Reconciliation a distant dream in a haunted land

To become reconciled to the murderer of your family asks a great deal, perhaps too much, writes Fergal Keane in Rwanda

To become reconciled to the murderer of your family asks a great deal, perhaps too much, writes Fergal Keane in Rwanda

This is just one story out of hundreds of thousands. It is about grief and cruelty and the limits of reconciliation.

Boniface is a good friend of mine. He has worked with me on several Rwandan journeys. He is a Tutsi who grew up in Rwanda's capital, Kigali. Boniface was with me every time I met the killers. Day after day he sat with me in cramped prison rooms listening to denials, half-truths and a few terrible admissions.

He met Gitera Rwamuhizi, who led a gang that killed a mother, her baby and a grandmother. Through all of this Boniface remained calm. He shook hands with the killers and smiled at them. He worked hard to put them at ease.

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Given his personal history, this professionalism seemed truly extraordinary. Boniface was a Tutsi. When the genocide erupted 10 years ago this week, he was studying abroad. His mother and two younger brothers were at home in Kigali. The little boys hid at a neighbour's house while their mother remained at home, hoping the crisis would pass. There had been attacks on Tutsis before, and she and her family had survived.

But Boniface's mother was a well-known human rights activist, and her name was on a death list. On the first day of the genocide the Presidential Guard arrived at the family home and took her away. At this point the story vanishes into darkness. Boniface has no idea what happened next.

Some time in the next few days his young brothers managed to escape to a local school where Belgian UN peacekeepers had set up camp and were protecting about 2,000 Tutsis. Try to picture that scene: white soldiers with machineguns and automatic rifles dug in under the blue flag of the United Nations.

Crowded around them were the Tutsi refugees and their children. Outside on the road they could see Hutu extremist militiamen taunting and threatening them. But the blue flag was a guarantee. Or so the Tutsis thought.

After a few days the Belgians began packing their belongings. The Tutsis panicked. They begged not to be abandoned. The Belgians had been told that the UN Security Council had voted to reduce the peacekeeping force from 2,500 to 250. The Tutsis were being abandoned.

A few of the young men lay down in the road to try to stop the Belgians leaving. The white soldiers fired their guns in the air. In this way the matter was settled.

As the Belgians left, the militia entered, rounding up the Tutsis and taking them away to be slaughtered. The two young brothers of Boniface were among those hacked and clubbed to death.

In the light of this knowledge, my friend's composure when we met the killers was remarkable. If I was asked to nominate a symbol of this country and its suffering it would be Boniface. It is a place where the best face is put on to meet the world but where grief fastens around the heart, to be endured in silence.

But Boniface and other survivors are being urged to reconcile with the killers. This is state-sponsored reconciliation. Most Rwandans are at least willing to put on at least a public show of following the government's wishes.

It is the first time in Rwandan history that a government has urged them not to hate on the basis of ethnic lines. With many thousands of Hutus still in jail after the genocide, the government faces a dilemma: keep them in jail and it risks fostering growing resentment among the majority community; let them out and you cause anguish among the survivors.

President Paul Kagame admits that survivors are being asked to pay the highest price of Rwanda's recovery. Under the Gacaca system - essentially village courts run by committee - killers who confess and apologise can received much-reduced sentences. The aforementioned multiple murderer, Gitera Rwamuhizi, will be free in just six years.

The idea has its roots in traditional village justice, but is also heavily influenced by the vogue for truth and reconciliation ala South Africa and Chile.

At best it might offer survivors and even some perpetrators an emotional catharsis. Also if crimes are openly admitted there can be no denying them later on.

But Gacaca may be trying to achieve the impossible. So great is the scale of trauma in Rwanda and so deep are the divisions that it is hard to imagine any system of justice delivering healing.

During the genocide the very worst instincts of humanity were unleashed. The climate of state-sanctioned terror gave ample opportunity for looting and rape.

With the moral order subverted and the state giving the orders many ordinary Hutus genuinely believed they were doing the state's work. This doesn't allow individuals to evade their personal responsibility, but it can make for intense frustration on the part of victims. Again and again they hear the mantra: I was doing the government's work. It is partly true, and partly not.

The disclosures at Gacaca hearings are routinely braided through with evasions and outright lies. I have met many survivors who have come away from the experience feeling angry and exhausted. There are also some I've come across who have found the experience beneficial.

But does this programme translate into reconciliation in the neighbourhoods and villages where Hutu and Tutsi must live together again?

The official line is that the country is on the road to reconciliation, but I have serious doubts. Having witnessed part of the genocide and returning here on several occasions over the past 10 years, I sense a society still haunted. I am not convinced by the official line that Rwanda is on the road to reconciliation.

This is a society where people will gladly repeat the government mantra: we are all Rwandans now. But can a Tutsi survivor trust his Hutu neighbour again, and what message will he pass on to his children?

The agony is clearly greatest for the survivors. But for the millions of Hutus who returned from exile, this must seem a strange land.

They are ruled by a government in which both Hutus and Tutsis are represented. But real power is concentrated around President Kagame and the men who fought with him against the old Hutu state. Given Rwanda's history, Paul Kagame is right to worry about a return of ethnic-based politics.

But the fear is that if more democratic space is not created, those ethnic tensions will increase rather than dissipate. A recent Human Rights Watch report said: "Whether it /[the government]/ will be able to assure long-term stability and reconciliation may depend on its ability to distinguish between legitimate dissent and the warning signs of another genocide."

For the moment the country is peaceful. It is stable. Ten years after genocide that is a significant statement. But there is much pain in Rwandan hearts. There is much that Rwandans cannot acknowledge to themselves.

I asked Boniface if he wanted to confront the killers of his mother and brothers. His reply was simple: "No, I don't. If I did that I would be too angry, and nothing would stop me from getting revenge."

Why was he so calm when we interviewed the killers?

"That is my best revenge. I am showing them that they have not broken me."

Fergal Keane's four-part series Reconciliation: Days of Darkness - Days of Light begins on the BBC World Service on Tuesday at 9.05 and then again at 13.05 and 19.05