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?
Rwanda's government also has been surprisingly successful at freeing the schools and government hiring practices from discrimination and preferential treatment, both hallmarks of pre-genocide Rwanda. But changing the perception among the people is more difficult, particularly with the government's enforced culture of silence about ethnicity. One Hutu aid worker talks about his struggle to register a new nonprofit group. His friends in exile warned him that the Tutsi-led government would never give him the correct permits. And indeed, his application was denied. "My first reaction could have been that they rejected me because I am a Hutu," he says. "But I talked to a Tutsi who had the same problems." While he says he now blames the cumbersome and frequently inept bureaucracy, "other Hutus might see this as discrimination." The government refuses to divulge any statistics on ethnicity, making it even more difficult to refute any suspicions among the Hutu majority.
New generation. There is still hope, of course, for the next generation. About 45 percent of Rwandans have been born since the genocide. But Yvonne Kayiteshonga, who runs the mental health department at the health ministry, worries that this generation is already being scarred by the past. Her counselors have seen it in school, as well as in the psychiatric clinics. "Children as young as 8 cannot follow their studies," she says. "The trauma of the parents is being passed on to their children. We see it every day." The toughest time for everybody is the month of April, during the annual commemoration of the genocide.
Some young Rwandans are banding together. Marguerite Mukasine is a 22-year-old coffee farmer in the village of Nyakizu in southern Rwanda. She belongs to a local group called Jyambere Rubyirnko, or Lift Up Youth, along with 29 other young men and women. The group jointly contributes to a bank account, which is available for loans when a member needs help. A genocide survivor, Mukasine lost two brothers and a sister in 1994. One of the killers came to her parents to ask for forgiveness, which they granted. "So I think it's normal to accept," she says. "For others, I don't know." In her youth group, they meet once a month to discuss everything from AIDS to reconciliation. The members, who include both survivors and children of parents in prison for genocide crimes, also discuss their stories from the genocide. "Nobody," she says, "has a happy story." Still, she brims with hope for the future. "It will not happen again," she says. "We are stopping the mistakes of our parents."
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