CHAPTER 8: CRITICAL REFLECTION ON THE DIALOGUES
8.2. Critical reflection on the life stories
8.2.1. Perspectives on the Rwandan context
During the follow-up interviews, of the four Rwandan men interviewed, Francois was significantly the most negative about progress and reconciliation in Rwanda.
When I described to him the positive changes I had seen in visiting the country over a five year period, he responded that you can’t base what you see on the street as an indicator of what is actually going on. He then recounted some of the reasons for his negativity. He began by referring to the growing evidence of RPF crimes during and directly after the genocide. He made mention of evidence emerging at the trials held at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha that the genocide was in fact not preplanned, which suggests that it is was not a genocide but rather a civil war that took place in 1994.
Supporting this allegation he asks why the United Nations did not investigate the
plane crash which incited the killing in April of 1994 directly after the genocide, unless it was to hide something that they knew.
Francois stated that all Rwandans know the truth but are not speaking out about it. The strongest emotion during the interview was a deep sense of fear. Francois saw the government as one that has control over everything and a desire to hold onto power at whatever cost. While speaking, Francois on several occasions warned me to be careful with my research and further to be careful with what I sent through my email accounts or said over the telephone as everything could potentially be tapped.
Mention was made that the government was systematically eradicating educated people that were seen as opponents through accusing them of corruption and then having them jailed, or having them accused of participating in genocide or spreading genocide ideology. He then said that there is a “need for a new revolution like the one in 1959” and suggested this was brewing under the surface. He described a growing anger and resentment due to so many people being silenced as a result of so much injustice. He argued that teachers are forced to take early retirement as schools change their modem of language from French to English. Most French speaking teachers are Hutu and the new English speaking teachers that take their place are Tutsi.
When this perspective was placed before Robert, he proposed an interesting interpretation. He described the enormous pressure on ordinary Rwandans, especially young Hutus. He described how in a very short space of time, Rwanda had transformed itself from being a country operating according to a traditional economic and societal structure to a western one. Development has become Rwanda’s focus together with a very rapid introduction of technology. There is pressure on Rwandans to be wealthy and yet there is a harsh response to corruption. Many people travel and bring with them new ideas and ways of doing things. Due to the government’s vision for progress and development, they have replaced French and the Francophone system, which they believe has brought much damage to Rwanda, with English and new political and developmental relationships with the United States and the United Kingdom.
Robert suggests that these many changes, which have taken place in the short space of ten years, have created a lot of insecurity and pressure for the ordinary Rwandan. Coupled with this, he describes how the vast majority of Tutsi in the country are linked to survivors whereas the vast majority of Hutu in the country are linked to perpetrators. The genocide is a daily topic of conversation that everyone is confronted with constantly. Although Robert believes it important to talk about what happened he believes this also makes it difficult for people to move on, especially for young Hutus who have to work through many complex and difficult emotions.
In the context of a rapidly changing society, and the burden of living in a society in which a million people were killed, Robert says it is not hard to imagine why what he calls ‘negative feedback loops’ may develop, which allow for everything that the government does to be interpreted along the lines of conspiracy and control.
These negative feedback loops are intensified, he suggests, by the government’s aggressive hunting down of high ranking genocidal leaders all over the world.
These leaders are tapped into networks in the diaspora. Those in the diaspora may see that high ranking officials have their phones or email accounts tapped and witness their arrests, and assume this is the government’s treatment of all Rwandans. But Robert thinks it unlikely that the government would have the resources or interest in following the lives of most Rwandans in the diaspora, particularly young Rwandans who were not old enough to participate in the genocide in 1994.
When presented with Robert’s version of the Rwandan context, Reginald said that
“fantastic things have happened in Rwanda” with regards to development and progress and that “credit must go to where it is due”. However, he remains skeptical of the government’s motives. He argues that if Robert’s version of events in Rwanda were true then he cannot understand why criticism of the government was not being dealt with on a public platform. If the Francophone system was being replaced with an English system for the good of the Rwandan people, why were there not public platforms for people to debate and discuss this? “The consequences [of government policy] are not being addressed in the public arena,” argued Reginald. He suggested that the government has adopted a good strategy of developing the country and insisting on “one version of history
long enough until it is true” but that he does not trust the motives behind this as being for the good of all Rwandans. He is also skeptical of the move from an economic system dependent on agriculture, which places power in the hand of every farmer, to a service-based economy which is controlled by a few powerful people.
On the question of individuals in the diaspora being followed by the government, he says that, as unlikely as it seems, he was surprised when one of his refugee friends was contacted on his cell phone by the Rwandan embassy in his host country. Officially, refugees should not be contacted or acknowledged by their countries of origin and in the case he cited, his friend had never given his contact details to the embassy. These stories incite fear and suspicion.
Francois, more cynically than Reginald, feels that Robert’s theory of a negative feedback loop is only a guise to hide what the government is really up to, although exactly what that might be remains unclear. During the interview he handed me a document signed by a woman who alleges that her husband was assassinated by the Rwandan government in June, 2009. This allegation can be found on several websites which suggest that the author’s husband, a Tutsi with a high ranking position in the Rwandan army, was hired by the government to help make people the government deemed to be a threat ‘disappear’. The author’s husband became progressively uncomfortable with this job and began to protest. One night, in June 2009, gunmen entered her home and shot her husband while she and her
children managed to escape. Following websites such as these can instill a sense of fear and conspiracy, particularly if they are supported by alleged witness
accounts which are then spread through the diaspora. These allegations are difficult to verify but have a powerful effect on those following them.