Geography and genocide

In only 250 miles we had experienced one of the most spectacular and varied combinations of geographical topography in a lifetime of travelling but it was what followed which will be the abiding memory of this remarkable trip to Africa's Western Rift.

THE WESTERN RIFT
The Great Rift Valley stretches 3,700 miles (6,000 kms) from Mozambique to the Middle East but one small 250 mile stretch on the Uganda Congo border brings together the full range of the Rift's hugely variable topography. The four photographs below illustrate the point starting where our trip started: at the Murchison Falls.


THE MURCHISON FALLS


The Murchison Falls where the kilometre wide White Nile falls into the Great Western Rift Valley in northern Uganda through a ravine which narrows to 21 ft
















LAKE EDWARD


Lake Edward - one of a chain of lakes on the fault line of the Great Rift lies south of Murchison and Lake Albert.










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THE RWENZORI MOUNTAINS

The most unexpected of the four illustrations - the RwenzorI Mountains otherwise known as the Mountains of the Moon just south of Lake Edward where snow covered Mount Stanley reaches 16,761 ft (5109 metres). The Uganda Congo (DRC) border runs through the line of the Rwenzori peaks.


















THE VIRUNGA VOLCANOES
At the end of the Rwenzori chain where the Uganda Congo border meets Rwanda are the eight peaks of the Virunga volcanoes. The volcano group includes two of Africa's most active, one of which, Nyramuragira, is shown here erupting in 2002

























MOUNTAIN GORILLAS?
And if this small section of the Western Rift was not sufficiently endowed with the spectacular there is one more little bonus - the slopes of the Virunga Volcanoes are home to the Mountain Gorillas of Dian Fossey fame. Used to humans but living fully in the wild, family groups of 15 to 20 animals are a remarkable sight

SO WHERE EXACTLY IS THIS LITTLE NEST OF JEWELS?



The Great Rift Valley can be seen as a scar on any map or satellite photograph of Africa running from Mozambique in the south to the Dead Sea and Golan Heights of Syria in the north. _____________

The map shows the central part from the Red Sea to Lake Malawi. The Rift Valley is not a single element but splits into two between the Arabian and Red Seas in the north and between the Eastern and Western Rifts in the centre. The 250 mile section illustrated above lies just to the west of Lake Victoria from Lake Albert at the foot of the Murchison Falls to the Nyiragongo and Karisimbi Volcanoes.



A CHANGE OF MOOD
Our onward flight was from Kigali the capital of Rwanda and half a day's drive south of the Virungas. During that day the mood and focus of the trip changed as dramatically as the scenery we had just left. The change was caused partly by the conversation with our driver and guide Kirenga and partly by our visit to the Genocide Memorial in Kigali. Initially Kirenga, discussed the economics of Rwanda and the fact that the whole region: Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and parts of the Congo and Tanzania were dependant on a single ocean gateway - Mombassa on Kenya's Indian Ocean Coast. This regional depedance on one port was one of the reasons behind the re energising of the East African Federation which had originally comprised Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania but was now expanding to include Rwanda and Burundi. Some of this briefing took place leaning on the bonnet (hood) of our Landrover.

The 1994 Genocide

But the real change came as we neared Kigali. We were leaning on a wall looking down at Rwanda's main river - the heavily sedimented red brown River Kagera. Our guide was Rwandan and we had been reticent about raising the subject of the 1994 genocide, an horrific and relatively recent part of Rwandan history. But as we were on the way to see the Genocide Memorial it came naturally into the conversation. When we did raise the subject Kirenga was open and direct about it. In fact one sentence stands out from our memories of this journey.

"It wasn't until mutilated bodies started to pile up against the wall of the Owen Falls Dam on the upper Nile that the international community started to take reports of violence in Rwanda seriously".

It was the River Kagera below us that had carried the bodies to Lake Victoria

The Memorial (left) takes the form of a modern exhibition setting out a graphic description of the sequence of events. Outside the Memorial building there are actual mass graves (right) with internal views coverd by Rwandan flags, (below). The account includes by way of context descriptions of the build up to other genocides including the Jewish holocaust in the Second World war, the Armenian massacres in Turkey in the First Great War and more recently the Kmer Rouge killings in Cambodia and slaughter of Muslims in the Balkans after the disintegration of Yugoslavia.

MASS GRAVE INTERIORS
The inside of mass graves with flags covering the buried bodies






















What the Memorial Account does not in our view adequately describe is the the 1994 genocide was one episode in a long term struggle for supremacy between the Hutus and the Tutsis which had not only continued sporadically for years but had involved an extended area of central and eastern Africa including Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and the Congo (DRC) in addition to Rwanda. The First and Second Congo Wars, the Burundi Civil war all originated from this same ongoing conflict.

This would partly explain why it took so long for neighbouring countries never mind the international community to take seriously new reports of violence in Rwanda in 1994. What was new? This is where our guide's reference to bodies piling up behind a dam on the Nile becomes significant. For this to happen meant that that bodies in incredible numbers were being carried from Rwanda (see map below) through western Tanzania, into Lake Victoria at Bukoba (see map) across the lake and into the White Nile a distance of up to 300 miles.
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Below: Map of Lake Victoria showing the surrounding countries involved or affected by the Hutu Tutsi conflicts. Also shown are BUKOBA (left centre of Lake) where the River Kagera enters the Lake JINJA (top centre) where the White Nile leaves the Lake.

The red brown river heads for Lake Victoria

On the flight from KigalI to Entebbe we again caught sight of the River Kagera now heading for Lake Victoria at Bukoba. It was still the unmistakable red brown we had seen from the road level when driving from the Virunga Volcanoes. The stream retains its colour and shape almost to the centre of Lake Victoria.

At this point we thought we might have stumbled across a geographical discovery which could cause bones to stir in the catacombs of the Royal Geographical Society. But a few minutes with Google soon revealed that it is broadly accepted that the Kagera is the longest and most substantial of the rivers feeding Lake Victoria and therefore the most distant source of
the Nile.

But if this is widely accepted then other questions arise. If the Amazon is measured from the source of its most distant feeder stream then why not the Nile? And since the Nile is already named in sections viz the Victoria Nile and the Albert Nile north of Lake Victoria then why should the same principle not apply south of Lake Victoria?

White Nile, Blue Nile ....and the Red Nile?

A macabre footnote brings all of the strands of this account neatly together -and suggests that a new name could be added to the rivers of Africa. Uganda claims the source of the Nile at Jinja (right) where the outflows from northern Lake Victoria form the head waters of the White Nile. But we heard reports that mutilated bodies from the Rwandan genocide had been found on the shores of the Mediterranean having survived the Murchison Falls, the Aswan Dam and all other obstacles to float at least another 250 miles down the Kagera from the centre of Rwanda. The Kagera River could hardly have furnished more blood curdling proof of the claim for its headwaters to be considered as the true source of the Nile. Surely the Rwandan authorities could now be justified in renaming their principle river the "Kagera Nile", linking logically to the Victoria Nile and the Albert Nile further downstream. __________________________________________________________________

But extending that thought - the Kagera is naturally red with sediment from the rich soil of its 1000 hills and sadly was red for another reason in 1994. Perhaps as a further memorial, not just to the 1994 genocide but hopefully to the end of the years of war and millions of deaths in this region and as an answer to the conundrum of the source of the Nile a new name should be added to the geography of Africa: ___"THE RED NILE".

WHERE NOW FOR RWANDA

Rwanda gives the impression of energy and stability but the tensions between the Hutus and the Tutsis cannot lie far below the surface. Perhaps not unlike Europe after the second world war?

I mention this because I remember a senior civil servant in the British Government telling me that the real driving force behind the political will to form the European Union was not economics but the creation of a political entity which would virtually eliminate war between nation states in Europe. There are clear economic arguments for the re energising of the East African Federation but the inclusion of Rwanda and Burundi and even one day the Congo (DRC) suggests a broader agenda.

We asked our guide if he was Hutu or Tutsi. He replied that he was a Rwandan. Perhaps the wounds are beginning to heal and hopefully political moves such as the re activation of the East African Federation will help create a stable future for the whole region.

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Garth Gunston April 2008