OF COMMENTARY Commentary on Genocide: Can We Predict, Prevent, and Protect?

doi:10.1057/jphp.2008.20 ‘‘Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me’’, goes the childhood taunt. Not so, according to Paul Rusesabagina, the hero of the movie Hotel Rwanda, concerning the Rwandan genocide. The big question, of course, is why did it all happen? Rusesabagina, after telling us ‘‘it happened because of ethnic hatred’ ’ directed against the Tutsis, descendents of the ruling classes of Rwanda, then asks: ‘‘What caused this to happen? Very simple. Words’’. This is the punch line from Ruseabagina’s book, No Ordinary Man (1), that inspired the movie, for those of us concerned with the prediction and prevention of genocide – the intentional destruction of a population in whole or in part. It recalls the statement of Abraham Joshua Heschel, the Jewish theologian who escaped from Europe, who wrote that it was not machinery, but words that killed at Auschwitz. Genocide and mass atrocities have been the ranking cause of violent deaths in the 20th century. The toll is estimated to be some 250 million, of whom 70 million have died since World War II. Ruseabagina’s book is essential reading for everyone in public health and social medicine. Rusesabagina tells the story of his relatively happy childhood in the countryside of Rwanda, the land of the thousand hills: brewing of banana beer, his father’s role in shaping his personality, and his excitement about his work as a hotel manager for Hotel Milles Collines. He gives us a retrospective look into how the Hutu–Tutsi divide was rigidified by European rulers