July 25, 2006

KIGALI, Rwanda/GENEVA – In one video clip, a young man narrates how he watched his mother's cold blooded killing – a gun shot to her head. In another, a young woman recalls the last time she saw their last-born sibling being carried away from their hideout by a family friend, who promised to take the baby to their parents, who had by then been killed. The narrators consider their survival miraculous.

These are some of the flashbacks of the killings that engulfed Rwanda between April and July 1994, culminating in the death of nearly 1 million people, mainly Tutsis and moderate Hutus. These testimonies are among exhibits displayed at the Kigali Memorial Center, which was opened in April 2004 to mark the tenth anniversary of the beginning of the 100 days of the 1994 genocide in the Central African country.

The tools used in the killings, including machetes and clubs, among others, are also displayed. Several other exhibits give a historical background of genocide in Rwanda, tracing it back to the first large-scale killings involving the two ethnic groups, Hutus and Tutsis, in 1959, three years before the country's independence from then colonial power Belgium. It also archives genocide and ethnic killings the world over, including images from the Second World War.

The Kigali center is one of several such sites set up in Rwanda by an international body, Aegis Trust, in cooperation with the government and local communities to provide a lasting memorial to the victims of the genocide; to gain international recognition for the plight of the Rwandan people; and through education, to avert the recurrence of genocide in a country which is still at significant risk.

Representatives of Africa's faith groups attending the inaugural meeting of the Inter-Faith Action for Peace in Africa (IFAPA) Commission in the Rwandan capital visited and offered prayers at the memorial center on 22 June 2006. Their message, "Never Again," displayed on flower wreaths laid on concrete tombs containing the remains of thousands of people killed in and around Kigali 12 years ago, affirmed the commitment to concerted interfaith action to prevent such killings from recurring in Rwanda or elsewhere in the world.

The IFAPA convenor and general secretary of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), Rev. Dr Ishmael Noko led the IFAPA meeting's participants to the memorial site.

Peace and Reconciliation at Community Level

The memorial center is one of several peace and reconciliation initiatives of the Rwandan government in cooperation with its local and international partners including the LWF. Ensuring that Rwanda's ethnic groups co-exist peacefully, restoring life back to normal, and working to ensure that genocide "never happens again" are key focus areas of the LWF Department for World Service (DWS) country program in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

In Rukira district in the eastern province of Kibungo, an LWF/DWS Rwanda-initiated interfaith group comprising representatives of 18 Christian denominations and Muslim leaders deals with peace and reconciliation issues at community level.

The group's chairperson Rev. Theonesti Mugengana explained the religious leaders' peace building efforts to a visiting group of participants in the LWF youth communication training workshop, held in Kigali from 19 to 24 June. He said the elected leaders mainly focus on trauma counseling for genocide survivors; promoting peaceful co-existence between Rwanda's ethnic groups; and dealing with issues such as HIV and AIDS.

But the tasks are quite challenging. It is not easy to counsel someone when the counselor her/himself is living with the scars of the "genocide wounds," Mugengana remarked.

Group member Annette (not her real name) narrated her story, demonstrating Mugengana's concern. Her entire family of five was killed during the genocide. She survived, but with many indelible scars including rape. Coming to terms with the loss of her loved ones and the sexual abuse was not easy. She eventually remarried, and like many other Rwandans, began another chapter of life. But this took a sudden shift when she discovered she was HIV positive. Her husband, a pastor, soon died, leaving Annette widowed for the second time in about ten years. She pauses, with a distant look in her eyes. Then she breaks into a wide smile, and explains why this was not the time to sit back and feel sorry for herself – so many people need trauma counseling and healing, which she can offer.

Restoring Trust and Hope

The group members receive trauma-counseling skills through various workshops organized by the LWF/DWS Rwanda program. Discouraging tribalism among the community members and religious leaders remains a significant part of their work. They also provide shelter and security to those who do not have any remaining members of their families after the genocide. Consoling and comforting those, who on returning home after imprisonment for involvement in the genocide, find their spouses had remarried, is one of the most difficult tasks, Mugengana explained.

Equally painstaking is bringing together people who confess to have taken part in the genocide to share in the communion/community of the church or mosque. Although the government and its partners embarked on post-genocide peace and reconciliation efforts nationwide, dispelling suspicion, restoring trust and faith, remained a big problem even among the religious leaders themselves. There was a lot of "finger pointing in people's minds, that genocide happened because of so and so. Leading people who were not at peace with each other was a major challenge," he said.

But there is hope. The Rukira interfaith group members attribute new joint community activities and restoration of relationships to the LWF's timely intervention and vision in constituting the committee of elected religious leaders. "Sitting together with someone who killed your family members is not easy, but it is happening," Mugengana stressed, adding that the group had become an immense source of reconciliation in the area.

In Rwanda Since 1994

The DWS program in Rwanda began in August 1994 with emergency aid to victims and internally displaced persons after the genocide, and assistance to returning refugees. Trauma healing was incorporated to help address personal and community rage, hostility and antagonism, and to develop capacity to come to terms with the past and to live together as a community. With the start up of the Gacaca (traditional Rwandan courts) and release of prisoners, the DWS program supports its partners to establish community-based counseling services and structures for conflict resolution, aimed at promoting healing and reducing the renewed trauma that prisoner release could cause. Strong support continues for partners, especially churches, in AIDS awareness raising and advocacy against stigmatization of people living with HIV.

The LWF/DWS Kibungo integrated rural development project also focuses on food security, water, sanitation and environmental protection. Workshops on micro-credit and income generation are conducted for people living with HIV, and communities are supported in building shelters for AIDS orphans and the elderly.

Lutheran World Information
Reported for LWI by participants in the African region consultation of the three-year LWF youth training program, "Towards a Communicating Communion – A Youth Vision." More information about the 19 to 24 June communication training workshop and the IFAPA Commission meeting in Kigali, Rwanda, is available at http://ifapacommission.blogspot.com/.