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Archive for November, 2010

Casual Chats With A Murderer

18 Nov

Before the genocide, there were approximately 8 million people living in Rwanda. After, the conditions were strikingly different. One million corpses. Four million people in exile. One million murderers. Rwanda was dead. It is absolutely incredible to look at the conditions immediately after the genocide (90% of Rwanda’s budget depended on the generosity of foreign aid, for example) and compare them today (45% is now comprised of foreign aid, not even two decades later). Rwanda has done an astonishing job of rebuilding, its accomplishments due in no small part to its strong governmental leadership. Though President Paul Kagame’s political strategies have recently been criticized in the international community, this country has advanced to a point of incredible development in spite of its tender age of 16 years (if you count only the peaceful years…and they do).

It was 1994, and Rwanda was in tatters. Paul Kagame, the new leader of this broken nation, was faced with astounding challenges – healthcare, education, infrastructure, proper burial of the dead, and prosecution of genocidaires were only a few of his problems, and each one was the MOST urgent issue. One of the most pressing issues was manifested in the country’s need to take murderers off its streets to the safety and satisfaction of the surviving public. Where would a country roughly the size of New Jersey incarcerate one eighth of its population? And where would the country go from there? The United Nations’ program, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, was formed to help prosecute the organizers and leaders of the genocide. (About damn time, UN! Food for thought: was the United Nations’ eagerness to participate in prosecution of genocide crimes too little, too late for Rwanda, or was it right for them to step in when they neglected to before? Form your own opinions on that one…and if you’re curious, there are several books from various viewpoints which assess the effectiveness of the UN on matters of genocide and other crimes against humanity. It‘s fascinating, frustrating, messy stuff, but well worth looking at.) The downside (one of several) was that Rwanda was left with everyone else. This included murderers, looters, rapists, and vandals – anyone who did not happen to be a mastermind fell to the jurisdiction of Rwanda’s local governments. It was obvious that if every perpetrator were tried formally, it would take well over one hundred years to finally finish the process. In the meantime, families of victims would be receiving no justice, the country would be allowed no peace, and the genocidaires may never even see legal consequences to their crimes. It was a system too inefficient and small for a catastrophe of such magnitude, and it left the country divided once again. Kagame’s solution? An old Rwandan fallback method of working out disputes which allowed the entire community to participate, give input, and see justice served to a restorative end (in lieu of retribution): Gacaca.

Gacaca, pronounced “Gah-cha-cha,” is a kind of grass which grows under trees. When there was ever a problem or dispute between members of a particular village or community, the entire group affected would meet under the tree to mediate, be honest, and resolve the situation to the satisfaction of all who observed. This is how the fate of the perpetrators of genocide would be decided. Imagine this: The court is held outside. A few men and women sit at a table in a row. They wear sashes that designate their authority as Gacaca Court justices. They have earned this title simply by being able to read and write, and by being “honorable citizens” approved by the rest of the community. A few men (and sometimes but less commonly women) are seated in a row wearing pink jumpsuits and handcuffs. Often an entire village will be seated on the ground, including survivors, family members of victims, and witnesses. At these trials, the defendants in pink will have an opportunity to speak to their innocence or to confess their crimes, and anyone in the community who wishes to speak either way – witnesses, family members, anyone who knows anything – is allowed time in front of the court. They will stand amidst the sitting crowd and speak what they know to be the truth. This is an effective trial strategy for a society whose entire frame of reference is one which is communal, as well as cathartic for victims and witnesses to be able to have a hand in justice for those people who have hurt them so badly. The judges find perpetrators innocent or guilty and sentence them with more leniency if they tell the truth of what they did. In exchange for information about where bodies are buried, details of murders, exposition of other names of genocidaires, and a request for forgiveness, genocidaires may receive a number of different types of leniency, including a sentence to a work camp called TIG.

Pronounced “teej,” this organization works exclusively with genocidaires who have admitted to their own guilt in the perpetuation of genocide. I visited these guys the other day with my fellow genocide nerds and we had the opportunity to ask these guys some questions.

We hiked a little ways down a mountain to where some men and women were working. They work all day every day doing some old-school rock breaking with sledgehammers and fire pits. It is definitely backbreaking stuff. At first, I didn’t feel bad for these guys at all. They killed people. Brutally. Ten or twenty years of this is a cakewalk, a handout. I found myself actively hoping that they suffered under the hot equatorial sun, that every time they got splinters of rock in their eyes they would remember why they were there, experiencing such bad conditions. I found even less pity for the women – it takes some crazy groupthink give-in to kill people in the street with machetes as the men did, but it takes a special kind of irreverence for human life to participate in what these women did. When I found out what they had done, why they were here 16 years later, I had only rage for them. In my mind, someone who takes Tutsi children and suffocates them by throwing them into latrines and holding them under until they suffocated in shit, or who takes Tutsi babies and swings them by their feet against trees and the walls of church buildings deserves a heck of a lot more than ten years of pounding rocks for gravel in a place where there’s sweet-smelling trees and a nice breeze to tickle your face. After seeing Murambi (see post: “Genocide: Everybody Loses”) and the fruits of such labor, it was incredibly hard for me to see these people are human beings instead of soul-less, evil killing machines.

We approached one of the men who was working on this hulkish rock, pummeling it into smaller chunks that would be used to gravel or cobblestones for the roads. We watched as he swung the giant hammer over his head and let gravity take it down. It is difficult not to think of how these very people used tools in the same way 16 years ago, save for the fact that instead of a rock beneath the force of the hammer there would be a human being. That’s not fair, and I realize that…but the mind sometimes associates what it wants. He stopped his work and came over to us at the beckoning of another man who had been chatting with my advisor. The man’s eyes were averted to the ground until he came face to face with us. When he lifted them, I saw exactly what I thought I would never find at this camp: sadness. There are defiant eyes, there are dark, angry eyes, there are emotion-less eyes…and, apparently, there are sad eyes. This man’s despair was obviously profound, in spite of the fact that he was actually to be released forever that very day. He was not excited to be going back home to his family, and he was not confident that his community would accept him, but it was the reality of his situation and he was going to accept that. We asked him several things – how many people did he kill, has he been forgiven by his family and by the families of his victims, why did he do it, has he forgiven himself? His answers were honest and candid, and he accepted responsibility for his actions, which is not as common as one would like to think. “The radio made me do it!” and “The government pressured me!” are not acceptable defenses for this behavior in my book, but they are the most commonly used. In a way, they are somewhat valid. The masterminds of the genocide knew that Rwandese people are extraordinarily obedient, and they capitalized on that as well as the attitudes fostered by the Belgians about the oppression of the Hutu.

As this man spoke, he showed an immense amount of shame and remorse for what he had done. He said that he had made peace with God for his actions, but that he still experienced guilt. He gave a faint smile at the mention of his release, and I was struck by the fact that this guy was nervous to see these people. Yes, he should be, and he should feel remorse and regret and all of those lovely things that go along with mass murder, but this guy was just pitiful. He was swept up (by choice, we must remember) into this serial-killers-r-us effort, and he must live with that for the rest of his life. He has a wife and children and those people, the people that many of us depend on for our love and acceptance, will always see him as a man who killed several people out of hatred. He missed his children’s childhood. He missed out on his own younger years. He took away entire lives. Now, having realized the gravity of what he has done, he must live with this reality for the rest of his existence. It really was pitiful to watch this man speak of his shame and guilt and the fact that he would have to face these people today. I found myself caught between hatred and love for this guy, and I realized that the President had put these guys in this camp because he knew that abiding in hatred was not going to unite or heal his country. He put these people to work to rebuild the country they had worked so hard to destroy, and sought to reintegrate these people into their home villages.

The survivors of this genocide have been faced with the hardest decision a human being must make: They must live side by side with these killers. Do they forgive them and love them and show them the mercy they could not show their victims, or do they give them the hatred and the ill-wishes that they have earned? Forgiveness means different things to different people, but it seems that Rwanda has chosen forgiveness in its varying degrees over a life of hatred. They have said “enough is enough” to the cycle of disgust and violence that began so many years ago, and now they seek a united front in which they can work together for the good of their nation and their children. So many of these people know that if they are to survive and see their grandchildren live in peace, they must stop the hatred here. They have shown mercy, and so far, have not been disappointed. I envy them that ability. I don’t know if I could love these guys, and I wasn’t even here to see the results of their efforts. It had nothing to do with myself or my family, and I don’t know if I can get there. But after seeing the way people forgive, I can promise to try.

We might just take a lesson from these merciful, compassionate, loving human beings. If they can forgive their neighbor for killing their child, and if they can hold no ill will for the people who made their families suffer in this red dirt, then what are we doing holding grudges against one another for small offenses, for political disagreements, for differences in perspective? This world will continue to be built on love and destroyed by hate. If both forces are at work at all times, then our contributions surely must make a difference. Which side will we support as human beings with one shot at this life? This choice is one which we must make constantly, and as we choose we fulfill our responsibility as members of this amazing human race to take care of one another. When we forgive, we live lives of grace and allow one another to do the same. In the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”

 
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“If you would understand anything, observe its beginning and its development.” – Aristotle

17 Nov

Perhaps a little background on the genocide might be nice. I haven’t put too much of the history of the genocide up here, and it is entirely relevant (and not at all boring, so stick with me on this). The Tutsi Genocide was not just a random event that happened to wipe out almost an entire population of people; it was a carefully calculated, astonishingly efficient, ruthlessly executed plan that had been in place save for a start date for years leading up to the killing. In fact, this genocide was not the first, not the second, and not the third time that Tutsis had been slaughtered for the simple fact that they had “Tutsi” stamped on their identification card. How did those stamps appear? Well, my friend, the answer to that is where we begin our quest for our answers to all of the “But, why?” moments that this situation has fostered.

The answer? Belgians. I know, you’re probably thinking, “But Brynn! How can Belgians be bad? They have a cool shape, they’re great with syrup OR fruit and thus quite versatile, not to mention they are served at IHOP, which is an international organization!” Got me there. However, there is more to Belgium than its waffles. In fact, Belgium’s main contribution that we are concerned with today has less to do with breakfast glory and more to do with colonization.

When the Belgians arrived in Rwanda, there were three groups of people: The Tutsi, the Hutu, and the Twa, which is really the only group that can even be remotely classified as a tribe or race of people. The Tutsi and the Hutu were not ethnic groups, but were instead economic classes and were associated loosely with profession. The Hutu were crop farmers who tended to be poorer and the Tutsi were cattle farmers, which resulted in a wealthier place in society. Hutu and Tutsi were never tribes. Ever. That is, until Belgium came and revealed to the Rwandese people the fact that they were, in fact, different ethnicities. Imagine not knowing your own identity until a nice European enlightened you to it only moments after the first time they set foot on your continent! They measured the dimensions of people’s noses, looked at wealth as they perceived it, and decided that based on appearances there were two distinct races apart from the Twa. (If I’m being unclear, this is all Belgian fairy tale. In no way is the Belgian assessment legitimate.) Some characteristics of the Hutu, according to the Belgians: Short; ugly, big head; thick-set; flat nose; thick lips; low forehead; rough; nose with a width of 43.16mm; inferiority complex; simple; childlike; passive; less intelligent; spontaneous; shy; lazy; dirty. In contrast, some characteristics of the Tutsi, according to the ever-observant Belgians: Beautiful features; intelligent; refined feelings; natural-born leaders; polite; clean; diplomatic; clever; hard-working; light color; tall; well-proportioned; fine lips; thin nose; wide brow; beautifully shining teeth; nose dimension of less than 38.71mm. Some characteristics of the “pygmoid Batwa” according to the Belgians: a quickly disappearing race; monkey-like face; “not different from apes, they hunt in the forest;” very big nose with dimensions of 45.56mm. The Belgians registered and recorded who was in which group and issued identity cards which were to be carried on one’s person at all times.

Wow. Now if that weren’t enough to create some hostility, the Belgians made sure there would be division by offering the Tutsi minority all of the employment and educational opportunities, as well as governmental leadership positions. When the Tutsi leadership eventually tried to get more independence, Belgians retaliated and mobilized Hutus to take power from the Tutsis. The Belgians encouraged political parties based on ethnicity and groomed the Hutu through propaganda and even church sermons that the Tutsi were the ones who were oppressing and exploiting them, not the Belgian leadership itself. Tutsi children were even asked to identify themselves in classrooms and publicly shamed by Hutu teachers in an effort to dehumanize them. Clever strategy, and something we’ve seen before in every instance of the classic divide-and-rule strategy. When the Hutu oppressed majority began to become embittered by their circumstance, they proceeded to mobilize into political parties and foster a genocidal groupthink.

There were several times from the 60’s after control was grasped by Hutu extremists until 1994 in which Tutsis were slaughtered for no reason other than what seems to be economic retaliation as a result of Belgian manipulation. (It should also here be noted that most Hutu people are not extremists with genocidal ideology, and that there were several of what are called “moderate Hutu” killed in the ‘94 Tutsi genocide. Extremists are loud and tend to brand an entire group, and here, as anywhere, the “Hutu” subgroup is not homogenous.) The genocide was being practiced under several different Hutu regimes, and the government did nothing but support the efforts. Many Tutsi families fled to places like Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, and the DRC. When the exiled Tutsi forces had organized into a rebel group and had attempted and failed a few times to reinvade Rwanda, they got themselves under control and were led by Paul Kagame (current Rwandan president for the second time and former acquaintance of Ugandan president Museveni during his campaign in the Ugandan bush – I know, it’s a lot of info and it’s all very confusing, but this little tidbit merely serves to show connections between the conflicts in the region). In 1990, the newly formed Rwandese Patriotic Front under Paul Kagame invaded Rwanda.

Four years later, after fighting and tension and a clamp-down by the government on Tutsis had resulted in some peace talks between the then-President Habyarimana and the RPF leaders including Kagame. For the previous few years, some pretty intense “Hutu Power” stuff was being propagated. One example of such shenanigans is manifested in The Hutu Ten Commandments, which are as follows:
The Hutu Ten Commandments
1. Every Hutu should know that a Tutsi woman, whoever she is, works for the interest of her Tutsi ethnic group. As a result, we shall consider a traitor any Hutu who
-marries a Tutsi woman
-befriends a Tutsi woman
-employs a Tutsi woman as a secretary or a concubine.
2. Every Hutu should know that our Hutu daughters are more suitable and conscientious in their role as woman, wife and mother of the family. Are they not beautiful, good secretaries and more honest?
3. Hutu women, be vigilant and try to bring your husbands, brothers and sons back to reason.
4. Every Hutu should know that every Tutsi is dishonest in business. His only aim is the supremacy of his ethnic group. As a result, any Hutu who does the following is a traitor:
makes a partnership with Tutsi in business
invests his money or the government’s money in a Tutsi enterprise
lends or borrows money from a Tutsi
gives favours to Tutsi in business (obtaining import licenses, bank loans, construction sites, public markets, etc.).
5. All strategic positions, political, administrative, economic, military and security should be entrusted only to Hutu.
6. The education sector (school pupils, students, teachers) must be majority Hutu.
7. The Rwandan Armed Forces should be exclusively Hutu. The experience of the October 1990 war has taught us a lesson. No member of the military shall marry a Tutsi.
8. The Hutu should stop having mercy on the Tutsi.
9. The Hutu, wherever they are, must have unity and solidarity and be concerned with the fate of their Hutu brothers.
The Hutu inside and outside Rwanda must constantly look for friends and allies for the Hutu cause, starting with their Hutu brothers.
They must constantly counteract Tutsi propaganda.
The Hutu must be firm and vigilant against their common Tutsi enemy.
10. The Social Revolution of 1959, the Referendum of 1961, and the Hutu Ideology, must be taught to every Hutu at every level. Every Hutu must spread this ideology widely. Any Hutu who persecutes his brother Hutu for having read, spread, and taught this ideology is a traitor.

Children were asked to stand in classrooms if they were Tutsi and were shamed and humiliated by their teachers and fellow students, and more importantly, were led to believe that being a member of their own ‘ethnicity’ was a negative thing. People were disgusting simply because they were born to parents whose own ethnicity had been created on the basis of nose shape and size. Not to state the obvious, but this is absolutely deplorable.

The “Hutu Power” extremists had been preparing for some time, and violence was inevitable. It was only a matter of time until this hatred came to a head. While propaganda was being spread and machetes were being purchased and support was pouring into the Hutu army and Interahamwe (army of young men trained specifically to kill Tutsi) militia from France, ideology was being spread to make common Tutsi people believe that they deserved to die. When the genocide did finally begin, some Tutsi even accepted death without much of a fight. The odds were stacked against them, and it was no surprise to many when death came for them at last.

The genocide lasted from the beginning of April until mid July, 1994. A minimum of 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were murdered. Recent figures have even claimed that it was actually 1,074,000 people who died in 100 days. The remarkable thing about this genocide in comparison to other events of a similar nature is the efficiency of the killing, as well as the fact that the organizers of this genocide made sure to implicate as many people in the killing as possible. They knew that if they killed every Tutsi (as was the goal) and left no witnesses, not to mention implicating every single person in the atrocities, there is no way they would be able to be punished. In some ways, they were right. Tomorrow I’ll post on the justice systems that took care of the killers of the Tutsi genocide, numbering well over one million.

This genocide was carefully crafted, meticulously planned, and executed with shocking speed. Let us take care to remember that those who do not remember history are condemned to repeat it. We need to pay attention to current headlines and know that our attention to these events does matter – our attention as Americans, as Westerners, as people of influence, as fellow human beings, can do so much. If we are to make any sort of difference, however, we need to first open our eyes to the realities of this world, and as Winston Churchill said, “Never, never, never give up.”

 
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The world is hard.

04 Nov

Not just made of rock, not just difficult to figure out, but honestly hard. It’s seen its fair share of tragedy. It has been embittered and fatigued by the endless bombardment of human suffering. It has been worn to its raw nerves by the constant barrage of the failures and inadequacies by organizations meant to stop the violence that plagues this planet. I guess I have heard things and seen things in the last two months that have left me a little hard, too. Giving up seems like the best option when the whole world is falling apart. It is so seductive to throw up one’s hands and abandon everything that stresses us out in favor of a life lived in blissful ignorance. We can easily step back from this huge hunk of rock and realize our happiness as human beings, never bothered by the inconvenience of unsavory experience. We gladly (on a daily basis) leave this space junk to its own devices.

But you know what? The world we know and need force ourselves to remember is made of so much more than geology and geographical features. It is made of flesh. Living, breathing flesh that begs for the opportunity to live a life like the one we all want. Unfortunately, most of the people with whom we coexist on this planet may never have the opportunity to live in the peace and freedom we take for granted every single day.

Now, my friend, before you go and think that I’m about to make some self-righteous case for American self-loathing, give me a shot. I’m actually doing nothing of the kind. I am asking you to think about your life. Although you are a wonderful creation in yourself, you are more than that. You are more than an important member of your family, of your neighborhood, of your hometown. You are more than an American, more than a Westerner. You are part of the only race on earth able to choose to live peacefully or go to war with your fellow members. You are part of the only group to have the ability to drastically change the circumstance of your neighbor, or to assist in efforts to marginalize and ignore the suffering of those who live in uncomfortable circumstances. You are human, and being so, you have immense power: Power to influence, yes, but we all know that life isn’t perfect and that bills take a place of higher priority than the ambiguous plight of a distant stranger. It’s understandable, and not wrong. I am not, however, speaking of the power of influence directly. I am speaking of the power to pay attention.

I can not tell you how many times in the past couple of months I have heard excuses by the United Nations, by American political leaders, by other International talking heads about their lack of involvement in the Tutsi Genocide, LRA War, and other conflicts. You would think that the general consensus would have something to do with resources or a desire to preserve troops. Those are there, yes, but the most common and by far the most frustrating excuse is the one which claims ignorance. Clinton’s visit to Rwanda after the genocide yielded one such excuse: “All over the world there were people like me sitting in offices who did not fully appreciate the depth and speed with which you were being engulfed by this unimaginable terror.” The evidence to refute this statement is overwhelming, and is not generally perceived here (by my observations) as an acceptable statement. It is unacceptable to me (and please keep in mind that I would head the list of people ignorant of global conflict and political turmoil) that this would even be a plausible explanation for allowing a million innocent people to be ruthlessly slaughtered. It is not the first time that the sheer volume of humanity’s ignorance has filled mass graves to overflowing, and it will not be the last, unless we do something about it. If the problem really is exacerbated by the fact that no one is aware of what is going on, we need to get informed. I know. I know the world is going to hell and that there’s too much to pay attention to. I know many people who don’t even watch the news because it’s so depressing. We’ve become hardened by the pain of an imperfect world. But let me make this plea: These people cannot afford our hardened hearts. Survivors of the Tutsi genocide, the Holocaust, the Cambodian genocide, and every other genocide that has happened in this world largely unnoticed need us to know, to pay attention. How can we claim never again to genocide when most of us have no idea that some of these conflicts even happened? Right this second, my current neighbors are engulfed in bitter struggles. The Democratic Republic of Congo and the Sudan are both in the throws of some pretty heinous stuff. Guinea, a country in West Africa, is experiencing a serious internal displacement problem due to upcoming elections today, right this second, not 16 years ago. (Here’s the link if’n you happen to be curious: http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/africa/11/02/guinea.violence/index.html) Uganda itself has been involved in some anti-homosexual assaults and public humiliation as a result of its recently considered homosexual ban. (http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/africa/11/02/uganda.gay.list/index.html) Please, please, don’t let these things happen unnoticed. This is the stuff of nightmares, folks, and we need to be aware. Don’t look at this as thousands are displaced, or the genocide killed a million people. Look at it as Aegis Trust (for prevention of crimes against humanity) illustrates in an awareness video: The genocide killed one person. A person with hopes and fears and people who loved them. Then it killed another. And another. One man was displaced in Guinea, one with opinions and ideas and ambitions and hope. Then another was displaced. And another. This happens to individuals, not statistics. Our hardness of heart serves no one, and the world cannot afford to turn a desensitized eye to the suffering of our sisters and brothers.

I leave you with a quote by Martin Niemoeller: First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me. I’m not asking you to uproot your life and move to a third world country. I’m asking you to remember that humans across the world are just as deserving of our attention as the celebrity you follow on Twitter or your favorite sports hero. I’ve said it early, I’ve said it often, and I believe it is very true: We are all in this together.

 
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