I worked in Rwanda for two years and had the honor to know closely President Paul Kagame, then vice president and head of the military. His challenge and the challenge the people faced were enormous. With half a million Hutu refugees ‘interahamwes’ most of them just across the border, to build a peaceful country and begin reconciliation was indeed a very tall order. The threat of ‘Interahamwes’ unleashing another war was always there until in 1996 they returned in mass. The reconciliation program started in earnest only then. There was no family in Rwanda, in both the Hutu and Tutsi communities that were not severely affected by the genocide and yet there were no alternatives to re reconciliation and the task had to begin soon. It was difficult to bring about a majority rule as well. Democracy, in the way that has been defined by the western world posed a great danger in a country where reconciliation has not yet been complete and the memories of 1994 are still fresh in many minds. The President had to walk a fine line and the majority had to accept the reality. Pragmatism and common sense than idealism prevailed.
I left Rwanda after two years but what I saw and heard during those years haunted me for a long time until I returned to Kigali after ten years to see a population truly trying hard to leave the past behind, learn from the lessons and move on as one people and one nation. During my two years there I had been to the prisons and talked to former ‘Interahamwes’ who have been implicated in the genocide. Some were still proud that they did what they did. The unrepentant voices of some were scary and had made me doubt whether there could ever be a true reconciliation. The numerous voices of the survivors were also bitter. But the government and the people chose the right path. For over twenty years people are slowly learning to live together ad heal the wounds together even when they know that some in either communities have been killers and still harbor hate.
There were thousands who were identified as perpetrators of the genocide locked up in various prisons in Rwanda. To bring about justice and reconciliation, the Rwandan government introduced or reinstituted what is known in Rwandese tradition the Gacaca community court system. In this system the communities select judges where the cases of perpetrators are heard. The court gives mitigated sentences for those who repent. In many cases those who repent are freed and allowed to go back to the community and be part of the reconciliation program where victims and perpetrators live side by side and talking to each other.
Unlike many other African countries where colonialists carved out the borders, Ethiopia was defined by its own people and its own history and the enormous sacrifices of every ethnic group. It is their only home. Like any family in a home they had differences and on many occasions each encroached on the rights and freedoms of the other in the family. But they stayed together.
No conflict in Africa is similar to another. But the underlying reasons are always the same: leadership and governance. Ethiopia does not need a genocide or civil war to learn from its own lessons. It had its own turbulent years of nation building. It is now time to learn from its own past and from what has happened elsewhere in Africa and form one united people with freedom, justice and democracy for all.
As Bob Marley said: “One love, One Heart … Let’s get Together and Feel Alright.”
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This article is published on Ethiomedia on July 22,2016. The writer is the executve Director of Africa Institute for Strategic and Security Studies
Cover Photo Credit : endgenocide.org