'Never again'

In 1994, 800,000 Rwandans were butchered. A Belgian court is now trying four Rwandans for genocide. Jasper Thornton asks why genocide happened, and whether it may happen again
Early in May, two Catholic nuns, wearing brown habits and speaking softly, denied to a Belgian court that they were accomplices to mass murder. It was a strange scene, full of seeming contradictions. But Sisters Gertrude and Maria Kisito are Rwandan. And Rwanda is a member of the earth's saddest club, its members being those countries which have suffered genocide: the planned killing of an entire people.
In 1994, mobs of Rwandans, identifying themselves as "ethnically Hutu," murdered 800,000 Rwandans they identified as "ethnically Tutsi," as well as Hutus who opposed the bloodshed. Mostly the mobs, known as Interahamwe, did their work by machete. Their intent was plain: the killers took pains to skewer even the fetuses of dead Tutsi mothers, witnesses recall. It was the quickest killing of a people there has ever been.
On 16 April, the two nuns, a former transport minister, Alphonse Higaniro, and a university professor, Vincent Ntezimana, were charged in Belgium with aiding or committing genocide. A 1993 law allows people to be tried in Belgium for "crimes against humanity," wherever the crimes took place. Sister Gertrude, mother superior of a Roman Catholic convent, is accused of demanding that the police chase out Tutsis who had sought shelter in her convent during the bloodiest moments of the genocide. The charge describes how the hiding Tutsis were herded out, before a mob of 5,000 set on them and maimed them with grenades, before dissecting them with machetes. Meanwhile, another 600 Tutsis crammed into the convent garage. Sister Maria supplied a waiting mob with petrol to immolate the garage, accusers say. Blinking behind thick glasses for long sight, Sister Gertrude told the court, "People were killed before my eyes. I wanted to help but I couldn't." Sister Maria told the court, "I am not a Hutu. I am not a Tutsi. I am a child of God."
Professor Timothy Longman, associate researcher at the human rights centre of the University of California, Berkeley, and author of a forthcoming book, Commanded by the Devil: Christianity and Genocide in Rwanda, commented on the trial to Al-Ahram Weekly. He remarked that many church personnel in Rwanda participated directly in the genocide, adding, "There has been a history of ethnic chauvinism within the church in Rwanda," and "many Rwandans believed that ethnic hatred was consistent with Christian belief," though some, "were inspired by their faith to oppose the genocide, even at the cost of their lives."
The roots of Rwanda's grief are found in its encounters with the outside world. In 1863 an Englishman, John Hanning Speke, "discovered" Rwanda while looking for the source of the Nile. Speke noted a political distinction among elite Rwandans between groups calling themselves the Tutsi and the Hutu. Historians have seen this distinction as an imagined difference, used by the entourage of the ruler to excuse its monopoly on resources. Speke seized on this difference. He knew the Bible well, and wove the book of Genesis and its story of Noah's son Ham into his observations on Rwanda. In the Bible story, Noah curses Ham who has seen him naked. "A slave of slaves shall the sons of Ham be to his brothers," said Noah. Speke, in thrall to this curious tale, decided that most of those living around Lake Victoria were the "sons of Ham, who, as they were then, so they appeared to be now." Speke identified them according to an arbitrary inventory of physical characteristics: face shape, nose width, brow length. He labelled them the Hutu. Speke also found "the issue of Shem," Ham's elder brother, dwelling among the Hutu. These were the Tutsi, who had "fine oval faces, large eyes, and high noses." These "lost Christians," who originated outside Rwanda, Speke thought, were the natural rulers of Rwanda.
Thus Speke reified the biblical story, making the people of Rwanda the laboratory for his curious fantasising. Speke codified an arbitrary division with racial science, and the myth of the separateness of Rwanda's two peoples solidified. Available evidence suggests that before Speke's imaginings, the barrier between the Tutsi and the Hutu was porous, and followed political, not ideological need.
Other Europeans followed Speke. In 1894, Germany colonised Rwanda; after the first world war, Belgium took it as spoils. During that period, Speke's theories continued to mould political reality. A broad dialectic between Rwandans and the myth of their origin emerged. Given a new way of seeing themselves, Rwandans reacted to the myth according to need. Some used it to advance themselves, others subverted it for their purposes. The Belgians exacerbated things. In 1933 they issued ethnic identity cards, which made the invented ethnic chasm unbridgeable.
In the 1950s, ideas of national self-rule reached Rwanda. In 1957, Hutu opportunists inverted Speke's Hamitic myth to argue that they were Rwanda's original inhabitants; the Tutsi were foreign parasites. Within two years political violence broke out between the groups (for the first time ever), in a Rwandan village. The Belgians helped the Hutus pillage Tutsi houses then installed a Hutu government which spoke of Rwanda as two peoples in one nation.
The Belgians withdrew in 1962. During the following 30 years of independence, many fled to neighbouring Uganda and Burundi, dismayed and threatened by the entrenchment of divisive policies. By 1994, 600,000 Tutsi lived in exile, along with Hutus who opposed the regime. In the 1990s the refugee groups mounted incursions into Rwanda's towns and villages from the surrounding hills. The then government, drowning in economic hardship, decided to unite the Hutu nation by murdering all Rwanda's Tutsi minority. At the time, the outside world largely looked away.
Human rights groups say the trial in Belgium may bring new justice to Rwanda. The trial is an example of "universal jurisdiction." Under "universal jurisdiction" a court may consider cases where foreign citizens are accused of crimes in a foreign country. Human rights groups feel the threat of trial in foreign courts may make murderers pause before slaughtering innocents for political ends. The trial "is part of a significant trend, where countries see themselves as enforcers of human rights law, wherever the violations took place," William Schabas, professor of human rights at the University of Ireland and author of Genocide in International Law, told Al-Ahram Weekly . He added, "The Belgians are not the first to do this, but they have pursued the matter with considerable energy and are one of the countries most serious about seeing that human rights violators are brought to trial."
Some are quietly concerned about countries interfering in the affairs of others, especially when the countries involved were formerly tied by empire. One is Gerald Gahima, Rwanda's prosecutor general, who has been quoted saying, "The justice of Rwandan courts is not trusted by the outside world; this is grossly unfair." Gahima feels this inhibits Rwanda's attempts to deal with its terrible past. Schabas agrees that "there will, understandably, be some misgivings among those who see this simply as an exercise in neocolonial justice," remarking that it would not be the first time that Belgium has attempted to meddle in Africa. But Schabas went on to tell the Weekly that this case is different. The accusation was not brought by the Belgian government but privately, by victims. But Schabas did agree that countries are often reluctant to extradite suspects to Rwanda and that, in this context, "Gahima's complaint is valid." He added, "The Rwandan courts are better equipped to deal with the case; they operate in the language and have the witnesses." But in civil cases, international law says the trial need not move to "the most appropriate" court.
Schabas feels this loophole may be a reason why "universal jurisdiction" is seldom used. But he feels that whenever employed, "universal jurisdiction" is a potent weapon against torturers and murderers. "To the extent the threat of being punished deters those who commit atrocities, they are being increasingly threatened. Only ten years ago atrocities around the world went unpunished. Now they attract the wrath of the United Nations and courts around the world. This can only be a good thing for human rights," Schabas said. But despite these hopes, there will be no stampede to try and make the world a fairer place. Such prosecutions, Schabas says, work best when there is a "hook" beyond international altruism, such as pressure from expatriates living in the country where jurisdiction is to be exercised. Otherwise, because the trials are "so expensive, involving travel, interpreters, etc, many countries simply don't want the grief."
It is because countries don't want the grief that almost a million died in 1994, in history's rapidest pogrom. The New York Times journalist, Philip Gourevitch, tells how a spokeswoman for the US State Department, at the time, argued that she preferred not to use the term genocide as that "would commit us to action." Meanwhile, gangs chopped family after family after family to death with machetes. So hard was their work, witnesses recall, that the butchers sometimes cut the tendons of their victims. Then the murderers could rest, knowing that their prey could not flee, only writhe in agony on the ground.
The Belgium trial has reminded the world of what unimaginable suffering it allowed almost 50 years after the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It has reminded the world that even the spiritually "worthy" may be materially guilty; for unimaginable suffering is caused by real people. It has even reminded the world that unimaginable suffering happens when others look away. Perhaps the trial is a small light with which to face these evils. But as Schabas hints, it is, alas, a very small light with which to face a very great dark.
Recommend this page
© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved
Send a letter to the Editor