Neichü Dz Angami
(A conversation with Madam Fatuma Ndangiza, Executive Secretary of The National Unity and Reconciliation Commission of Rwanda)
Rwanda, the ancient ‘land of a thousand hills’ that lured explorers and colonials with its exceptionally breath-taking hills, forests, lakes and rivers matched with a temperate climate and rich natural resources, today stands out to be humankind’s most inhumane legacy. Any reminder of what happened to Rwanda a decade ago can cause the world’s ‘most powerful’ to bow in shame and horror.
In 1994, there was Genocide in Rwanda. 800,000 people got killed in 100 days, not by machine guns and bombs but by machetes, metal rods, spears, stones and wooden clubs. It did not require sophisticated minds to plan the genocide – just a consistent and persistent use of myths; manipulation of fear; deliberate marketing of suspicion ‘of the other’ and of course, use of the systems of a very chronically poor leadership in power.
Rwandans have suffered copiously, no doubt. But today, Rwanda is evolving to be the world’s most daring and upfront Nation that chooses to face its history and unleashed the bondage of mythmaking that has its roots way back in the colonization system.
A conversation with Madam Fatuma Ndangiza, the executive secretary of the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission, helped me significantly to understand some of the issues that led to the Genocide and also the dynamics of the present Reconciliation process that is enabling the Rwandans to rebuild their nation all over again.
Perhaps there is a lesson for us to learn…..
How did the Genocide take place?
Absolutely a result of Bad Governance! Not just then in 1994 but throughout all the regimes beginning from the colonial rule to post independence period. When the colonials came (Rwanda was colonized by Germans and Belgiums), Tutsis and Hutus were living together as one people. They spoke (and still do) the same language and practice the same traditions and religion.
Class system never existed in the Rwanda society. If you have a certain no of cows (10 and above), you are a Tutsi. Those who had less than 10 cows were considered a Hutu. Hutus were mainly engaged in farming business where as Tutsis were mostly in cattle rearing. There was another group called the Twas. Twas were food gatherers. That distinction was not inherent. Nobody stay in any of this group forever. They kept moving from one group to another, as their economy grow or crumble. 45 minutes drive from here (Kigali), you will find a twin brothers – one of them is a Tutsi, the other a Hutu.
When the colonials came they actually said, “Ok, you are a Tutsi and you have this favor; you are a Hutu and you will be excluded”. They favored one against the other.
Never in the pre-colonial history of Rwanda will you find any massacre taking place, even when bitter disputes broke out. Everyone gave their tributes to their King and practiced very rich culture and traditional belief. The problem started when the colonials started creating artificial tribes and ethnic groups and also demarcating artificial boundaries for their administrative purposes.
When the Belgiums came, they introduced an ID card for all citizens specifically mentioning ethnicity. In order to decide which group the individual should belong, they started to measure their features – those who have sharper features became ‘tutsi’ and those with broader features became ‘hutus’ in their ID card. This introduction of Identity Card was the beginning of the evolving of an imposed Identity and philosophy. This was the beginning of a direct rule, ’use one against the other’, commonly known as ‘divide and rule’.
Many years of being under the Identity system and getting all your favors or disfavors basing on this identity card you hold resulted into what you now call ‘the Rwanda Genocide’. Nearly a million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were massacred by Hutu extremists, fully supported by the Government who came to power solely with an aim to exterminate all those who were favored by the colonials and their instruments.
Tell us more about the events that facilitated the genocide…..
In 1950, The King of Rwanda, ‘Rudahigwa’ came into the picture. He totally disowned the groupings. He said, ‘no more oppression’ and started a reformation movement. He called for Nation building and Unity. This became a threat to the colonials. And so in 1959, the king was assassinated by the colonial administrators mainly because he was changing their agenda. He got killed in Burundi and the colonials send information that the Tutsis have killed the Rwandan King. The news sparked off the killings of the Tutsis by the Hutus. This was the beginning of the creation of a political party with an ethnic connotation. Thousands of Tutsis fled for exile into the neighbouring countries.
In 1962 the Colonials granted Independence to Rwanda. The 1st President was perhaps a student of the colonials. He ruled from 1962 to 1971 and nothing changed during his regime. There was rampant ethicizing of people and nepotism existed even through the help of the constitution. Under the leadership of this first president, Gregory Kayibanda, ‘quota system’ was established and introduced into the Rwandan governing system. There was a lot of favoritism toward the south whether in Government jobs or in technical and professional career-seeking.
Then in 1971, there was a coup d’état by Maj. Gen. Juvénal Habyarimana from the north. His slogan was ‘Peace and National Unity’. People were very happy thinking that change is finally coming. But alas, nothing happened except more discrimination and more ethnic favoritism and this time it’s the other way round. He was a Hutu from the north and during his regime, people were denied right to participate in political processes. The 1978 national election through the ballot saw him elected as the president of Rwanda. He served as President for three consecutive terms and throughout his regime the country’s economy slumped and there was acute food shortage which added hugely to the political tensions in the country. Ultimately, a new wave of ethnic tension was unleashed in 1990 and it was during this time President Habyarimana was forced to open up and get serious with his long promised ‘Democracy’. By this time, the Diaspora Tutsis who have been in exiled for more than 30 years have started forming themselves into a movement called “Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). These exiled Tutsis demanded recognition of their rights as Rwandans and their right to return and participate in the political process. The Harbyarimana Government had to finally make some concessions. Unable to trust the Government to keep its promises, the RPF launched an attack from neighboring Uganda. This rebel force, composed primarily of ethnic Tutsis, blamed the government for failing to democratize and resolve the problems of some 500,000 Tutsi refugees living in diaspora around the world.
Though the Tutsi objective seemed to be to pressure the Rwandan government into making concessions which would strip Tutsis of their largely ‘second class’ status, the invasion was seen as an attempt to bring the Tutsi ethnic group back into power. The effect was to increase ethnic tensions to a level higher than they had ever been. Hutus rallied around the President. Habyarimana himself reacted by immediately instituting genocidal pogroms, which would be directed against all Tutsis and against any Hutus seen as in league with Tutsi interests. Habyarimana justified these acts by proclaiming it was the intent of the Tutsis to restore a kind of Tutsi feudal system and to thus enslave the Hutu race. This war drag on for nearly two years until a ceasefire was signed on 12th July, 1992 at Arusha in Tanzania with an agreement to end fighting and to lead into a peace-process and power sharing.
On 6th April, 1994 the airplane carrying President of Rwanda, Habyarimana and the President of Burundi was shot at as it prepared to land in Kigali and both the presidents got killed. As though this was the signal to spark out the planned Genocide, the military and militia groups started rounding up and killing all the Tutsis and moderate Hutus. The world watched and reported it as ‘tribal war’. 800,000 people including 30,000 children were murdered in cold blood in less than 100 days. !0,000 people a day!
So, as you may have noted, the genocide was not a one day event. The trend of massacres took place in 1959, 1960, 1961, 1990 and finally 1994. Propaganda of hate, indoctrination and dehumanizing started long, long ago. Culture of impunity was also evolving in the process.
What stopped the genocide?
The invasion of RPF from across the neighboring country led by the present president Paul Kigame. The Hutu regime was thus defeated and about 2 million Hutus fled into neighboring Burundi, Democratic republic of Congo and Tanzania for fear of Tutsi retribution. International community also moved in with huge humanitarian relief and the UN peace keeping force (UNAMIR) which was earlier withdrawn, was brought back to strength at the victory of RPF and they stayed until 1996.
We saw the Genocide memorials and museums ….
Did you know that those who are working in those memorials and museums as tour guides and assistants are themselves victims of the genocide? We are moving on. We know we have to deal with our history and address the root causes of our division. We ask ourselves, ‘why did we do what we did?’. Every Rwandan must to ask this question. There is a lot of resilience within the Rwandan people. The fact that we have come so far after going through what we have gone through, shows that humankind are strangely very strong. You will stop being surprised to find survivors in worst human atrocities.
What is most important for your country to move on…..
Reconciliation, of course. But Reconciliation is a long and complex process especially when the history is so bitter and difficult. The most important thing, the new government did that truly helped us to move on is the dismantling of symbols. Immediately, after taking over the country, the ID card was destroyed and discarded. Now as you travel within our country, you will find difficult to know who is a Hutu and who is a Tutsi. There is no symbol to show you that artificial identity that almost completely destroyed our country. Removing the symbol is one thing, dealing with the suspicion and fear of the ‘other’ is another. That is why Reconciliation is the only way forward.
What are Rwandans doing to reconcile?
Memorials and museums are created to help the people of Rwanda understand their history and their past and to seek for the root causes of their conflict. These places are holy places for us. We go there to mourn our deaths but we also go there to heal our hearts. When we go there, we face our worst fears and we make that solemn commitment ‘never again’, a promise the world failed to keep. We have commemoration day and mourning week every year and during this period, we do a lot of story telling and listening at community level. The whole nation try to listen to the stories of the people and it is our way of acknowledging that we are all equally hurting and everyone has a right to be heard and recognized.
The Pentecostal church in Rwanda is the most actively growing church. This can also mean that the people of Rwanda are seeking to be healed. They are seeking for a spiritual encounter and they want to express that experience in a lively and outrageous way.
Our schools’ curriculum has totally done away with ‘Tutsis are like this, Hutus are like that’. All Rwandans are trying to be Rwandans not Tutsis or Hutus.
We have set up ‘NGANDO’, solidarity camps all over the country. Traditionally, if there is any problem like war or drought, people would say, ‘hey, something is going wrong, why not we go for retreat to reflect and share and they would go to ‘NGANDO’. These are also places where young people learn their culture. In you go to Ngando, you are representing yourself as a human being not the structure in which you are part of.
As you have seen everywhere, we also have our Gacaca courts that used to be our traditional justice courts for communal disputes. These courts have already dealt with more than 60,000 suspected genocide perpetuators. If we were to wait for the international tribunal to deal with all the genocide cases, it will take another generation to come and go.
This is what our justice ministry says … “[Gacaca] is the biggest single investment in the reconciliation process. As soon as the victims of genocide see punishment for the perpetrators of genocide, they are ready to forgive. As soon as those who are in prison are facilitated to get out, to be tried, and to be reinserted into community, to do community service as part of the project, then you are building the bridges for conflict management, you are building the bridges for reconciliation, things have started again. So gacaca therefore is tied to the reconciliation process, as soon as both parties to this unfortunate divide see that justice is being done…. I think the pillars are in place to make gacaca a real tool of conflict management, a real tool for sustainable coexistence between communities, a real tool for stabilizing our community and for healing the wounds of genocide, for creating a strong nation….Gacaca therefore is a very big tool, a wonderful [means] for the realization of that dream”.
But the National Reconciliation and Unity Commission have no judicial power……
Yes, you are right; Our commission have no judicial power. Our main role is education. We run solidarity camps, we monitor Gacaca courts, we run seminars and workshops all over the country on Trauma healing and conflict transformation and prevention, we do a lot of research work, we help people to work together, we are involved in income-generation for widows and orphans of genocide, we monitor different political processes, we work with faith based groups to organize trauma healing and motivation programs and we work very closely with government to dismantle structures and symbols that propagate hate and division. We work very closely with civil societies for collective nation building. There are twelve commissioners in the commission, and each of us has been selected under very comprehensive processes by the people of Rwanda and so we the commissioners have a mandate to guide the process of healing in our land.
We have had a children’s summit last year with all the children of Rwanda. 44% of them were born after genocide and 68% of them were below 24 years of age. We want the children to be fully involved in the reconciliation process.
Our most encouraging project is “The Vision 2020’ project. The Vision 2020 is based on 6 pillars and 4 cross-cutting areas. The pillars are – The reconstruction of the Nation, an efficient State capable of unifying and mobilizing its population, human resource development, town and country planning and development of basic infrastructure, Development of entrepreneurship and private sector as well as modernization of agriculture and livestock. Cross cutting areas include gender issue, environment protection, science and technology, including ICT as well as regional and international integration. All the other sectoral documents refer to and are inspired from the Vision 2020 including poverty reduction strategic paper and decentralizing policy and good governance. This Vision 2020 was a by-product of a reflection session at village Urugwiro organized by the presidents’ office.
What is your message for those situations who are struggling with Reconciliation….
From the Rwandan experience I can tell you, you cannot play with the word ‘Reconciliation’. It is a serious subject matter. You must be willing to go deep enough no matter what price to pay. Do not rush. It is a process and sometime the process is extremely complex and difficult. Having a clear vision for the kind of future you want can help to motivate people to deal with their past because ‘how can you move on without dealing with the baggage you carry?’. But reconciliation is not a measuring stick for fault finding. It is a spiritual exercise to let the truth be recognized, justice be restored, forgiveness be experienced and healing and wholeness be restored. Reconciliation is the way to move forward as one people – forgiven and freed.
The writer is an HIV/AIDS counsellor and a consultant for various international organizations.
