NEVER AGAIN?

Emmanuel Dongala, a novelist and chemist who used to live in Brazzaville, in the Congo Republic, writes today in "The Genocide Next Door" on the Op-Ed Page of The New York Times: "It wasn't surprising that the 20th century ended with Africa having a genocide of its own."

She recalls seeing it on TV with "neighbors who did not have a television huddled in [her] living room to watch, just like they did for sports events. Only this time we were not watching African soccer teams compete in the Cup of Nations, we were witnessing the first televised genocide in the history of humankind."

She is referring, of course, to the slaughter of more than 800,000 Rwandans during 100 days between April and July of 1994. Last week I wondered whether, given its willful failure to act in time to stop the killing, the United Nations should be entitled to exhibit the Rwanda Project photos on view at U.N. headquarters in New York. Tomorrow the U.N. will hold a private reception and commemoration for the exhibition, which runs through April 15.

Joanne McKinney, project coordinator for The Rwanda Project, sent this thoughtful response:

I understand your reaction. I also feel, though, that because we are there, and because we will have people speaking on the issues -- including a survivor -- we are linking real names and faces to the genocide to those who visit and work at the U.N. Being on the walls of the UN, for us, is acknowledgment that this happened, that these children exist. Our exhibit lets people confront that reality through a different lens.

I'm not personally forgiving the U.N. or the U.S. for the roles they played -- not even close. Rather, I hope we're taking the opportunity to share the perspective of the children, in a place of great importance.

The typical phrase coming out of the Holocaust "never again" I believe is a false front. Genocide happens again ... and again. I think we need to acknowledge that and share stories, bear witness, attach real people to the atrocities. I think we need to acknowledge how our own culture, cultures around the world and individual prejudice create an environment in which genocide will happen again.

I wept watching [the recent "Frontline" documentary] "Ghosts of Rwanda" -- particularly for the children who now have to grow up having experienced evil and loss in such a dramatic way. As adults, we know what humans are capable of -- as children, we learn it only through horrible adult behavior.

One other thought -- I know you know that David [Jiranek, the late founder of the Rwanda Project] really wanted to show that these children are more than just victims ... more than the images from 10 years ago. And these pictures do just that. While they were interviewing the young woman on "Frontline," I was longing for a sense of what her life is now -- what her future holds. So much of the news media is focused on the time of the event, not the repercussions in the future.

All of the Imbabazi [Orphanage] kids are now adolescents -- how will their future relationships be affected, how will they enter an agricultural community with no family and no land? How will they be able to bind their lives to others, having been amputated from their loved ones in the past? What happens after genocide? Perhaps if we can show that to the world a bit -- today, and tomorrow, people will be able to connect to the issues and to the atrocities.

The key phrase, unfortunately, is "perhaps if." We still don't seem to have made the connection. As Samantha Power -- winner of last year's Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction, for "A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide" -- also writes today on the Times's Op-Ed page, in "Remember Rwanda, but Take Action in Sudan":

On this anniversary, Western and United Nations leaders are expressing their remorse and pledging their resolve to prevent future humanitarian catastrophes. But as they do so, the Sudanese government is teaming up with Arab Muslim militias in a campaign of ethnic slaughter and deportation that has already left nearly a million Africans displaced and more than 30,000 dead. Again, the United States and its allies are bystanders to slaughter, seemingly no more prepared to prevent genocide than they were a decade ago.

And why should they be when it's easier to pay lip service to humanitarian values -- and cheaper, too?