience as a child during the Holocaust. And it was David who ultimately inspired me and motivated me to start sharing my story of survival in 2001. And for many years after that, David and I traveled all over the United States and many other countries, sharing our experiences, his during the Holocaust and mine during the 1994 genocide against the Tutsis in Wanda. We spoke and I continued to speak to audiences young and old. And I speak now because I enjoy having to repeat the horrors that I witnessed in 1994 or to have to revisit the loss that I suffered in Wanda in 1994. But I speak today and I do the work that I do today through my nonprofit organization, Genocide Survivors Foundation, because I strongly believe that stories of genocide are stories which need to be told today, even more than ever. It is said that those who don't learn from history are bound to repeat it. And unfortunately, this has been true when it comes to the crime of genocide. The never again promise which was uttered after the Holocaust is still yet to become a reality. Today, we still live in a world where there is often too much silence and indifference in the face of genocide and other mass atrocity crimes. And until that silence and that indifference ends, until we recognize that protecting human life or human life from the crime of genocide, which is the worst crime that human beings can commit, until we realize that it is all in our national interest, in humanity's interest to prevent this crime, then unfortunately, it's going to continue to happen, as history has shown us. Dear friends, as we all know today, we are facing a pandemic, the coronavirus or COVID-19 pandemic. The current COVID-19 pandemic has affected all of us as we all struggle with the anxiety and the pain that it has caused. But if there is not one thing that the COVID-19 pandemic has reminded us of, it is our interconnectedness, our common humanity, our common destiny as human beings. As we have seen, the COVID-19 virus does not distinguish between race, religion, nationality, or ethnicity. People all over the world are dying and suffering as a result of this pandemic. And as we continue to do our part to save lives and to engage in unnecessary social distancing, I would like us all to be mindful of other viruses that plague our world today and that also take lives every day. Racism, anti-Semitism, xenophobia, hate. These are also viruses that claim lives every day. And like COVID-19 virus, these virus also do not know any racial, religious, nationality, or ethnic borders or differences. These are viruses which, when they go unchecked and unaddressed, can lead to nothing less than genocide, as we have seen time and time again. Prevention then entails a renewed commitment to fight all forms of bigotry and extremism. As many of us know, today we live in a world where many religious and ethnic minorities live under the constant fear of persecution or even worse extermination. As many of us know, we live in a world where even places of worship are no longer safe from hate-motivated violence, as we have seen in recent times. Therefore, as we continue to battle the current COVID-19 pandemic, I want us to also be reminded of the urgent need to take both personal and collective responsibility to move toward a world where all human beings can live free from fear of persecution or murder simply because of who they are or because of what they believe. Learning from our genocidal past, fighting the current rise of extremism in all its forms, working tirelessly to prevent future genocides. This, I believe, is the best way that we can honor the millions of men, women and children who have lost their lives to the crime of genocide. I thank you very much for your attention.