Larissa Fast

As the plane touched down at the Kigali airport in early October 2005, I watched eagerly for the familiar, quiet beauty of the Rwandan countryside, with its lush green fields and rolling hills. I had last visited Rwanda in 2000 as part of a multiyear project training local organizations in conflict resolution skills. This time I traveled to Rwanda to document the Catholic Church’s peace and reconciliation efforts since the genocide in 1994.

The 10-minute car journey from the airport to my hotel made it clear that much had changed in the capital city. The physical changes included new buildings, landscaping in the medians, and sidewalks that framed the main road. During the next few weeks, I saw deeper changes in the people. I found hope, progress, and
paradox.

Rwanda is the most densely populated country in Africa. Its 8.5 million people share a space slightly smaller than Maryland. Ethnically, they are Hutu (the vast majority), Tutsi, and Twa. Hutu extremists and hardliners targeted Tutsi and politically moderate Hutu in the genocide, and the violence that engulfed the country left 937,000 people dead in 100 days, according to the Rwandan government. The suffering of and tensions among Rwandans remain, but appear to have eased with the passage of time. Despite the mountain of challenges they face, Rwandans have begun to rebuild their lives and their country.

My assignment, shared with fellow consultant Laura McGrew, was commissioned by Catholic Relief Services (CRS), together with the Catholic Church in Rwanda. According to the 2002 census, about half of Rwandans are Catholic. During the past century, the church has been a powerful influence in Rwanda, owning and running virtually all primary, secondary, and vocational schools, operating clinics and hospitals, and providing relief and development services.

During the genocide, many Catholic clergy were killed, and many churches and church-owned schools and clinics were damaged or destroyed. However, the church also lost moral authority and influence. Its most vehement critics have accused the Catholic Church of participating in, planning, and denying the genocide. They cite as evidence the actions of individual clergy, three of whom are on trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and the mass killings that took place in many Catholic (and Protestant) churches. Others refute these charges, pointing to the clergy and other Catholics who risked and, in some cases, lost their lives protecting people during the genocide.

Instead of focusing on the past, Laura and I devoted our attention to what the church has done in the years since 1994 to promote peace and justice in Rwanda. We worked closely with CRS, in particular the Peace and Justice staff of CRS/Rwanda, and with the national-level Justice and Peace Commission staff of the Rwandan Conference of Catholic Bishops. We interviewed both supporters and critics of the church. We visited a prison and spoke with nongovernmental organizations, government officials, diocesan and parish peace and justice committees, and parishioners from across the country.

Our report concludes that, despite a scarcity of resources and trained personnel, “the Catholic Church in Rwanda is involved in an impressive array of activities that indirectly and directly promote peace and reconciliation in Rwanda. Virtually all interviewees felt that the church itself has evolved and increased its credibility in peace and reconciliation.”

My visit to Rwanda highlighted for me the complexity of building peace in a society emerging from the ashes of genocide. In particular, I struggled with the paradoxes of how to strive for and achieve reconciliation on the one hand and ensure justice on the other.
    
The Oxford English Dictionary defines a paradox as: “a statement or tenet contrary to received opinion or belief, especially one that is difficult to believe.” Most of us, especially those within a Christian tradition, consider reconciliation to be entirely positive, something for which we should strive. It is a word commonly used in Rwanda by clergy, ordinary Rwandans, and government officials alike. The paradox lies in the conflict between our conception of reconciliation as a voluntary process and real-world pressures and dilemmas. If prisoners are given incentives, such as early release, to confess to their crimes, and if public discourse encourages, values, and eulogizes forgiveness and reconciliation, is reconciliation really a choice? The choices of many Rwandans, especially survivors, are limited by poverty and scarce resources. For women in particular, the struggle to
survive is acute. One woman told me how the donor community jumps to fund projects that bring together groups of women survivors and women whose husbands are in prison accused of genocide crimes.
Many such groups exist. It is difficult, however, to
find funding for groups that do not bring together
these “categories” of women as an element of their
programming.

The justice of the “Gacaca jurisdictions,” the
community-based trials for those accused of genocide crimes, is part of a long process that relies upon everyone — accuser and accused — to “dare to tell the truth” about what happened. Yet how do we define truth? Does a good deed of protecting individuals “cancel out” other instances of committing or abetting genocide? Where and how should we draw the line? Should we even try?

Some survivors or the families of those who died have genuinely reconciled with those who perpetrated crimes during the genocide. Yet the coercive nature of justice and peace after genocide is evident in the incentives for early release from prison, the commutation of sentences and public pressure to process the large numbers of individuals implicated in the genocide. One expatriate told me in the late 1990s that “every other person getting off the plane is a conflict resolution specialist. What Rwanda needs is development.” This is perhaps even more true today. A deeper reconciliation requires truth, justice, and mercy, but cannot neglect economic survival.

Defining success as achieving “reconciliation” only 11 years after genocide, as some have done, sets an impossible standard. Government and civil society institutions in Rwanda, such as the Catholic Church, and the people themselves face a long and difficult journey as they rebuild their country. It is impossible to find quick and easy answers. The challenge is to embrace these paradoxes of reconciliation, doing our best to tilt the scale away from coercion and lack of choice and toward a deeper reconciliation. Time, patience, and support for Rwandan peacebuilders will be necessary.

Larissa Fast is a Kroc Institute faculty member and visiting assistant professor of sociology.