Hungry for Truth, Peace and Justice

Guyana: Lessons from Africa

By Guyana Chronicle Reporter
August 2, 2009

QUOTE: "Guyana is demographically a small country, yet it is a socially complex one with each group operating in a social system based on interdependence".

I DON’T know if it is a personal phase I’m going through, or whether it’s just a manifestation of a male mid-life crisis, but I have noticed of late that certain things tend to incite or move my emotions more profoundly than they, or similar things, might have, say… a decade ago. Like when I hear Barack Obama speak, for example, and on hearing of Michael Jackson’s death. The most recent occurrence was while watching Fareed Zakaria interview the President of Rwanda, Paul Kagame. The central subject of the interview was the rebuilding of Rwanda in the aftermath of its 1994 genocide.

Here was an example of two extremely fine minds in engagement with each other. Zakaria, in my estimation, has risen to be one the best interviewers on CNN, an authentic and sincere journalist in an industry that has been focusing more on ‘anchortainment’ (Lou Dobbs, for example) than the actual delivery of useful information. This was the first time I was seeing Kagame in action, and I would rate him as the best African political leader I’ve seen, outside of the legendary Nelson Mandela. Elegant, articulate, intelligent, Paul Kagame is the exact opposite of the traditional image of the African strongman we have come to expect from experience.

For those who don’t know much of what happened in that country, outside of watching Don Cheadle in the movie, Hotel Rwanda, over 800,000 people -- around the present population of Guyana -- were slaughtered in little over three months. The killings were overwhelmingly done by the majority Hutu people against the Tutsis. Today, Rwanda, under Kagame for the past nine years, has been hailed not just for its recovery from the effects of the genocide, but its economic success, particularly considering the record of perpetual poverty of African post-conflict states.

The thing I found most remarkable during the interview was the Rwandan President’s explanation of his country’s approach to reconciliation and justice in the aftermath of the killings. According to Kagame, what they did was first categorise the people who were involved in the crimes, those who conceived of and planned the genocide, and those who acted. After hunting down and arresting those behind it, they then placed them before the Courts. When it came to those who actually did the killings, there were over 130,000 persons who were imprisoned for taking part in the genocide. Today, Kagame said, most of those persons have been reintegrated into society.

How? Through a unique Rwandan model of dispensing justice in the aftermath of the genocide -- the Gacaca process, described by Zakaria as “part court, part community council, part group therapy.” Under the Gacaca system, perpetrators of the massacres and violence would meet in a public place with survivors and relatives of victims of the genocide, and confess to their role in what happened, often providing a context for their actions.

What happened in Rwanda is that many of the Hutus who took part in what happened believed that they were under siege by the Tutsis, and that they were acting as part of some larger defensive citizen’s militia. Also, the media had played a significant role in inciting ordinary people to violence through a constant dehumanisation of the Tutsis by referring to them as cockroaches. Most of the people acting under the influence of this propaganda, who participated in the Gacacas, confessed to their crimes, expressed remorse, and committed to reconciliation; the primary response by Tutsis attending these events was forgiveness.

After watching the Zakaria interview, I came to the conclusion that the Rwanda experience has several lessons for Guyana. Firstly, there is the obvious cautionary tale like Guyana about the results of the escalation of ethnic conflict. Like Guyana, the ethnic divisions in Rwanda were over a hundred years old, and were artificially programmed into the society by outsiders, in this case, Catholic missionaries who instilled the concept that the Tutsis were a superior race to the Hutus.

Secondly, our well-documented history of division has as much hampered our economic development as the reconciliation in Rwanda has fuelled theirs. Rwanda, a primarily agricultural economy, with no seaports and little mineral or other natural resources, has experienced tremendous growth during the post-conflict era, with much of the praise for that going to Kagame’s stewardship. Guyana is demographically a small country, yet it is a socially complex one, with each group operating in a social system based on interdependence. We don’t need to go through the sort of social trauma as happened in Rwanda to see that there is more to be gained from finding ways of reconciling and working with each other, than not.

Finally, there is the lesson inherent in the use of the Gacaca system. While we may hopefully never reach such a stage, it might be prudent for some entity here -- the Ethnic Relations Commission more likely -- to extract and record the key mechanisms of this system as part of a larger repository of information on conflict management.

Yesterday was Emancipation Day, the day when the fore-parents of Guyanese of African ancestry were freed from the institution of slavery, although, it is argued that after four hundred years of enslavement, emancipation is still necessarily a work in progress. I would argue that while much of the focus this month is going to be on ethnic consciousness and identity, there is a great case to be made for an expanded consciousness, one which encompasses all of our people, in much the same way that the Hutus and the Tutsis in Rwanda have done in the aftermath of one of the most brutal acts of inhumanity in recorded history.

Related Materials:
Rwanda: Africa's biggest success story, Zakaria said

Response to The New Times Article on Rwandan Genocide

Rwanda Today: When Foreign Aid Hurts More Than It Helps

On The Myth of Economic Prosperity in Rwanda

Rural poverty is dramatically increasing in Rwanda, Belgian researcher An Ansoms reveals

Striving for growth, bypassing the poor?A critical review of Rwanda’s rural sector policies

Rwandan peasants on the brink of extinction

Rusesabagina - Rwanda back to ethnic servitude system

Rwanda: Economic Growth Sustained Through Free Labor

The Two Faces of Rwanda

Yesterday a victim, today an oppressor: how aid funds war in Congo

The Power of Horror in Rwanda

The genocide in Rwanda: The difficulty of trying to stop it happening ever again

Rwandan Genocide and Reconciliation: Samputu dismisses IBUKA ‘Negationist’ accusations

Rwanda Gacaca Criticized as Unfair for Genocide Trials

posted by Mamadou Kouyate @ 9:03 AM