Desperately Forgiving
Rwanda, that sad torn-asunder country of tribal rivalry is still slowly and painfully picking the living thorns out of its raw flesh. It's a long process, on the way to healing the national identity. Not likely to succeed within this generation, perhaps not even beyond succeeding generations. How do people reconcile themselves to the living memory, even the dim reality as time goes on that once-trusted neighbours could bring themselves to visit the horror of mass murder one upon the other?Tribalism is like that. It enhances the worst possible affects of human nature. Our suspicion of the other, our felt moral and social superiority over the other, our mistrust, wariness, rejection of the other tribe. Ancient tribal memories are as though etched upon the subconsciousness of each of us. In some societies now far removed from tribal angst and hatred, filtered through the liberating effects of enlightenment these situations don't erupt.
In others, where economic deprivation and constant health- and life-struggles to survive in an social atmosphere inclement to inclusion and true equality, opportunity is always rife for re-ignition of old hostilities. Then the familiar face of a neighbour whose tradition and ethnic culture is different than yours can appear to be threatening to you and yours under the impetus of political manipulation.
Now the government of Rwanda has made a decision to step up the release of genocidal-suspect detainees, in an effort to re-absorb them back into their communities. One might think this to be a move rife with the danger that the victims might take revenge into their own hands, the courts and laws of the land having failed, and the experiment would be destined for failure. Human nature being what it is.
For to release into the general population detainees whose murderous activities have been documented and witnessed seems to run counter to human nature, representing a delirious ideal, far from reality. To release mass murderers into society is to invite vigilante responses from the populace. One might imagine.
On the other hand, experience on the ground in Rwanda has demonstrated otherwise. In that it is not the freed killers whose lives are in danger, but rather their victims, the witnesses to their atrocities. Survivors' groups estimate that some 20 genocide survivors yearly have been killed since 2005.
A case in point is that of Innocent Habinshuti whose own mother - a Tutsi who had married a Hutu and who had fled to safety in Tanzania in escaping the genocide protested his return to his eastern Rwandan village. "He had learned to kill too well, he should never have come back here", said Seciose Mukarwigema.
As a 6-year-old, Frederic Murasira had been hiding in the grasses of Lake Mugersera while Mr. Habinshuti's gang killed his entire family. After his re-entry to village life a disagreement drove Mr. Habinshuti to attack Mr. Murasira with a machete, and while he chopped the man into little pieces, the Hutu neighbours looked the other way. "No one did anything", said Mr. Habinshuti's tearful mother.
Yet more than 60,000 detainees have now been released, representing 50% of the total. "All the guilty ones - on both sides - are not in prison, and so if the military leave again, it will be difficult", understated Sibomana Jean d'Amour, a Hutu villager.
Labels: Political Realities
posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, February 20, 2007
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