Embracing and Rehabilitating Former Enemies
UPDATED: 4/23/07, 6 p.m.
MUTOBO, RWANDA–During the 1994 genocide, Maurice Sibomana was a soldier in Rwanda's Army, the same army that was a key perpetrator of the anti-Tutsi slaughter. For most of the past decade, he has fought against the Rwandan government that defeated his army. Late last year, though, the 34-year-old Hutu laid down his gun and returned home for the first time since fleeing Rwanda in the wake of the bloodletting.
It was a big step for the one-time corporal in Rwanda's Air Force. After so many years in the punishing jungles of Congo, he not only faced an uncertain welcome in his former neighbors but he also risked the wrath of his fellow Hutu rebel commanders who punish defections harshly. It took him nearly a year of clandestine planning to engineer his escape.
But before he could return to his old life, Sibomana, like thousands of other returning Hutu soldiers, had to spend two months at a demobilization camp in this western Rwandan town. Here, in this vibrant green valley, Rwanda's post-genocide government is in the middle of a grand experiment to embrace and rehabilitate some of its fiercest opponents. These rebel groups have been mounting raids and lobbing mortars into western Rwanda ever since 1994, targeting the government that toppled the extremist Hutu regime, but some 6,000 former soldiers and rebel fighters have returned to Rwanda since 2001.
The former combatants spend the bulk of the two months attending lectures, starting with subjects like the history of Rwanda, human rights, and the consequences of the genocide. "They need to learn about the reality of the country," says Ernest Nkurikiyitura, a sensitization assistant at the camp (and a former soldier himself). Sitting on rudimentary wooden benches inside a large, tin-roofed meeting hall, the former soldiers greet each lecturer with a spirited chant. The lessons also cover practical instructions on life in modern Rwanda, including the banking system and the need for population control. "When you leave the camp, you know more than the average citizen," says Sibomana, who wants to become an auto mechanic.
The camp also gives officials a chance to evaluate the physical and mental condition of the former soldiers, many of whom suffer from some degree of trauma. Others, like Ferdinand Sinzabakwira, never finished school. He was barely 18 when his cousin recruited him a decade ago to join a group of former soldiers plotting against the Rwandan government. After fleeing to Congo, Sinzabakwira spent a few years in the Congolese Army before joining up with a ragtag group of Rwanda rebels who carried out spotty cross-border raids into Rwanda.
For years, his head was filled with anti-Tutsi propaganda. The predominantly Hutu rebels continue to use some of the same rhetoric that the Hutu militias used during the genocide (including the use of the word "cockroach" to refer to Tutsis). "In the camps in Congo, they said that Tutsis are dangerous and wanted to kill all Hutus," says Sinzabakwira, a 28-year-old Hutu. "I was very young and I thought it was true."
Sinzabakwira has been surprised by how well he has been treated since his return. "In the government, you can find ministers who are both Hutu and Tutsi," he says. "The problem in the country is poverty, not Hutu and Tutsis. That's just something the politicians have used to stay in power." Now, Sinzabakwira, who had reached the rank of captain in the rebel force, is trying to contact some of the dozens of Rwandans he used to command to convince them to return.
With Rwanda's endemic poverty, however, it will be difficult for former soldiers like Sinzabakwira to find a job. "We try to help them with their return," says Maj. Gen. Paul Rwarakabije, who was a colonel in Rwanda's Army during the 1994 genocide and is now a commissioner on the Rwanda Demobilization and Reintegration Commission. "The first thing is social reintegration. The economic side is harder." Rwarakabije spent several years in Congo as a rebel commander before making a high-profile return with 140 of his fighters to Rwanda in 1994. "From the outside, everything sounded awful," he says. "But when I got back, I realized everything has changed.
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