SLS-3b4.5 The First 4YUG Cohort - Rwanda - Recovering from Genocide

Before we start our services in Rwanda 2013, we went to visit a number of memorial sites for the genocide.  There is the Kigali Genocide Memorial Center in the capital, the final resting place of 250,000 Rwandans killed in the genocide.  There are also many such sites all over Rwanda.  We went to two churches about an hour south of Kigali, the Nyamata Genocide Memorial and the Nyanza Genocide Memorial, both Catholic churches.  When the killings of Tutsi’s started in 1994, many people fled to Catholic churches, traditionally safe havens, and the churches did open their doors to them.  Unfortunately, the churches could not protect them this time.  At the two churches that we visited, the thousands of people hiding inside locked the doors. The attackers threw petrol bombs and grenades, and broke through gates, doors, and walls.  Thousands of people were killed at many of these churches.  The total death toll was estimated at 800,000 over 3 months in Rwanda, out of a population of ~8 million at the time. 

Other than the many preserved sites of killings all over the country, the government buried 250,000 of the dead in a mass grave in Kigali, and built the Kigali Memorial Center next to the graves.  The museum presented the background, the history, the acts of killing, torturing, and many other acts of absolute horror.  It also displays photos of the haunting faces of many of victims - including numerous children. Then there is the shameful (lack of) international attention and response o the genocide.  The United Nations actually withdrew peace keeping troops from Rwanda when it was obvious what the attackers were doing. 

At Ntarama, we found several small buildings made of mud-bricks.  The main sanctuary holds perhaps a hundred people - this was a small rural church then.  There was a small kitchen whose walls have mostly been breached during the massacre - one can easily walk in and out through the walls.  Thousands of people seeked sanctuary in the buildings and the grounds around them in 1994.  All were killed.  

Nyamata is one of the best preserved, and also the most disturbing because of it.  I can tell it was an important church because of its size.  The sanctuary can easily hold hundreds of people, perhaps even more than a thousand when full packed.  The building is intact, other than the bullet holes.  The altar remains, with many artefacts that belonged to the victims.  There was an identity card which clearly identified the holder as a Tutsi.  (The current identity cards no longer identify the ethnic group.  Rwandans are encouraged to identify themselves only as Rwandans.)  The sitting benches remains, with the clothes of the victims piled on them.  The colours of the clothes have faded, of courses - but the dark blood stains remain.  

The most challenging experience is to walk down to the under chambers where the skulls and bones are stored.  They are stacked on shelves from top to bottom.  The passageways between shelves are no more than 2 feet apart - one can only walk through the shelves in single file, while the skulls and bones are no more than a foot from your face.  The passageways are blind, so we have to turn around at the end in order to get out.  I am often the one leading the way to go down - because the students wouldn’t know that to do and they hesitate.  When we turn around at the end of the passageway, I suddenly become the last one in the line - with hundreds of skulls around and behind me.  It is one of the most uncomfortable experiences I have even had.  Yet I have made myself go through it at least once each year - I have been down there at least 6 or 7 times by now.  It is because I want my students to have that experience, and I would feel bad if I am not there with them.  At the end of the visit, as much as possible, we would sit down on the grass around the church, to share our feeling, answer questions, and discuss the meaning of what we had just experience.  Most of the students would be very quiet initially.  Gradually they would open up.  Most of us have not faced evil so stark and overwhelming before.  What does that tell us about us human beings?  How would we feel if we were the victims?  What cause people to do it?  Are we capable to such evil ourselves?  Will we be able to resist the pressure to participate?  What to do now?  These are probably some of the most important lessons for us.  We are emotionally touched at the time, which makes the lessons stick.  That also makes it important to have experienced teachers to provide guidance and support.  

I was made aware of that this was a planned event, many years in the making.  It was not a terrible event incited by accidents and sudden inflamed passion.  For years, theorists had been developing and promoting ideas that the Tutsi were bad people, not even human in fact. The image of cockroaches was ubiquitous. Lists of targets had been drawn up, and plans for their capture and murder were ready when the genocide was launched.  

This is not an isolated act of evil.  Just in the recent past, similar horrible evil had taken place in Turkish Armenia, Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Nanjing during the Second World War, Communist China, Communist Cambodia, former Yugoslavia, and many other places.  Such is the evil that we human beings are capable of.  

Fortunately for us human beings, there is also hope.  There were many acts of courage during the genocide - some of which we have heard directly from the very people involved.  The country has been recovering strongly, and the emphasis now is not retaliation but reconciliation.  Many people come to visit these memorials, bring flowers.  We also laid some roses.  Whenever we bring our students to Rwanda since then, we would take our students to memorials of the Genocide, to make sure that our students know what happened, how it happened, why it happened, and what can be done to recover from such horror.  We would invite AEE staff who work on the front line of reconciliation, many of whom suffered terribly from the Genocide themselves, losing wife, children, relatives, …  We also heard how God’s love can help many bitter enemies achieve reconciliation which may look humanly impossible.  

The Rwandan’s response to the Genocide is one of the reasons why we like this country so much.  They have suffered terribly.  Yet they are responding not in bitterness and negativity, but rather in hope and positivity.  They are poor materially, yet rich in character and attitude.  On the one hand, we feel we can contribute a little to their development.  On the other hand, there is no much that we are learning from them.  

One lession we learned is that horrible evil such as the Genocide does not just happen out of the blue.  There is always cause.  Long history of conflict, animosity, prejudice, escalating conflict generally precede such evil.  Relatively mild levels of conflict can also escalate gradually into unimaginable evil.  The question we all have to face is: do we have the courage to do the right thing in the face of such evil?  What about intense animosity?  Relatively mild situations of conflict?  What does it take for us to get off the fence to take action?  Will we ever?