Even though we have been in South Africa now for several days. I don’t feel finished with my writing on Rwanda. I don’t think I ever will be. The impressions and thoughts from each country visited — Uganda, Rwanda and South Africa — have been so strong, complex and emotionally wrenching that they will shape whatever I write in the future.
Perhaps the most astonishing day so far was the visit to the churches of Ntarama and Nyamata, both about 30 minutes outside Kigali. In Ntarama, the estimated 5,000 Tutsis who sought protection within the church were slaughtered by machete and fire. In Nyamata, the parish headquarters and a larger church, over 12,000 were killed.
In both cases, Tutsis remembered that in the past, these sites had held against Hutu militias. But in 1994, there was no safety there. Both churches have become memorials to those lost and quiet accusations against the church, which was coopted by Hutu hate and in some cases, aided by priests and nuns, invited the killers within their walls.
The memorials are simple and devastating. In Ntarama, the clothing of the victims lines the crumbling brick walls of the church. Skulls, femurs, hip bones and clavicles are arranged on wire shelves at one end. At the other are boxes of belongings — the shoes, the rosaries, the ID cards, the photographs. Survivors leave flowers when they visit. Some remains have been identified and are kept in wooden caskets, several bodies to each.
Still, the stench is powerful, 13 years later.
As moving as the memorial itself was what was happening outside. One of the women accused of taking part in the massacre was waiting for her trial by gacaca to begin. She was distinguished by the pink shirt she wears, the uniform of a genocidaire in custody. As we toured the church, locals gathered to hear her case and decide on her fate.
Our first day in Rwanda, we saw the TIG prisoners who have already been judged by the gacaca and are now serving their terms. But here, we were all struck by the immediacy of events that seem so far in the past. A woman who had lent a hand to the slaughter that was still so shocking stood there, whiling away the time before those hideous events would be recounted by those who had lived and survived them. As if to underscore, beyond the gacaca space — a piece of ground defined by wood benched and a plastic tarp — were the new houses built for the dozens of children orphaned in the genocide.
When we left for Nyamata, a young man named Martin accompanied us. He carried a small brown bag, like the ones used to pack a school lunch. He needed a ride to the other memorial, where his entire family was murdered. That day, he planned to clean the bones of his family members and placed them in a wooden coffin, to be buried with thousands of others. The bag contained a special chemical that he would use to clean the bones.
Martin has a college degree, but no jobs or prospects. He lives with his cousins, also orphaned, in Kigali.
His grace and quiet manner were hard to bear. Much more direct would have been weeping, screaming, raging. But quietness was unexpected. As I write about it, I can hardly keep my fingers moving. His dignity was immense and his loss total. How does one continue to live after just violence?
That is Rwanda’s question and task. So much of what they are doing is good and right and imaginative and admirable. Rebuilding, reshaping, remembering. Rwandans are a highly disciplined, mindful people. When genocidal hatred is their cause, they make a terrifyingly united force. But when that determination is oriented toward repair and progress, they are impressive and astonishingly effective.
Yet. Yet is the operative word for me on Rwanda. To get to a new place, Rwandans have decided that there is not longer “Hutu” and “Tutsi.” They are all Rwandans. Yet the divisions are still there, and powerful. Can one dictate the erasure of difference? Can one decree healing? Can one legislate forgetting?