Reconciliation Village Hosts Victims, Perpetrators of Rwandan Genocide
Sep 27, 2010
From the article by Zack Baddorf on Voice of America News:
It's been more than 16 years since the 1994 genocide in Rwanda that left about 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus dead. Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who was re-elected in August with 93 percent of the vote, says now there are no longer Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda, only Rwandans. As a test of how well the different ethnic groups can live together, victims and perpetrators of the genocide are living side-by-side in a small community known as the Reconciliation Village.
...In 2005, Mukamana was selected to move into a Reconciliation Village, located some 30 kilometers south of the Rwandan capital Kigali. The village is funded by the non-profit Christian organization Prison Fellowship International, under the condition that survivors and perpetrators of the genocide agree to live together peacefully. The founding members of the community voted on who could live there, typically choosing families most vulnerable to poverty or illness.
Now, Mukamana lives right next door to some of the people who slaughtered her family.
Forty families live in the Reconciliation Village tin-roofed concrete and brick houses that they built themselves. The government provided the land and some organizations like Norwegian Church Aid helped pay for the homes.
...Fredrick Kazigwemo didn't kill Mukamana's family members but he did kill other Tutsis during the genocide. He and about 200 other men in his village formed up and killed their victims with different weapons - swords, machetes and even Rwandan traditional spears.
...While in prison, Kazigwemo started writing letters to the victims' family members. After he was released, he went to their homes and asked for forgiveness in person.
A farmer now, the 41-year-old man and his wife have four children. Most of the Reconciliation Village residents work as farmers so they work together in the fields. They have agriculture and livestock cooperatives. The men do carpentry work together and the women make handcrafts.Pastor Deo Gashagaza, the Executive Director of Prison Fellowship Rwanda, said reconciliation has to involve economic initiatives like these. "This helps because reconciliation without acts, without any initiatives for economy is zero. We need to see how reconciliation goes with economy because when the genocide had taken place there is destroying the economy also. Many things were destroyed, like cows, like small businesses everything. Houses were destroyed," he said.
restorative justice processes used in Rwanda
Lisa Rea
Rea Consulting
California, U.S.