Let me just start by saying that v.8 will be fun and entertaining. This post will be quite serious and very sad.
On Saturday, we finally made it to a Genocide Memorial. The country has dozens of them all over the city and the country, but this one is the most significant, housing a museum and the mass graves of over 250,000 Rwandans. We were so lucky to get a tour, guided by Joseph. Without digging too much into the details of his life, he moved from Uganda to Rwanda right after the genocide ended to help round up and capture the "killers." He was 16, but says he was very skinny and looked more like a 12 year old. He currently works for USAID and is an Embassy employee. He leads congressional delegations through the memorial.
Where to begin??? When Katie told me that we should go to Rwanda, because she has work and colleagues here, rather than Tanzania (her favorite place ever), all I could think was, "the one with the genocide?" I knew it was several years ago, but is it safe there? Will my kids be safe? We didn't tell our kids about the genocide prior to coming and I realized on Saturday morning we had only told them that we were going to the genocide memorial that afternoon, but not anything about the subject matter. I realized the error of my ways and sat them all down to give them a brief overview of what they are likely to encounter at the museum.
Here is what I told them...basically.
Around 1990 there was a civil war that ended in the fall of 1993 when the President of Rwanda signed a peace accord (Arusha Accords). This war was between the Rwandan Patriotic Front and the Hutu government. The RPF was a Tutsi refugee group based in Uganda. When they attacked the northern area of Rwanda, it kicked off the civil war. This was not the genocide, but it did put Hutus vs Tutsis in military conflict. There was relative peace for a few months and then the president was assassinated on April 6th and the genocide began on the 7th. Hutus targeted and killed the top Tutsi leaders first and then went village by village trying to kill as many Tutsis as possible. They killed at least half a million people in just a few weeks (as many as 1 million in 100 days). Neighbors turned on neighbors and murdered them with machetes because they belonged to a different ethnic group.
The RPF re-engaged and took over the whole country. Hutus fled to Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) and the Tutsis created a new government with a new constitution and elected a new president. Four years later their Vice President became president and he's been in charge since 2000. It has been a peaceful 23 years and they have laws against genocidal ideation, many memorials about the tragedy, and they've worked really hard as a community on truth and reconciliation after the trauma.
Okay. Ready to visit the memorial and get more, better information. Boy did we.
First, back in the early 1900s Tutsi and Hutu was more of a class system. If you owned enough cows, you were Tutsi. If you lost your cows, you became Hutu. It was fluid and it had NOTHING to do with ethnicity, religion, geography, or history. When the Germans came to colonize (followed quickly by the Belgians), they brought modern medicine, improved infrastructure, taxes, and racism. It was too confusing that Tutsis and Hutus could just change like a sneetch on a beach. This didn't work for the Germans, so they gave everyone identification cards and three names were printed on each card, "Matutsi," "Mahutu," and "Matwa." Two of those would be crossed off, leaving you with your identity. (this is an important distinction according to Joseph, because it actually created this sense that you were defined less for what you were and more for what you weren't. You weren't so much a Hutu as you were NOT a Tutsi or a Twa. I guess the thing is that Tutsis, for instance, didn't have a unique identity or culture, so the only thing that defined them was that the weren't Hutu. Strange)
This permanent distinction was passed on to the next generation, like a right or a real identity. For the first time ever, you were born a Tutsi or a Hutu. Thus became the division in Rwanda. It was entirely created by the Germans to classify something that never asked to be classified.
The Tutsis were given the right to own land and be educated and rule the government. The Hutus were not. Twas were mostly forest dwellers living near the great lakes of Rwanda and were the "forgotten group" of the genocide. (fast forwarding, 1/3 of the Twas were killed during the genocide).
After Germany lost The war, the Belgians took over and they were not any better. The French stepped in eventually and they were way too cozy with the Hutu government. (yes, I skipped the part when the populist Hutu group gained power and pushed the "elite" Tutsis out. I missed a chapter)
For years the Hutu government put out propaganda painting the Tutsis as dishonest, terrible people (think Jews in Germany) and created the 10 Hutu commandments that read mostly as, thou shalt not do anything with a Tutsi. Do not marry one, do not employ one, do not start a business with one, do not trust one, definitely do not go on one of those ropes courses where you learn how to help each other while laughing and struggling to accomplished a shared goal. If you do any of these things, you are a traitor. (fast forwarding again, Hutus that didn't follow the 10 commandments were the first to die in the genocide)
On April 6th, the president was assassinated, not by the RPF, but by his own people who didn't think he was harsh enough. They immediately went to the home of the Tutsi prime minister and murdered her. That death was the first of many planned killings. There was a well organized list of top targets to take out first.
The next target was the military aged Tutsi men. Village by village, trucks of Hutu militia would come in, chase down, and slaughter any Tutsi men they could find. If they had time, they would rape the women and mutilate their bodies so that they couldn't make more Tutsi children. HIV positive men were particularly involved in the rapes as a means of eradication. Children were murdered, but they weren't a target yet, because this was not a chaotic war, this was a calculated eradication of a people. Kill the men, eliminate the creation of new Tutsis, and then finish up by killing all the children.
The most troubling moment of our tour was the children's wing. I literally had hope that it was an area more appropriate for my kids, because the entry said "Children's Room" and the walls were painted pink. There were sweet pictures of kids and a plaque below that said something like this, "Favorite Food: Chips, Favorite Drink: Milk, Favorite Friend: Mum, Behavior: Gregarious, Cause of Death: Stabbed in the eyes and head." Picture after picture with plaque after plaque. I forced myself to 1) look at the picture for a bit, 2) read about the child, 3) read about their horrific end. I skipped to the end on the second plaque and felt like I hadn't paid that sweet soul the justice of getting to know them first. So, I was disciplined the rest of the time. "Sweet image of little siblings, favorite food was ice cream, daddy's little girl and mamma's boy, burned alive in a church." As you exit that room, there are councilors and a "peace room." I nearly went in, but felt that my 5 minutes of suffering didn't rise to the level of deserving resources. What a fucking awful "Children's Room."
The best chance for survival was to go out on your own. As people would evacuate and regroup at churches and stadiums, those large gatherings served as easy targets for major massacres.
At one school the "killers" came to the classroom and asked for all the Tutsi children. The kids of this school locked arms and said, "we're all Rwandans here." They sacrificed their own lives by refusing to give up their Tutsi classmates. They are some of the Rwandans that are honored every year on Heroes Day, February 1st.
After the RPF won the war, many Hutu Militia fled to the DRC, but hundreds of thousands of them were arrested and put in jail. Processing these cases in the courts was slow and it was clear that people would not see their day in court for a century at the given pace. So Gacaca were created. They were community courts where perpetrators faced their accusers in public and confessed to their actions. If they were remorseful, and gave information about who they killed, where the bodies were, and gave other helpful information, their prison sentences were reduced. Many were given 15-30 years in prison. According to Joseph, it was important to get through this process because the prisons were too full and it was very costly to be housing and feeding 150,000 prisoners for the next 80 years. Many of the killers were given 15 year sentences and 15 years of community service afterwards. It's been 29 years.
I know you could all read a better, more accurate article about the Rwandan genocide, but now you know what I know, from Joseph's mouth. If you'd like to get better information, you should go to a library.
In retrospect, I think we did the right thing by not telling our children about the genocide leading up to the trip. Lexi is traumatized from the experience and understands that the "killers" are back in the community now. That is terrifying, in some respects, but it also points to the thing I knew about Rwanda before I came. They have dealt with their past. They have faced each other and have found the other side. This community is very peaceful and very safe. Our kids should feel free to play in the street with the other children and to walk to the store for food. They should not be afraid of the young man walking to work with his machete, because his job is to cut banana bunches off of trees. Ephraim cuts the grass with a machete. I'm curious, after Saturday, will they have the same visceral reaction to that weapon as I do?
It's important that we learn about the genocide and that our kids are exposed to the truths in our societies. In the museum, they have an art installation. The first set of figures represent division, the second set is conflict, the third set is the aftermath/consequences, and the fourth is peace. But, they're in a circle. It goes round and round and round. Joseph said he was very unhappy that they made it into a circle, but now admits that it's probably more accurate. We rarely avoid repeating our past mistakes. The conflict in the DRC is quite troubling to Joseph. I am only now becoming more aware of it myself. It's 102 miles away, so I probably should stay up to date.
Love you all. Soon I will post about "Rwandan Time," which is better than genocide.
Thanks to Joseph for the great tour.
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