Rwandans grapple with reconciliation

 

A Gacaca court in session. The Rwandan traditional courts tried suspects of the 1994 Genocide. Photo/File 

By AFP

In Summary

• Before 1994, different groups in Rwanda lived relatively peacefully together for much of the time and intermarriages were not uncommon.
• Reconciliation programmes focusing on grassroots and group counselling have lifted such widespread or overt stigma, but the double-edged sword of speaking out is that those born years after the genocide have been forced to relive it.

The scene outside Frederic Kazigwemo's home is a typical rural Rwandan scene: a cow chews under a rickety shelter, cassava dries in the sun, women weave baskets and children play.

But in Rwanda, where 20 years ago a genocide claimed over 800,000 lives, the difference is that Kazigwemo murdered his neighbours -- relatives of his wife's weaving partner and next-door neighbour in a "reconciliation village", where free housing comes at the price of forgiveness.

"It was hard living here at the beginning, as this woman's husband helped to kill my family," says Cecile Mukagasana, as she sits on a porch tying colourful string around grass to make coiled baskets for curious tourists.

Before 1994, different groups in Rwanda lived relatively peacefully together for much of the time and intermarriages were not uncommon.

But then "the government was teaching the Hutu that the Tutsis were colonising them again, so we must kill them and take their property," Kazigwemo said.

"They gave us guns and trained us to go and kill," he added, although his mob "used machetes and spears" to slaughter seven people.

"We didn't feel guilty. We were proud of it as the government was wanting us to do this, so we did it again."

In the second attack, Kazigwemo's gang -- among them "people who were sharp at killing" -- hacked two of Cecile's relatives to death.

Kazigwemo is one of around two million people tried over 10 years by the traditional Gacaca court system, set up in the wake of the genocide as traditional courts were overloaded.

He had his sentence reduced after admitting to the killings and apologising for them.

"Before I apologised I didn't have peace in my heart, sometimes when I was standing somewhere, I would see the faces of those I killed in my eyes," he said. "Now I don't see them anymore."

But Dieudonne Gahizi-Ganza, the founder of Best Hope Rwanda that offers counselling to victims of rape, their children, and those of the killers, says that the gacaca trials aren't enough.

"Gacaca did a lot to bring about justice and also handle the cases of perpetrators, but we also need reconciliation," he said.

"After the genocide, we had more than 300,000 orphans and 500,000 widows," says Jean-Baptiste Habyarimana, Executive Secretary of the government's Peace and Reconciliation Commission.

"To recover, for them, it is not so easy", he said.