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Living With Ghosts.
Living With Ghosts.
Reconciliation in Rwanda.
On April 7th 1994, the little central African country of Rwanda, erupted into a frenzy of murder and genocide that would last for approximately 100 days, and that left approximately 800,000 corpses in its wake.
The genocide was triggered when a plane carrying Hutu President, Juvenal Habyarimana, was shot down, killing all on board. Within hours the blood was flowing, with the ethnic minority Tutsis, who were blamed for the downing of the plane, being the main targets.
The killing wouldn’t end for nearly three more months, when the Tutsi, Rwandan Patriotic Front, marched into Kigali, the capital, toppling the Hutu regime.
Since then great efforts have been made to reunite and reconcile a country that had been so torn apart down ethnic lines, and where an estimated 200,000 people took a part in the atrocities.
In the district of Nyarubuye, thousands of Tutsi who were seeking sanctuary in a Catholic Church, were massacred over the course of only three days. Many of the perpetrators of this atrocity still live in the region, side by side with the ghosts of those they murdered and the living bodies of those lucky enough to survive.
Twenty years have gone since the country and people of Rwanda passed from under the cloud of genocide. Twenty years of rebuilding a country brought to its knees by the storm that swept through it, and that caught up everybody in its turbulence, whether as victim, perpetrator or witness. Have twenty years been long enough to heal?
Over the course of a mere 100 days starting on the 7th April 1994 following the death of Hutu President, Juvénal Habyarimana, an estimated 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutus were murdered at the hands of their former neighbours and friends, 1/6 of the country’s population.
Ferdinand Rwakayigamba, 55, lost his wife and three children in the genocide. Like many when talking about their experiences, Ferdinand refuses to refer to people by the tag of Hutu or Tutsi, instead he says he was targeted as he was amongst the ‘victims’. He says things are better now than they were prior to the genocide, as “kids don’t know what their ethnic group is”. He is now remarried with four children to a woman twenty-one years his junior, “One of the benefits of war,” he chuckles.
In school, children are taught a curriculum that includes genocide studies, and solutions to problems against unity, co-operation and development. These are the tools that will be needed in later life to keep the country united and moving forward.
Fleeing towards Tanzania many Tutsi, believing churches to again be safe, as they had been in previous conflicts, stopped at Nyarubuye Catholic Church seeking refugee.
Far from receiving refuge, thousands were murdered there in three days between the 14th and 16th April 1994. Many of the survivors accused the priest of complicity in the murders, supplying the militias with the names of those seeking shelter. He fled the country after the genocide and has never faced questioning.
The killing in Nyarubuye only ended on the 26th April when the Rwandan Patriotic Front drove away the militias. As a result the landscape of the district is littered with the graves of those killed during the genocide.
Arkada Runigamakwandi, 45, lost eleven family members in the genocide, nine of them at the church. In 2009 during the Gacaca trials, he discovered that a younger sister he had thought murdered, had actually been kept and raised by one of the murderers of another sister, from whom they had taken the younger sibling. He attributes being in the same co-operative association as some of his family’s killers as a key feature in being able to forgive and to reconcile. He firmly blames the government at the time for what happened and states that knowing that people were friends before the genocide has helped them come back together again in peace.
Since the genocide the church has preached reconciliation, citing Jesus’ forgiveness on the cross as an example to follow. However it took them a while to win back the trust of their congregation, people only eventually coming back to the church through fear of displeasing God.
Innocent Hakizamungu, is the Nyarubuye President of, Twungubumwe, meaning Unity in English. These associations were started in 1998 to help bring reconciliation to the people of Rwanda. The association is a co-operative where members, both Tutsi and Hutu, contribute monthly a set amount of money to be used in times of need. Innocent himself lost his wife and two children in the genocide and claims the association helped him to move forward and to forgive.
Surtan Byamana, 43, was involved in the murder of two elderly ladies who the militia believed had seen too much to be allowed to live. As part of the Gacaca trials he publicly asked for forgiveness and indicated where the two women had been buried. It is due to this identifying of the graves that he reckons the son of one of the women was able to grant forgiveness, as he was then able to give his mother a proper burial. He says that the co-operative savings groups have helped rebuild communities as they tie everybody within them to one another.
Surtan Byamana, 43, who was involved in the murders of two elderly women, claims he only was so due to the fact that the killings were so obviously government planned that he thought it must be OK. He says people now realise that it wasn’t his fault and claims that he would have tried to stop it happening with whatever force he had, if it hadn’t been sanctioned by the authorities.
Events at the time of the genocide were too forceful for a lot of people to resist, with many succumbing and losing themselves under the canopy of hate that shadowed the country.
Leonidas Ntazimana, 40, with his son Pierre. Suspecting Leonidas was hiding Tutsi children, the militia brought him a young boy, and asked him to hide the child for them. Fearing a trap, Leonidas said he couldn’t hide the boy and so the militia said that he would then have to kill him instead. He did. In 1996 he was sent to prison for his crime and in 2003 was released when, under the forgiveness campaign that began in 1999, he wrote a letter detailing what he had done and asking to be forgiven.
Leonidas Ntazimana, 40, killed a young boy after being ordered to do so by the militia. He says that at the time of the killing there was no time for feelings or emotions as if he didn’t carry out the action he would face punishment, either his own execution or a fine and a beating. Whilst in prison for his crime he heard about the forgiveness campaign but waited until its third round of trials to ask for his forgiveness. Before then he hadn’t been too sure about the benefits of the campaign, there being in prison groups of Hutu prisoners who would attack any of their number who participated.
After the genocide, UN aid went mainly to the Hutu refugee camps in the Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly Zaire, which contained many of the planners and perpetrators of the genocide. Inside Rwanda, the survivors had to brush themselves off and start working alone to rebuild their country and it’s shattered economy.
Community service, known as Umuganda, takes place on the last Saturday of every month and is compulsory for those between the ages of 18 and 65. The money saved by this voluntary labour is put back into the country and has helped the economy recover in amazing time from the low it found itself at after the genocide. More importantly, it helps bring people from all communities together, forging bonds that can only be formed in the furnace of physical labour.
Surrounded by the darkness of their past, the people of Rwanda now cling to peace, fearful of losing themselves again to the violence that blackened their country.
The economy of Nyarubuye is based mainly around agriculture. With the recovery of the Rwandan economy, at the end of the market day most of the produce grown from the rich fertile soil of the region has been sold, leaving only a few lonely articles and some happy sellers.
The road to full recovery is still being walked and is clouded by what seems a keen desire to pass blame for the killings on to the government of the time, with individuals accepting only a little of the responsibility for their own personal actions. However with the continuing growth of the economy, it is to be hoped that it will not be long until Rwanda steps out of the gloom of its past permanently.
