The Machete hacked to the ground. A blow, a short Pause, then a second, a third. “If you hinabsah of the hills, you can think of, you will harvest bananas. Who chops perennials banana, knows no pity,“ recalls a Survivor. However, the body, the lined soon in the ranks of the red dirt road, betrayed, after which the harvest workers were actually apart: your neighbors and colleagues. 800 000 of them.
In Rwanda, is to forget the genocide, nor to fully worked up. In the direct vicinity of the Hutu, who represented the majority of the population, with the Tutsis, the often heard of the power elite of the country. As the murders began 25 years ago, killed about 75 percent of the members of the Tutsi ethnic group and moderate Hutus who opposed the Killing in a cruel way: The Bush knife cut or as a Baby from the back of the mother torn and spun through the air. Within 100 days, the extremists of the Hutu militia, the “Interahamwe had killed” nearly a Million people. Many of the Survivors are traumatized until today. “Like any kind of mass violence, has left the genocide of deep scars in the people,” says Yolande Bouka, a political scientist and Africa expert. “The country has been rebuilt. But unlike roads or buildings, you can not create the psyches and bodies of the people.“
Whether in remote villages or the suburbs of the capital Kigali – it is a side by side, that would appear to Western eyes strange: In the case of the massacres of 1994, extremists had killed their neighbors, business partners, and even distant relatives. Today, perpetrators and survivors live again door to door. “Their paths cross all the time,” says Anne Aghion. The Director worked for ten years in Rwanda, and held the work-up of the atrocities in four films. In the years immediately after the genocide, life in the villages of seclusion had been determined. “It was very quiet, the people were barely out. No children played Outdoors,“ says Aghion. Gradually, slowly, came back in the following years, the everyday life.
it is Difficult to live together due to the unaufgearbeitete story: Today, a quarter of a century are discovered after the massacre, still in mass graves. In the past year, the authorities recovered more than 30 000 corpses out of 41 mass graves, not in remote regions, but in the fast-growing capital. One of the graves was found under a house, in the living room, Volunteers had to dig up to 30 meters deep to recover the bodies. “It is a pity that some people betrayed after so many years, still, where the victims,” said Naphtal Ahishakiye, the representatives of the victims ‘ Association Ibuka. Need to catch up is also in Rwanda’s schools. Many teachers were reluctant to the massacre in the classroom at all to address, recently warned the education Minister of the East African country, Eugene Mutimura. The topic was “too sensitive”.
The recovery has a high price.
room for interpretation or discussion of the genocide – in Rwanda of President Paul Kagame. In 1994 the leader of the “Rwandan Patriotic Front” (RPF) ended with his rebels, the ethnic massacres and ruled ever since as head of state. Tens of thousands of Rwandans, he was able to get out of poverty. His country has found peace, and the economy is flourishing, thanks to the booming IT industry. However, the recovery has a high price: critics accuse Kagame of human rights violations and suppression of press and freedom of expression.
hedges of Flowers line the Highways of the capital. No garbage far and wide. At the corner, a sign says: “Keep Kigali clean.” Request or a command? No one knows that in Rwanda, where monthly national cleaning day. On the last Saturday of the month, the traffic comes to a Standstill. Then the neighbors with brooms and garbage meet bags to bring to their district. The “Umuganda” – called Ritual translates as “coming Together for a common purpose”. Many Rwandans are proud of their contribution, the Kigali the nickname of “the cleanest city in the whole of Africa”. Others fear an arrest, or a fine, the expected to all objectors of the civil service.
Much of Rwanda seems to be a state-arranged. Part of the reconciliation. “We need to neuauffüllen our hearts, so that the offender ask for forgiveness and the Survivors to forgive” – in Rwanda, sentences like this from the priest, but by the state attorney. Rwanda is facing the same thorny issues such as Germany and other States where state-led mass killings took place in: Where does freedom of expression and where the ideology of the darkest days begins? That Kagame is dominated by despotic means, is of no help. Repeatedly had to answer to the Opposition and other Kagame’s opponents on the grounds of genocide ideology or denial. “It sends the unacceptable message that peaceful disagreement with the government is tantamount to a criminal Offence,” says Maina Kiai, a Kenyan lawyer and former special Rapporteur of the United Nations.
More about
After 320 days, the process of the BGH raises verdict against rebel leader from Rwanda
dissidents disappeared in the past without a trace, others were murdered. As the Rwandan Ex – spy Patrick Karegeya, he was 2014 dead in a Hotel in Johannesburg. For fear of the Rwandan security forces, some parties from South Africa, the USA or the UK from work today. “Without a doubt, it is the Rwandans today are better than they used to,” says Carina Tertsakian. Nevertheless, the researcher of Human Rights Watch begs the question: “Why is this notable way, by allowing freedom of expression?”
