Rwanda Reborn
From the horrors of genocide, this tiny nation is emerging as a surprise success story in Africa. But can it truly overcome its past?
Other Rwandans have found it even more difficult. One Tutsi man lost both of his parents and seven of his nine brothers and sisters. Recently, he confronted one of his father's killers in prison, asking how he could have killed the man who helped pay his children's school fees. The prisoner replied only, "Because he was a Tutsi." There was no apology or regret. Now, he struggles with how to answer when his children ask why they don't have any grandparents. They need to know the truth, he says, but "I don't want them to feel hatred for Hutus."
Still, apart from the isolated incidents of violence, the Rwandan government has largely kept a lid on tension, mainly by exercising tight control over the nation's dialogue. One Rwandan journalist terms the regime of President Paul Kagame "a progressive dictatorship." The aim is an idealistic one-creating a single nation without ethnic splits. "We think the way to heal the divide and heal Rwanda is to promote Rwandan identity above other identities," explains Fatuma Ndangiza, who heads the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission. "We're saying Rwanda first, Hutu and Tutsi later." While Rwanda is technically a multiparty state, politics are still regulated. The ruling party cannot hold more than half of the cabinet posts, but all political parties must be members of the unity government, and decisions are made by consensus. Politicians debate almost exclusively behind closed doors, meaning there is little discussion in public. "We have a society that is deeply divided," says Tito Rutaremara, the government's ombudsman. "Is it good to create a democracy based on division or a democracy based on consensus? The people told us politicians to reconcile ourselves before coming to them."
But growing numbers of Rwandans are complaining about the government's occasional heavy-handedness. Open discussion of ethnic differences is punished, and many independent journalists report having violent run-ins with the authorities. "If someone talks about Hutu or Tutsi, he is branded a divider," says Didas Gasana, editor of Newsline, an independent English-language weekly newspaper. "But this is something we have to face up to ... . When you try to suppress people's feelings and opinions, the time will come when there will be an explosion." Some Rwandan officials concede that they will have to gradually loosen the reins but say it's a difficult balancing act.
The healing process is understandably painful and slow-and aggravated by the glacial pace of justice. With nearly 90,000 genocide suspects in jail, many without trials, Rwanda's damaged courts (and even the United Nations war- crimes tribunal) are simply incapable of handling the workload. In all, more than 750,000 cases (ranging from looting to murder) have yet to be tried anywhere. The country's answer has been to adapt a form of traditional justice, called gacaca, to handle genocide cases. Judges are appointed by each local community, and attendance is mandatory for the entire village. While imperfect, the gacaca process has allowed some measure of truth-telling for survivors to learn what happened to their relatives. "For some, it's really the first time they have talked about it since 1994," says Hugo Jombwe Moudiki, a Cameroonian who until last month ran the Rwanda office of Avocats Sans FrontiÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂères, an international legal group that monitors the gacaca process. "But victims often think they don't get the whole truth, and the accused think it's rigged against them." The process is scheduled to wrap up at the end of this year, an impossible feat given that only 60,000 cases have been tried. The pace has picked up in recent months, but there is pressure to move even faster. "It's taking too much time," says Rutaremara, the ombudsman. "We need to focus on other problems."
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