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One of many memorials in Rwanda to the men, women and
children slaughtered in the country's genocidal rampages in 1994. Photo
journal (Martha Rial, Post-Gazette) |
In 1994, terrible acts of genocide and
revenge stole the lives and homes of nearly a million Rwandans. Three years ago, the
survivors began to rebuild peace in a stirring display of courage and hope that continues
today.
In December, 1996, Post-Gazette photographer Martha Rial spent three weeks in Central Africa, documenting the
enormous human costs of the ethnic conflict that had ravaged that nation. "Trek of Tears," her
journal and mesmerizing images of the people who had become refugees, published in 1997,
earned her the Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography.
Last month, Rial and reporter Anita Srikameswaran, a medical doctor who is a PG health writer,
returned to Rwanda to continue an accounting of the stirring story of this devastated
people's struggle to survive. Their findings and pictures were published in a special
section.
Connecting our readers to the rest of the world is an important role for
the Post-Gazette. History reminds us repeatedly of the world's capacity to largely ignore
such unthinkable atrocities as they unfold. It is only after the fact that the story is
fully told, the consequences fully understood. That the accounting comes "too
late," makes its presentation no less an imperative, as this report from Rwanda makes
clear.
Photo Journal: Journey Home
Chapter One: The Memorials
Many of us may have only a vague
recollection of the atrocities that took place in the tiny central African country of
Rwanda in 1994. There has been plenty of bloodshed since then in Kosovo, Sierra Leone and
other faraway places to supplant those few months of horror that the international
community did so little to stop.
And after all, who really wants to remember a
genocide?
But that's partly why photographer Martha Rial and I traveled to Rwanda in June. We wanted
to find out how this nation of 8 million people is dealing with their gruesome legacy, and
how well they have been able to overcome its effects.
Chapter Two: Domina's Tale
Domina Uwamaliga's life has been a macabre
Cinderella story. Today, she is a vivacious 16-year-old with fashionably close-cropped
hair, wearing a bright coral T-shirt and jeans, whose pretty face can go from wistful to
indignant to merry in the quick changes typical of a teen-age girl.
But that energy and hope are astonishing in light of what she has experienced.
Over a five-year span, Domina lost her home and family, slaved at strenuous daily chores
while never having enough to eat, and resigned herself to certain death. All this while
she walked more than 1,000 miles, equivalent to the distance from Pittsburgh to Oklahoma
City.
Chapter Three: The Widows
Sometimes surviving horrific events
seems not a blessing but a nearly unbearable burden. Every Thursday afternoon, a group of
women fills the waiting area of Polyclinic of Hope in Kigali. All were widowed and
assaulted during the genocide. Some have lost children.
Yet somehow, none has lost hope.
They rely on each other to keep living, even as their memories anchor them in sorrow.
Click to a map tracing the locations of people and
places in this report. |
Chapter Four: Children on their own
In Rwanda, the genocide has spawned between
65,000 and 85,000 child-headed households and left 400,000 children
"unaccompanied" -- orphaned or functionally so. And AIDS will likely make those
numbers balloon in the near future, say relief officials.
Chapter Five: Chaos in the Congo
Since August 1998, experts estimate that 1.7 million
people have died in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, more than predicted by standard
demographic models. Nearly a third of those excess deaths were in children younger than 5.
Almost half the deaths related to ongoing fighting in the region were among women and
children.
Chapter Six: The young killers
Four years ago, the government in
Rwanda decreed that children who were 14 or younger at the time of the 1994 genocide would
not be tried for the crimes they may have committed during that time, deciding they were
too young to be held responsible for their actions. But authorities couldn't simply
release the children into a society already burdened with poverty and few support
services. They and the community had to get ready to forgive the young criminals and move
on.
That is why Gitagata exists.
Chapter Seven:
Reunions
It is not a simple thing to get
children to reunite with families they have not seen for as many as five years.
They have to be convinced that there really is a family there, one that really wants them.
And they have to be persuaded that Rwanda is a place with enough food and hope to make it
worth leaving what is familiar to them, what they have come to call home.
The children leading the way in this Roman Catholic
processional in Rwamagana symbolize Rwanda's greatest challenge and greatest hope. Partly
because of the number of adults killed in the genocide, 70 percent of Rwanda's population
today is 24 or younger. Feeding and educating them is a huge task, but they may also be
able to overcome the ethnic hatreds of the past. |
Chapter
Eight: In search
of justice
It's a common sight on the streets of
Kigali and along rural roadways elsewhere in Rwanda -- groups of male workers dressed in
matching cotton candy-pink shirts and shorts. These are the chain gangs of Rwanda,
although no one is actually shackled. They are the most visible symbol of an enormous
problem facing this nation, which lost nearly 1 million men, women and children in the
1994 genocide. The problem is what to do with the more than 120,000 people who are
imprisoned and awaiting trial for genocide crimes. Even if the traditional legal machinery
were humming along, it would take hundreds of years to work through all the cases.
Internet resources:
U.N. Relief Site
The International Rescue
Committee
The International Rescue
Committee News Page
World Vision
International
Embassy of Rwanda -
Washington
Rwanda
page
Coalition for International Justice
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