Witness to horror in Rwanda brings lessons to the classroom

To many Americans, the horror of genocide is distant and nearly unfathomable.

It connects to us only through history books about the Holocaust, sporadic media coverage of faraway places such as Bosnia or the Sudan, or through films, such as the recent, Academy Award-nominated “Hotel Rwanda.”

Through the efforts of Aloys Habimana, a group more than 25 University of Wisconsin–Madison students received a first-hand view of how genocide occurs, lessons that can be learned from tragedy and how justice can play a role in healing.

Habimana, a Rwandan national on campus this semester as a visiting human rights practitioner, recently finished teaching a one-credit course on human rights and violence in Africa. His knowledge of the issue is extensive.

“My very beautiful, very friendly country became caught up in a hideous tragedy,” he says.

Habimana was a witness to the events of spring 1994, during which the long-simmering political tensions between the Hutu and Tutsi tribes spun wildly out of control. From an original population of about seven and a half million, at least 800,000 Hutu moderates and Tutsis were killed by Hutu extremists in the span of just 100 days.

Victims were hacked to death, burned alive, thrown dead or alive into pits or and forced to murder their own friends or relatives. Lost in the chaos were Habimana’s fiancée and one member of his family.

“At the time, there was a lot of political tension, but we never, ever expected that it would escalate to (genocide),” he says, noting that he put aside his university studies and went into hiding. “Once the killing started, everyone was at risk of being killed. You could get caught up in it so easily. It was by the grace of God that we survived.”

In the aftermath, Habimana says the nation was utterly shocked and overwhelmed by what had taken place. He recalls most of his childhood friends having been killed.

Rwanda began forming tribunals to try those accused of the most egregious human rights abuses. Habimana abandoned his plans to become a high school teacher and joined a team recruited by a local human rights group in collaboration with Human Rights Watch to serve as interpreters for foreign lawyers who were expected to monitor the trials.

But because of poor security conditions, the delegation never arrived. In spite of the setback, Habimana and his colleagues took on the task of observing and reporting on the trials themselves, creating an ad hoc monitoring center called the “Documentation and Information Center on Genocide Trials” that has been ever since operating under the umbrella of the League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (known by its French-language acronym, LIPRODHOR),

Despite public hostility and political pressure to treat the accused as automatically guilty, Habimana and the other observers advocated fair trials for all. The situation was complicated by the varying quality and training given to those participating in the justice process, both in classic courts and in the newly-adopted community-based tribunals known as “gacaca,” and by those attempting to settle scores or exact revenge through false accusations.

Habimana helped document many of the trials, and LIPRODHOR brought public scrutiny to those violated the rights of the accused or genocide victims.

The process was crucial to the country moving forward, but only if it was done in a transparent, fair way, he says. Victims needed to know in which circumstances their relatives were killed, and those who participated in the genocide needed to acknowledge what they did and ask for forgiveness, he adds.

“The reconciliation program helps, but time helps the most and is the best healer,” he says. “And the truth can help facilitate psychological healing. But we have to continue to co-exist with wounds that are unthinkable.”

In retrospect, the lack of timely international intervention is one of the greatest lessons that can be learned from Rwanda’s pain. In future cases, the United Nations and United States must move more decisively in situations that are out of control.

“The experience of being abandoned by the international community is sad and difficult,” he says. “They took too long debating over phrasing around whether it was genocide, or just civil war.”

Habimana says he’s regretful about the current situation in his home country, where the ruling government has turned its efforts against future genocides into a way to promote new abuses. In particular, the government has launched military expansion into the Congo and cracked down on opposition parties and independent organizations like his own.

“Rwanda is using its status as a victim to chase more war,” he says. “At times, I wonder if we learned any lesson from what happened.”

Facing the serious threat of jail, he decided in July 2004 to come to the U.S. until things take a turn for the better. He’s spent his time in Madison teaching, doing research and writing about violence in Africa as a way to “refresh his mind” after years of difficult work.

“Violence is a big issue in the world today, and it reaches beyond Africa,” he says. “I think I have something to share.”