Extremist Hutus in power in Rwanda in 1994 orchestrated a genocide against the Tutsis. Determined to hang on to their power, whatever the price, the regime convinced the Hutu population that eliminating all Tutsis was necessary for their own survival. Massive civilian participation led to the elimination of 800,000 Tutsis in just three months. Yet no sooner had the genocide ended then it was provisionally forgotten: spectacular images of a massive exodus of Hutu refugees to Zaire were seen around the world, leading everyone to forget the true victims of one of the worst crimes against humanity of the 20th century.
Unlike the exodus, there was very little footage of the genocide. So for television viewers around the world, the most visible victims of the tragedy in Rwanda were those refugees – many of whom had participated in eliminating the Tutsi minority. Many of the refugees soon fell prey to a cholera epidemic in the refugee camps in Zaire that caused 30,000 deaths. Those 30,000 victims of cholera somehow erased the 800,000 victims of genocide from our collective memory...
Turquoise tells their story from the point of view of a young girl, the sole Tutsi survivor from her hill. Taken along on the Hutu exodus to Zaire, on the way she sees the TV cameras that were conspicuously absent when her family was being massacred. She wonders what is left of her family. Neither an illustrated novel nor a comic book, Turquoise employs both text and images to expose both the genocide and its disappearance from the media and our memory. A highly political book, it raises the question of France’s responsibility in the Rwandese tragedy, and points a finger at the international community’s passivity during the genocide.