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In the 25 years since the Rwandan genocide, the country has emerged to become one of Africa's success stories. Its remarkable recovery has stemmed from efforts towards nation-building. But some critics argue this bid for ethnic reconciliation is far from complete. In this week's Spotlight on Africa, RFI's Christina Okello travels to Kigali to explore how Rwanda has dealt with the trauma of its past. Tucked away in a courtyard away from the main commercial area in Kigali, is a small memorial site dominated by an imposing building of red bricks and white panels. The building is the Sainte Famille church, the largest Catholic Church in Rwanda. It is also where more than 2,000 people were massacred during the 1994 genocide. “We still remember those people who was killed, who are called Abatutsi [or Tutsi] people,” recounts 19-year-old Nadine Ouwiduhaye, pointing to the names of the victims engraved on a black marble wall. When violence broke out on 7 April following the assassination of President Juvénal Habyarimana, many residents from troubled districts of Kigali fled to Sainte Famille church to seek refuge, only to be handed over to Hutu militias by the priest in charge there. “I'm just looking at these people; they're too many. This is something like inhumanity. How can people take something like a knife and put to the neck of others, how they can kill their people, kill their child, how people can kill his mother? Just too many questions,” Ouwiduhaye told RFI. Is God listening? Up to one million Tutsis and Hutus were killed in a brutal one-hundred-day massacre that has led some to question whether God exists. In his commemoration speech to mark the 25th anniversary since the killings, President Paul Kagame reiterated the poem of a young girl who once said: “Where was God on those dark nights of genocide?” “People say he was absent, no he wasn't,” responds Ouwiduhaye. “Something bad happened, it doesn't mean God forgot us. He is trying to teach us how we can treat each other, how we can be together. Before, they didn't have a unit, they just had something like Tutsi, Hutu, Twa. But right now, we are just Rwandan, all of us we are just Rwandan,” she said. One Rwanda Today, ethnic labels in Rwanda have been erased, and most children like Ouwiduhaye have grown up with the idea of “Rwandaness,” inculcated into them in education camps, known as ingando that try to minimize ethnic differences. “Many people don't understand how we have made this reconciliation,” comments Rwandan author Jean-Marie Vianney Rurangwa, who was invited to discuss his work in preserving the memory of the genocide. Author of four books on the topic, including Au Sortir De l'Enfer (Out of Hell), Rurangwa explains how writing about the genocide can “teach the youth about all those atrocities so that they cannot be repeated.” Roots of Genocide Explaining the racist ideology that sowed the roots of hatred between Hutus and Tutsis is a start. Traditionally, Hutus were people who farmed crops, while a Tutsi minority made up Rwanda's cattle-keeping aristocracy. Because cattle were more valuable than crops, the minority Tutsis became the local elite. Gradually, these class divisions became ethnic distinctions, which were later exploited by German and Belgian colonisers. When in 1959, a Hutu elite toppled the Tutsi royal family, the regime that followed took a staunch nationalist turn, forcing thousands of Tutsis to flee. “The genocide didn't just start in 1994,” says Rurangwa. “There were episodes of violence even in 1961,” after the Hutu majority won the country's first elections; and “right up until 1990,” he said. “Forgetting would be a mistake,” he adds, saying how writing about his experience and the identity battle he's faced since, has been “cathartic” not just for him but for others. “Sharing pain can be a kind of healing.” Accusations of genocide denial Yet officials accuse critics of trying to create an alternative truth. In their crosshairs are people like Hutu opposition leader Victoire Ingabire. The government has long accused her of inciting “divisionist” (i.e. Hutu v Tutsi) rebellion, an allegation she has always denied. Last September, Ingabire was freed from prison after eight years in detention, following a decision by Kagame to pardon over 2,000 inmates. She continues to campaign for what she believes is the truth. “I ask for justice for all Rwandans, it does not mean that I minimize the importance of the Tutsi genocide,” she told RFI. By everyone, Ingabire means the thousands of Hutu civilians who were killed by Kagame's Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) forces as they hunted down those who had committed the genocide in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo, which later expanded into calamitous regional wars. “The crimes committed by certain members of the RPF are never mentioned. We are not allowed to discuss it. So how can we talk about reconciliation?” Together again Yet everywhere reconciliation and unity are espoused by the state. When speaking at the 25th commemoration of the genocide, Paul Kagame vowed to never allow such large-scale violence to ever happen again. And indeed, there has been none. Dissent too has been carefully stifled throughout the RPF's time in power, much to the dismay of rights groups. Moreover, government indicators such as the Rwanda Reconciliation Barometer, an opinion survey conducted every five years, routinely reports that more than 90 percent of Rwandans believe their communities have fully reconciled. This reconciliation has been based on a collective memory of the past to construct a post-ethnic national identity. The aim is to get people to “come out of their traumatic memories and divisive identities and go for nationhood,” explains Eric Ndushabandi, director of the Institute of Research and Dialogue for Peace. The political choice is to say “You have been taught this, you have been reading this, but the truth is this,” he told RFI. Dealing with trauma Common experiences often allow individuals to cope when memories are particularly traumatic. But some Rwandans want to simply forget. “There are traumatic wounds, which come back,” comments Ndushabandi, who runs community dialogue sessions between survivors and perpetrators in villages. “People are looking at their scars and traumatic memories and they say, oh, this proximity and inter-relationship; it's still very problematic.” The other concern is that promoting one Rwandan identity could provide “an escape route for people who have to take responsibility for their deeds,” reckons Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, a research chair on historical trauma and transformation at the Stellenbosch University in Cape Town, who participated in activities during the 25th commemoration of the genocide. While nation building is “a tremendous idea, that we as South Africans can learn from, the problem is when people immediately replace the idea of being ‘I am one Rwanda', without taking accountability and acknowledging what they did. I think that's where the slippage lies,” she told RFI. Moving On The trauma of the genocide remains endemic throughout the population and affects the youth in particular, despite many of them being born after the mass killing. “I cannot say that I was not affected by it [the genocide], because my parents, my grandparents are affected by it,” says Rwanda University student Deborah Chisozo. “This is a painful time for everyone because they're telling us stories, about that history, that was a very dark time here in our country,” she told RFI, as the country observes a 100-day mourning period for the 800,000 Tutsis and 30,000 moderate Hutus who were killed. “I feel bad, some of my friends are having trauma because of that time. But we're going to pass it and we have hope that we're going to have a beautiful country.” There are “encouraging signs,” coming from the youth, says Vincent Sezibera, a professor of psychology at the University of Rwanda. “Wherever you go, you have clubs of young people,” made up of “children born from survivors and children born from perpetrators, collaborating together,” he told RFI. The youth were the centerpiece of this year's tribute. “They send a clear message that a child born from a perpetrator is not necessarily a perpetrator, and they even go on to say that the perpetrator of yesterday is not necessarily a perpetrator of tomorrow,” adds Sezibera. Such youth clubs have taken on names such as Ikisere, which means hope in Kinyarwanda, the official language. “I'm surprised by their resilience but also the creativity of the young generation. And yes, it gives me hope,” he said.

In the 25 years since the Rwandan genocide, the country has emerged to become one of Africa’s success stories. Its remarkable recovery has stemmed from efforts towards nation-building. But some critics argue this bid for ethnic reconciliation is far from complete. In this week’s Spotlight on Africa, RFI's Christina Okello travels to Kigali to explore how Rwanda has dealt with the trauma of its past. Tucked away in a courtyard away from the main commercial area in Kigali, is a small memorial site dominated by an imposing building of red bricks and white panels. The building is the Sainte Famille church, the largest Catholic Church in Rwanda. It is also where more than 2,000 people were massacred during the 1994 genocide. “We still remember those people who was killed, who are called Abatutsi [or Tutsi] people,” recounts 19-year-old Nadine Ouwiduhaye, pointing to the names of the victims engraved on a black marble wall. When violence broke out on 7 April following the assassination of President Juvénal Habyarimana, many residents from troubled districts of Kigali fled to Sainte Famille church to seek refuge, only to be handed over to Hutu militias by the priest in charge there. “I’m just looking at these people; they’re too many. This is something like inhumanity. How can people take something like a knife and put to the neck of others, how they can kill their people, kill their child, how people can kill his mother? Just too many questions,” Ouwiduhaye told RFI. Is God listening? Up to one million Tutsis and Hutus were killed in a brutal one-hundred-day massacre that has led some to question whether God exists. In his commemoration speech to mark the 25th anniversary since the killings, President Paul Kagame reiterated the poem of a young girl who once said: “Where was God on those dark nights of genocide?” “People say he was absent, no he wasn’t,” responds Ouwiduhaye. “Something bad happened, it doesn’t mean God forgot us. He is trying to teach us how we can treat each other, how we can be together. Before, they didn’t have a unit, they just had something like Tutsi, Hutu, Twa. But right now, we are just Rwandan, all of us we are just Rwandan,” she said. One Rwanda Today, ethnic labels in Rwanda have been erased, and most children like Ouwiduhaye have grown up with the idea of “Rwandaness,” inculcated into them in education camps, known as ingando that try to minimize ethnic differences. “Many people don’t understand how we have made this reconciliation,” comments Rwandan author Jean-Marie Vianney Rurangwa, who was invited to discuss his work in preserving the memory of the genocide. Author of four books on the topic, including Au Sortir De l’Enfer (Out of Hell), Rurangwa explains how writing about the genocide can “teach the youth about all those atrocities so that they cannot be repeated.” Roots of Genocide Explaining the racist ideology that sowed the roots of hatred between Hutus and Tutsis is a start. Traditionally, Hutus were people who farmed crops, while a Tutsi minority made up Rwanda’s cattle-keeping aristocracy. Because cattle were more valuable than crops, the minority Tutsis became the local elite. Gradually, these class divisions became ethnic distinctions, which were later exploited by German and Belgian colonisers. When in 1959, a Hutu elite toppled the Tutsi royal family, the regime that followed took a staunch nationalist turn, forcing thousands of Tutsis to flee. “The genocide didn’t just start in 1994,” says Rurangwa. “There were episodes of violence even in 1961,” after the Hutu majority won the country’s first elections; and “right up until 1990,” he said. “Forgetting would be a mistake,” he adds, saying how writing about his experience and the identity battle he’s faced since, has been “cathartic” not just for him but for others. “Sharing pain can be a kind of healing.” Accusations of genocide denial Yet officials accuse critics of trying to create an alternative truth. In their crosshairs are people like Hutu opposition leader Victoire Ingabire. The government has long accused her of inciting “divisionist” (i.e. Hutu v Tutsi) rebellion, an allegation she has always denied. Last September, Ingabire was freed from prison after eight years in detention, following a decision by Kagame to pardon over 2,000 inmates. She continues to campaign for what she believes is the truth. “I ask for justice for all Rwandans, it does not mean that I minimize the importance of the Tutsi genocide,” she told RFI. By everyone, Ingabire means the thousands of Hutu civilians who were killed by Kagame’s Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) forces as they hunted down those who had committed the genocide in neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo, which later expanded into calamitous regional wars. “The crimes committed by certain members of the RPF are never mentioned. We are not allowed to discuss it. So how can we talk about reconciliation?” Together again Yet everywhere reconciliation and unity are espoused by the state. When speaking at the 25th commemoration of the genocide, Paul Kagame vowed to never allow such large-scale violence to ever happen again. And indeed, there has been none. Dissent too has been carefully stifled throughout the RPF’s time in power, much to the dismay of rights groups. Moreover, government indicators such as the Rwanda Reconciliation Barometer, an opinion survey conducted every five years, routinely reports that more than 90 percent of Rwandans believe their communities have fully reconciled. This reconciliation has been based on a collective memory of the past to construct a post-ethnic national identity. The aim is to get people to “come out of their traumatic memories and divisive identities and go for nationhood,” explains Eric Ndushabandi, director of the Institute of Research and Dialogue for Peace. The political choice is to say “You have been taught this, you have been reading this, but the truth is this,” he told RFI. Dealing with trauma Common experiences often allow individuals to cope when memories are particularly traumatic. But some Rwandans want to simply forget. “There are traumatic wounds, which come back,” comments Ndushabandi, who runs community dialogue sessions between survivors and perpetrators in villages. “People are looking at their scars and traumatic memories and they say, oh, this proximity and inter-relationship; it’s still very problematic.” The other concern is that promoting one Rwandan identity could provide “an escape route for people who have to take responsibility for their deeds,” reckons Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, a research chair on historical trauma and transformation at the Stellenbosch University in Cape Town, who participated in activities during the 25th commemoration of the genocide. While nation building is “a tremendous idea, that we as South Africans can learn from, the problem is when people immediately replace the idea of being ‘I am one Rwanda’, without taking accountability and acknowledging what they did. I think that’s where the slippage lies,” she told RFI. Moving On The trauma of the genocide remains endemic throughout the population and affects the youth in particular, despite many of them being born after the mass killing. “I cannot say that I was not affected by it [the genocide], because my parents, my grandparents are affected by it,” says Rwanda University student Deborah Chisozo. “This is a painful time for everyone because they’re telling us stories, about that history, that was a very dark time here in our country,” she told RFI, as the country observes a 100-day mourning period for the 800,000 Tutsis and 30,000 moderate Hutus who were killed. “I feel bad, some of my friends are having trauma because of that time. But we’re going to pass it and we have hope that we’re going to have a beautiful country.” There are “encouraging signs,” coming from the youth, says Vincent Sezibera, a professor of psychology at the University of Rwanda. “Wherever you go, you have clubs of young people,” made up of “children born from survivors and children born from perpetrators, collaborating together,” he told RFI. The youth were the centerpiece of this year’s tribute. “They send a clear message that a child born from a perpetrator is not necessarily a perpetrator, and they even go on to say that the perpetrator of yesterday is not necessarily a perpetrator of tomorrow,” adds Sezibera. Such youth clubs have taken on names such as Ikisere, which means hope in Kinyarwanda, the official language. “I’m surprised by their resilience but also the creativity of the young generation. And yes, it gives me hope,” he said.

Rwanda’s homegrown gacaca law has been widely hailed as a successful indigenous solution to the unprecedented problem of the country’s 1994 genocide. In his book Inside Rwanda’s Gacaca Courts: Seeking Justice After Genocide (University of Wisconsin Press, 2016), Bert Ingelaere complicates this received wisdom by focusing on the way the post-genocide gacaca trials unfolded, rather than on their lofty goals, as framed by the public relations arm of the post-genocide Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) government and other interested parties, both internal and external to Rwanda. The Kinyarwandan word gacaca, derived from the word umucaca, originally referred to a plant that was so soft to sit on that people preferred to gather on it during precolonial times to adjudicate disputes and crimes, but most importantly, to restore social order and harmony. During the colonial period, the jurisdiction and prevalence of gacaca was greatly restricted. Its re-emergence as a viable means of transitional justice in Rwanda following the genocide was a response to the volume of the associated crimes. Western-style court systems were simply unequal to the task of dealing with the 1,958,634 cases of alleged participation in the genocide. The basis of this concise treatment of the gacaca court system and the transitional justice it sought to dispense between 2005 and 2012, is Ingelaere’s mixed methods research in Rwanda, which included extended field research, as well as proxy trial observation by his Rwandan collaborators. The books eight chapters provide an overview of the basic operational characteristics of gacaca and consider how we should qualify the outcomes of this ambitious process. Mireille Djenno is the African Studies Librarian at Indiana University. She can be reached at mdjenno@indiana.edu   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rwanda’s homegrown gacaca law has been widely hailed as a successful indigenous solution to the unprecedented problem of the country’s 1994 genocide. In his book Inside Rwanda’s Gacaca Courts: Seeking Justice After Genocide (University of Wisconsin Press, 2016), Bert Ingelaere complicates this received wisdom by focusing on the way the post-genocide gacaca trials unfolded, rather than on their lofty goals, as framed by the public relations arm of the post-genocide Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) government and other interested parties, both internal and external to Rwanda. The Kinyarwandan word gacaca, derived from the word umucaca, originally referred to a plant that was so soft to sit on that people preferred to gather on it during precolonial times to adjudicate disputes and crimes, but most importantly, to restore social order and harmony. During the colonial period, the jurisdiction and prevalence of gacaca was greatly restricted. Its re-emergence as a viable means of transitional justice in Rwanda following the genocide was a response to the volume of the associated crimes. Western-style court systems were simply unequal to the task of dealing with the 1,958,634 cases of alleged participation in the genocide. The basis of this concise treatment of the gacaca court system and the transitional justice it sought to dispense between 2005 and 2012, is Ingelaere’s mixed methods research in Rwanda, which included extended field research, as well as proxy trial observation by his Rwandan collaborators. The books eight chapters provide an overview of the basic operational characteristics of gacaca and consider how we should qualify the outcomes of this ambitious process. Mireille Djenno is the African Studies Librarian at Indiana University. She can be reached at mdjenno@indiana.edu   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rwanda’s homegrown gacaca law has been widely hailed as a successful indigenous solution to the unprecedented problem of the country’s 1994 genocide. In his book Inside Rwanda’s Gacaca Courts: Seeking Justice After Genocide (University of Wisconsin Press, 2016), Bert Ingelaere complicates this received wisdom by focusing on the way the post-genocide gacaca trials unfolded, rather than on their lofty goals, as framed by the public relations arm of the post-genocide Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) government and other interested parties, both internal and external to Rwanda. The Kinyarwandan word gacaca, derived from the word umucaca, originally referred to a plant that was so soft to sit on that people preferred to gather on it during precolonial times to adjudicate disputes and crimes, but most importantly, to restore social order and harmony. During the colonial period, the jurisdiction and prevalence of gacaca was greatly restricted. Its re-emergence as a viable means of transitional justice in Rwanda following the genocide was a response to the volume of the associated crimes. Western-style court systems were simply unequal to the task of dealing with the 1,958,634 cases of alleged participation in the genocide. The basis of this concise treatment of the gacaca court system and the transitional justice it sought to dispense between 2005 and 2012, is Ingelaere’s mixed methods research in Rwanda, which included extended field research, as well as proxy trial observation by his Rwandan collaborators. The books eight chapters provide an overview of the basic operational characteristics of gacaca and consider how we should qualify the outcomes of this ambitious process. Mireille Djenno is the African Studies Librarian at Indiana University. She can be reached at mdjenno@indiana.edu   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rwanda’s homegrown gacaca law has been widely hailed as a successful indigenous solution to the unprecedented problem of the country’s 1994 genocide. In his book Inside Rwanda’s Gacaca Courts: Seeking Justice After Genocide (University of Wisconsin Press, 2016), Bert Ingelaere complicates this received wisdom by focusing on the way the post-genocide gacaca trials unfolded, rather than on their lofty goals, as framed by the public relations arm of the post-genocide Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) government and other interested parties, both internal and external to Rwanda. The Kinyarwandan word gacaca, derived from the word umucaca, originally referred to a plant that was so soft to sit on that people preferred to gather on it during precolonial times to adjudicate disputes and crimes, but most importantly, to restore social order and harmony. During the colonial period, the jurisdiction and prevalence of gacaca was greatly restricted. Its re-emergence as a viable means of transitional justice in Rwanda following the genocide was a response to the volume of the associated crimes. Western-style court systems were simply unequal to the task of dealing with the 1,958,634 cases of alleged participation in the genocide. The basis of this concise treatment of the gacaca court system and the transitional justice it sought to dispense between 2005 and 2012, is Ingelaere’s mixed methods research in Rwanda, which included extended field research, as well as proxy trial observation by his Rwandan collaborators. The books eight chapters provide an overview of the basic operational characteristics of gacaca and consider how we should qualify the outcomes of this ambitious process. Mireille Djenno is the African Studies Librarian at Indiana University. She can be reached at mdjenno@indiana.edu   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the first of a two part series in which Pod Academy's Paul Brister looks at the fundamentally new approach the UN appears to be taking to the crisis in the Kivu provinces in the East of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). In it he speaks to Dr Phil Clark, Reader in Comparative and International Politics, with reference to Africa, from The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), to consider the causes behind the conflict; why the UN is changing tack and deploying an aggressive intervention Brigade; and what this brigade’s chances of success are. But first Paul explains the context.... The paradoxically named Congo Free State was famously the setting for Joseph Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness. The country has changed its name four times since then, but the title of Conrad’s novella seems as apt a description of the DRC today as it was then. Sat astride the equator and covered in jungle, the country receives high rainfalls – and has the highest frequency of thunderstorms in the world. Beset on all sides by countries that have themselves been ravaged by conflict – including Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, and South Sudan – armed rebel groups have repeatedly strayed across its porous borders, spilling conflict into the DRC and igniting war there. Following the Rwandan genocide in 1994 – which was perpetrated by the Hutu Interahamwe and republican guard – the Hutu regime in Rwanda was overthrown by the Tutsi rebel group, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). Around two million Hutu refugees fled into neighbouring countries, including Zaire, as the DRC was then known. These refugees included many Hutu troops and militia members who had participated in the genocide, and who promptly proceeded to militarise refugee camps, which they used as bases to make incursions into Rwanda to bring down the new RPF-dominated government. This led to the First Congo War. By 1996, the RPF’s patience had run out. Allied with Uganda, Rwanda launched an invasion of Zaire in support of their favoured proxy force, the AFDL [Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo] led by Laurent-Désiré Kabila. The border refugee camps were rapidly flushed out and the fleeing Hutu militants pursued westwards. The regime of longstanding dictator Mobutu Sese Seko crumbled and Kinshasa was taken. In May 1997 Kabila pronounced himself president of the retitled Democratic Republic of Congo. Before long however, fearing that they were planning a coup, Kabila turned on his erstwhile military backers, ordering all foreign forces out of the country and forming an alliance with the very Hutu rebels he had previously fought. Withdrawing to the East, Rwanda and Uganda each established a new rebel group – [the Rassemblement Congolais pour la Democratie (RCD) and the Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC)]. The following year these two rebel groups and their backers attacked the DRC army igniting the Second Congo War. The ensuing conflict sucked in a further six African nations and as many as twenty non-state armed groups were involved, leading some to describe it as the African World War. Over five million people were killed, mostly from preventable diseases, and there was widespread use of rape and torture. By the time the war had officially ended in 2003, the country was on its knees. Despite its huge wealth in untapped mineral resources – which at some estimates are in excess of US$24 trillion – the DRC has the second lowest nominal GDP per capita in the world. The DRC also takes joint last place with Niger on the Human Development Index scale, scoring just 0.304. Measured in terms of life expectancy, literacy, education, standards of living, and quality of life, the lot of the Congolese is the most miserable in the world. So in this most troubled region, the DRC stands out among its peers as the most troubled. And in this shattered country, the provinces of North and South Kivu in the far east of the country stand out as the most woebegone.