If the international community wants to help Rwanda and its people in their recently declared process of reconciliation, the massive psychological impact of the genocide on the population of the country will have to taken into account.
I cannot help but remember the speed with which the families of those who died in the crash of the Trans-World Airlines aeroplane in the sea off New York were provided with a team of psychiatrists to assist them with counselling.
In spite of the much more serious trauma experienced by the survivors of the genocide in Rwanda, no such services were made available to the Rwandans. In fact, long after it had started, the world was still debating whether what had taken place was a civil war, ”mere” ethnic strife or indeed a genocide.
And since the Rwandans have had to work through it themselves, and will have to continue to do so, it will take many years before there can be any real healing and reconciliation.
But what complicated matters even further, is the fact that the genocide is actually continuing, although ”informally”.
When the Uganda-based exiled Tutsi rebel army, the Rwandan Patriotic Front, led by the present Rwandan Vice-President Paul Kagame, invaded Rwanda and brought the genocide to an end, driving the previous Hutu regime, its army and the Interahamwe militia, accompanied by 1,5-million Hutus, across the border into the then Zaire, the leaders of the genocide felt they had been denied their right to ”finish the job”.
Since then, in spite of the return of most of the civilian refugees, the armed groups have relentlessly tried to ”finish the job” by massacring large numbers of Tutsis in cross-border raids from the Democratic Republic of Congo (hereafter referred to as the Congo). Tutsi refugees who were moved from the unsafe western part of the country to camps in the north have most recently been attacked by rebels crossing through southern Uganda.
There is even growing evidence that these former Rwandan-armed Hutu groups are co- operating with elements among the exiled Burundian Hutu rebel groups and armed anti-Tutsi groups from eastern Congo and Uganda. This has led to alleged joint attacks on the Tutsi-led governments of Burundi and Rwanda and the so- called ”Tutsi-sympathetic” government of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.
Allegations that Hutu extremists are using Tanzanian territory to launch attacks on south-eastern Rwanda have strained relations between those two countries.
So widespread are anti-Tutsi sentiments in the region that President Laurent Kabila of the Congo had to reduce the number of Tutsis within his government and administration in an attempt to counter the accusation by Congolese (who have always been anti- Tutsi) that he is being kept in power by ”foreigners”, that is the Banyamulenge Tutsis of eastern Congo and the mainly Tutsi army of Rwanda, who helped him to topple Mobutu Sese Seko.
Is it any wonder that Tutsis in Rwanda, as well as in Congo, Burundi and Uganda, live in constant fear today in the knowledge that there are organised elements among the extremist Hutus who not only believe in the philosophy of genocide, but are actively implementing it?
In February, when the Japanese ambassador to Rwanda, after a particularly vicious attack by Hutu rebels on Tutsi refugees in the north-west of the country, appealed to the government to negotiate with the rebels, the Rwandan government angrily retorted that they would never negotiate with the leaders and the perpetrators of the genocide.
Similarly, when, in my speech to the Conference on Genocide held in Rwanda in 1995, I referred to the South African experience, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the granting of amnesty to those who confess to having committed politically- inspired human rights violations, people’s eyes visibly glazed over. The thought that they might be expected to follow the same route was just too much.
Unless those Hutu leaders among the armed groups and within the political opposition who subscribe to the philosophy of genocide and/or participated in acts of genocide are identified and removed from public life, the Rwandan government will not be willing to engage these rebel groups in dialogue and negotiations.
The creation of the International Tribunal for Rwanda, to prosecute the instigators and perpetrators of the genocide, is an attempt to do just this. Although it is frequently criticised by the Rwandans for not achieving enough, the fact that it exists is an acknowledgement by the international community that there has indeed been a genocide and that the guilty must be removed.
Whether this tribunal will, however, be able to prosecute those who are taking part in the present ongoing ”informal genocide”, is unclear.
Central Africa seems to be increasingly haunted by genocide. The definition of genocide is increasingly being stretched to include virtually all forms of politically-inspired violence. In many cases this is being done by politicians in an attempt to demonise their political opponents and so provide them with the legal excuse to exclude them from participating in public life. If this trend continues, the term ”genocide” will become meaningless.
The fact that there are indeed leaders among the mainly Hutu armed groups within the countries of the region who subscribe to the philosophy of genocide must be acknowledged. At the same time it needs to be stated that these form a very small percentage of the total Hutu population, and that the majority of Hutus who are opposing the Tutsi-led governments are doing so for political and not genocidal reasons.
In spite of the horrors of the recent past and the immense destruction caused by the genocide, Rwanda is desperately and courageously trying to raise itself from the ashes of the most traumatic and horrific calamity experienced by the world since World War II.
The world has a duty to play a role in this process. Not only by expressing regret for doing nothing to prevent or stop the genocide – as United States President Bill Clinton did so bravely when he visited Rwanda during his African tour – but by putting in place the necessary international legal structures whereby that small, but very powerful, group of extremist Hutu leaders who believe in genocide can be identified and removed from public life.
Unless this is done, it is unlikely that the present Rwandan government will be willing or able to enter into dialogue and negotiations with those Rwandans who support the rebels – not for ”genocidal” but for political reasons.
And if such dialogue does not take place, the conditions which tempt people into supporting armed insurrection will remain. In this way, the extremist genocidal leaders will continue to be provided with enough foot soldiers whom they can manipulate to achieve their final objective: the completion of the genocide of 1994.
The international community is increasingly admitting that it did not act fast enough to prevent the 1994 genocide. It can only be hoped that they will now act timeously and appropriately.