Building solidarity among women
Women’s organizations may offer the best chance for Rwanda’s future. Avega Agahozo has a project in the southern city of Butare, involving orphans, and both genocide widows and the wives of genocidaires who make traditional baskets to sell at craft shops. Countless other associations have similar projects targeting rural women.
I met Laurence Mbarishimana, a female farmer in her 30s, on a steep roadside in Ruhengeri. She said she has benefited from an association called Twisungane, which brings together Tutsi and Hutu widows and helps them with agriculture. “Before the genocide I must admit I was very ignorant,” she said quietly. “Before I used to harvest 30 kilos of beans, but now I harvest 50 kilos.” Mbarishimana also thought that the two groups could coexist: “There is no reason that people should not live together, especially if one group is willing to ask forgiveness.”
Rwanda’s violent history may even provide common ground for women. “Now Rwandan women know that all women can be raped,” said Marie Immaculee Ingabire of Pro Femmes. “We have to build solidarity between us because we are targets in the same way in a conflict situation.”
After the parliamentary elections last fall, Rwanda now boasts the highest percentage of women in parliament of any country in the world (48.4 percent). Some Rwandan women are still skeptical that this will make a difference in their own daily lives.
Agnes Musabyimana, 33, is another woman farmer in Ruhengeri. Clutching a leather-bound Bible as she left a prayer meeting, she told me that in her village, women have unhappy marriages and live hard lives. She said that there are an equal number of male and female leaders, but there hasn’t been any change. “They’re not working for our benefit,” she said flatly. “It’s for their own benefit.”
Nevertheless, Ingabire felt that the recently elected women in parliament would be subject to pressure from their constituents. “This is very important for us, because now even these women who are in parliament, if they are not able to make changes, we can change them,” she said.
Moreover, she said the fact that so many of those left to rebuild the country in the wake of the genocide were women has been important in changing traditional social attitudes.
“I don’t know that genocide can have a good side, but I think that because of the genocide, the mentality now has changed in this country. Because Rwandans saw that now women are able to do something, are able to build the country. So they have to give them the opportunity,” Ingabire said.
In the end, many survivors are not sure that the much-vaunted reconciliation is likely or even desirable right now, but they hold it out as a possibility for the future. Aurea Kayiganwa of Avega Agehozo said tolerance and justice must come first. “It’s very hard for us, to lose your family and be asked to make unity and reconciliation. We can’t imagine that, but we do it for our children.”
Lake Kivu, on Rwanda’s western border.
Telling the world
On a hill above Kibuye, the church of Home St. Jean overlooks the luxuriant green shores of Lake Kivu. Its stonework and beautiful stained glass windows are unusual for a church in this part of the world. It is such an idyllic place that it is difficult to believe the horrors that happened here. But directly in front of the church is something it shares with so many other Rwandan churches: a genocide memorial. The memorial is simple, several concrete tombs with new wreaths on them, and a sign saying that several thousand people were killed here in 1994. I saw the church and memorial before I met Mbezuanda, so I had no idea of the life and death struggle that had gone on inside.
When I was done interviewing Mbezuanda, we stepped out of her house and took photos. As we posed I put my arm around her shoulder. I didn’t realize that such a simple gesture would mean so much to her. She grinned and clasped my hand. We walked down the steep, red dirt path to the car, with her holding my hand the entire way. I was used to seeing women hold hands with each other in Africa, so I didn’t feel strange. As we got to the bottom of the hill, Mbezuanda was still smiling and she remarked that holding hands with me reminded her of her husband, and how they used to hold hands.
I realized at that moment that Mbezuanda’s isolation was not merely social, but physical. The immense stigma of being HIV positive, added to the strange position of being a living reminder of events that many would rather not think of, meant that Mbezuanda probably had little physical contact with anyone but her orphans. It was a harsh and unexpected situation for a woman living in one of the world’s most densely populated countries.
On my way back to Kigali, I passed the church again. After hearing Mbezuanda’s harrowing account, it now looked sinister. Though Mbezuanda’s husband and children were in those tombs, she was not. Instead, she was telling the world about what had happened to her, and however difficult the task, it meant that the genocide did not succeed.
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The Graves Are Not Yet Full: Race, Tribe, and Power in the Heart of Africa
by Bill Berkeley.
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by Philip Gourevitch.
URL: http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/partner?partner_id=28164&cgi=product&isbn=0312243359When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda
by Mahmoud Mamdani.
URL: http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/partner?partner_id=28164&cgi=product&isbn=0691102805A People Betrayed: The Role of the West in Rwanda’s Genocide
by Linda Melvern.
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by Samantha Power.
URL: http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/partner?partner_id=28164&cgi=product&isbn=0060541644The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide
by Gerard Prunier.
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by Peter Uvin.
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Frontline: The Triumph of Evil
URL: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/evil/Human Rights Watch 1999 Report: Leave None to Tell the Story
URL: http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/rwanda/Rwanda 10
URL: http://www.rwanda10.orgThe Rwanda Project: Through the Eyes of Children
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