By Kevin Lavery, KWMU
St. Louis, MO – The Oscar-nominated film "Hotel Rwanda" focuses on the 1994 genocide in that small African nation. Today (Thursday), the former chief U-S war crimes prosecutor who advised the Rwandan government after the killings was in St. Louis to speak about the experience.
Allan Ryan came to Rwanda a year after the massacre in which some 800,000 people were killed. Ryan helped officials facilitate a tribal justice system that called for public confessions of guilt and mandatory compensation. Ryan says though imperfect, it was better than the alternative. "Too many people would go too long without having their responsibility judged," Ryan said. "That's not good for them, it's certainly not good for the victims and the survivors to continue to live in uncertainty."
Ryan says the U.S. ignored the crisis because it had no identifiable interests in Africa and says much the same thing is happening now regarding the genocide in Sudan.