Rwandan Government seeks sexual castration of "socially degenerate people": a repeat of the tragedy of the Jews and the gypsies

By David O'Brian
AfroAmerica Network

http://www.afroamerica.net/

July 4, 2009

During World War II, the Nazis embarked on a systematic attempt atgenocide of the Romanies, known as the Porajmos or gypsies. It is estimated that between 220,000 and 1,500,000 Romanies were massacred by Nazis acrossEurope. Accused of being mentally degenerate, they were marked forextermination and sentenced to forced labor and imprisonment in concentrationcamps. They were often killed on sight, especially by the Einsatzgruppen(essentially mobile killing units, also know as Operation Reinhard against theJewish people ) on the Eastern Front.

As part of the genocide of the Jews, the Nazi Germany introducedEuthanasia Programs, known as T-4. The T-4 program involved the massextermination of those Hitler and the Third Reich considered "unfit" orfeeble-minded. The "business" of keeping the mentally retarded or mentally illin state financed asylums and homes, and eventually euthanizing them by lethalinjections or gassings, aimed at eliminating the risk of having thementally-ill and developmentally delayed contribute negatively to the'bloodlines' of Europe, and increase the burden on the state. All the Jews ranthe risk of being labelled "socially degenerate", hence candidates for theT-4 program.

After World War II, the Romanies did not have a reprieve. In several communist countries, especially in Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, East Germany, andRomania, they were labeled a "socially degraded stratum". In Czechoslovakia,the women were sterilized as part of a state policy to reduce their population.The report published in December 2005 upon an official inquiry from the CzechRepublic, condemned the Communist authorities for having practiced anassimilation policy towards gypsies and Roma, which "included efforts by socialservices to control the birth rate in the Romani community by sexualsterilization.

One would think that the reprehensible genocidal policy would have endedwith the era of Nazism or Communist regimes of Eastern Europe. One could not beso wrong! Recently the world was appalled to learn that the leaders of the tinyAfrican country of Rwanda were pushing for a law to sterilize people deemed"socially degenerate" or "mentally unstable or ill." In late June2009, the Rwanda government, mostly composed of the Tutsi minority ethnicgroup, introduced the so called "Reproductive Health Bill" to the RwandanParliament. The main purpose of the bill is to legalize the forcefulsterilization of people judged mentally handicapped, ill, or unstable. Accordingto people inside Rwanda, the bill would target basically anyone deemed havingbehaviors not falling within the norms. Apart from the violation of basichuman rights, another major problem of the bill is to determine what these normscould be.

Despite the backing of the bill by the Rwandan president General Paul Kagame,the Parliament referred the bill back to the Rwandan Parliamentarians for thePopulation's Development (RPRPD) and eventually sent back to the bill´sinitiators - among them former Health Minister Dr. Jean DamasceneNtawukuriryayo [pictured above], one of the very few ethnic Hutus in the Tutsiled government. The Vice Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee that analyzed the bill, Mr. Samuel Musabyimana argued that "[Rwandan] parliament found that there was language in the Bill that was not clear and seemed to be infringing on basic human rights."

More troubling are the true intention of the bill. In Kigali, severalgovernment officials confided to an AfroAmerica Network correspondent that thebill constitutes one of the many tools used by the Rwandan government tocontrol the birth rate of some components of the Rwandan society by sexualsterilization. The bill also targets those opposed to the Rwandan government andtheir relatives. The Rwandan officials argued that anyone may be labelledmentally degenerate by the government; especially those accused of genocideideology or anyone under stress due to torture, wrongful imprisonment orpersecution by the government Gacaca courts. Hutu ethnic group members areparticularly targeted by the bill and several may already be candidates forlegal sterilization if and whenever the bill passes.

During World War II, many Germans and others were outraged by the Nazipolicies: Catholic Bishop Galen sent out one of the first "White Rose"pamphlets to protest against such practices. In the case of Rwanda, severalhuman rights organizations have already been alarmed and shocked by such a bill aiming at reintroducing the methods and policies used by Nazis and totalitarian communist regimes of Eastern Europe to target both the Jewish and Romano people. The US-based Human Rights Watch has condemned the bill as "deeply flawed and violates the government's obligations to uphold and protect human rights". As of this writing, there was no official comment from Western governments, the United Nations, the Jewish organizations, or the CatholicChurch about the bill.

© AfroAmerica Network, 2009

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