1995 : un Australien
à Kibeho.
mercredi 15 octobre
J’étais
un des 32 soldats australiens dans la zone. Nous avions plus de 2000
soldats de l’APR en face de nous.
Le 22
avril 1995, plus de 4,000 Rwandais ont été massacrés et beaucoup plus
encore ont été blessés dans un lieu nommé Kibeho. Terry Pickard, un militaire et un
médecin expérimenté faisait partie des 32 soldats australiens du
contingent australien de maintien de la paix sous le drapeau des Nations Unies
à Kibeho en ce tragique samedi.
32 militaires
australiens étaient à Kibeho et ils ont reçu
l’instruction des Nations Unies de ne pas intervenir alors qu’il était clair
que des civils allaient être massacrés.
Combat Medic.
An Australian's eyewitness account of the Kibeho
Massacre
Terry Pickard
“I was
one of 32 Australian soldiers in the area. We were facing more than 2000 RPA
soldiers. We were good, but not that good. The numbers were heavily in their favour.
I was worried but I wasn’t scared. All I had were questions. How the hell had a
medical mercy mission ended in such a horrific tragedy? How had it been allowed
to even get to this? Why were we not allowed to fire our weapons, to defend
these poor refugees? God, I thought, I hope we live through this day. And if we
do, I tell you what, won’t I have a story to tell”
-
Terry Pickard
On the
22nd of April 1995 more than 4,000 Rwandans were massacred and thousands more
injured in a place called Kibeho. Terry Pickard, a seasoned soldier and medic,
was one of a 32-strong force of Australian UN peacekeepers in Kibeho on that
terrible Saturday. While the United Nations’ presence prevented the death toll
from being even worse than it was, the massacre continues to haunt him.
The
rules of engagement that stopped him from intervening in the senseless
slaughter and the life and death decisions he was forced to make when dealing
with the injured condemned him to more than a decade of recurring nightmares
and debilitating flashbacks.
The
horror and unimaginable tragedy of the Kibeho Massacre still looms large in the
lives of Rwandans and the people sent to help the African country. No one who
walked away from that day was ever the same again.
Combat
Medic is a personal account of one Australian soldier who found himself at the
centre of events that shocked the world, and the personal toll that he paid.
Terry
Pickard’s army career spanned nearly 20 years. More than 15 years after Rwanda
he continues to struggle with post traumatic stress triggered by his
experiences.
In
2005 those who served in Rwanda and the UN peacekeeping mission were informed
that their service had been upgraded to “warlike’’. Very few of them had ever
doubted it.
Combat
Medic will be available October 2008. Pre-order now.
Review(s)
Evenings
with Steve Austin
Tonight the sobering story of an Australian Army medic who witnessed the
massacre of 4,000 people in Rwanda in 1995. 32 Aussie soldiers were in Kibeho
and were instructed by the United Nations not to intervene when it was clear
that civilians were about to be slaughtered.