Forwarded from the Canadian Firearms Digest V2 #596, Sat Sept 19, 1998
Thank you, principal@connect.ab.ca for your enlightening commentary. Since you posted it on a public list, I took the permission to re-post it to the original list.
Highest regards.
Jean-Francois Avon
--------------------------- your letter -----------------------------
Date: Fri, 18 Sep 1998 15:52:46 -0600
From: principal@connect.ab.ca
Subject: genocide
************** Beginning of Quote **********************
Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 14:10:44 -0600
From: "Jean-Francois Avon"
Subject: Political purges and Bill C-68
Hi to all of you. I know most of you personally, except for the posts to
mailing lists and public organisms.
- - ------------------ beginning of letter ---------------
Yesterday night, around 2am, I was unable to sleep and surfing the TV
channels up until I fell on a movie on the ShowCase channel. This channel
is devoted to repertoire cinema and less mainstream movies.
As I flick to this channel, I see something I can't take my eyes off for
it's overwhelming revolting topic: a bunch of corpses are on a dolly, each
of one being tied by the feet to a crane cable and quickly, efficiently
taken away to a big heap of corpses.
<SNIP>
***************** End of Quote **************************
I was in Rwanda during the latter part of the genocide and during the period
immediately following the Revolution. I concur with Mr. Avon. I have seen
the heaps of corpses. The deaths of these people is tragic and firearms
owners and free men and women should know what can happen if we allow
ourselves to be cowed by government.
It is worthwhile noting that contrary to the lies spewed by anti firearms
groups firearms do not kill people. Rarely were the people of Rwanda killed
by gunfire. They were killed in the tens of thousands with clubs and
machetes. Why did these people go to there deaths like sheep to the
slaughter? In my opinion they were so accustomed to unquestioning compliance
that even in the face of death they would not rise up and fight. At the
dozens of execution sites I encountered there were only two occasions where
I saw evidence of gunfire. This was in the form of shotgun casings. I
point this out because I questioned survivors about the procedures used by
the government forces to round up and execute the mass numbers of people we
are talking about here.
Consistently, I was told that the government forces, with the assistance of
collaborators, would either threaten the village leaders or convince them
that they would be spared if they complied. They then moved the group
en-mass to a collection point. At this time the villagers still complied
with the butchers. Once a sufficient number of people were collected they
would be slaughtered. The ratio of killers to victims would be quite small
so if they had risen up as a group there could have been mass escape. This
did not happen. There were exceptions . . . this is where the shotgun
shells come in. There would be a couple of government soldiers with guns to
cut down anyone that fled.
In the Amahoro stadium in Kigali the bodies were piled one on top of
another. Approx. 25,000 Rwandans were slaughtered there over a period of
just a few days. In a small church and grounds on the road North from
Cyangugu another 10,000 where slaughtered, hacked and bludgeoned to death.
Of all the sensory overloads I experienced, one of the most memorable was
that of a school in a village near the Eastern town of Byumba. The men and
women were separated, which was fairly common, and then slaughtered. As
usual they were not JUST killed but were hacked to pieces. Limbs were often
chopped off first, brutal torture and emasculation was common before a
merciful death was delivered by a fatal blow or machete wound.
One of the dead was a young woman, her skull had been crushed with a club,
upon examination of the body I saw that she still clutched her infant child
to her chest. The skull of the child too was crushed. Drunk on the
absolute power given to them by the government the soldiers and Intehamwe
collaborators became blood thirsty fiends capable of killing a baby in such
a brutal manner. (there were worse things but this has imprinted on my
brain)
In the center of the hollow square arrangement of huts were 2 twelve gauge
casings . . . someone had tried to escape!
There may be those who don't feel this information is topical or appropriate
for the Digest as it is not directly a firearm issue. I believe there are
some lessons.
1. Never have blind trust in the government when it comes to your or your
loved ones life(a la Hep C).
2. There will always be collaborators, help your neighbor but never trust
them completely.
3. Alone we are vulnerable, it is only through a unified group that you
stand a chance against oppression.
4. To find out what a man is, give him power.
5. To murder masses, the mass murder does not need a specific tool.
6. Police and soldiers should never be the only ones with guns.
(My credo, re-enforced by my experiences), As a free man I will not die on
my knees.
I submitted a quote to the list some months back. If the moderator will
indulge me I would like to submit it again.
"War is an ugly thing but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and
degraded state of moral and patriotic feelings which thinks that nothing is
worth war is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to
fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a
miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so
by the exertions of better men than himself." - John Stuart Mill
Jean-Francois Avon, B.Sc. Physics, Montreal, Canada
DePompadour, Sociétéd'Importation Ltée
Limoges fine porcelain and french crystal
JFA Technologies, R&D physicists & engineers
Instrumentation & control, LabView programming
PGP keys: http://bs.mit.edu:8001/pks-toplev.html
PGP ID:C58ADD0D:529645E8205A8A5E F87CC86FAEFEF891
PGP ID:5B51964D:152ACCBCD4A481B0 254011193237822C
Jean-Francois Avon, B.Sc. Physics, Montreal, Canada
DePompadour, Société d'Importation Ltée
Limoges fine porcelain and french crystal
JFA Technologies, R&D physicists & engineers
Instrumentation & control, LabView programming
PGP keys: http://bs.mit.edu:8001/pks-toplev.html
PGP ID:C58ADD0D:529645E8205A8A5E F87CC86FAEFEF891
PGP ID:5B51964D:152ACCBCD4A481B0 254011193237822C
