Rwandan Genocide survivor speaks at Rose

You wonder why people would kill each other,” stated Joseph Sebarenzi, the former Speaker of Parliament for the troubled nation of Rwanda, who spoke at Rose last Thursday. He said it as a fact, not “don’t you wonder why,” but “you wonder why.” It was a statement of profound pain and desolation from a man who survived the fastest, most ruthless, most open genocide in recorded history. It was a cold, brutal utterance from a man who lost seven siblings, his parents, and countless friends, colleagues, and acquaintances during the incomprehensible Rwandan Genocide of 1994.

The Rwandan Genocide was a conflict between the two prominent ethnic groups in Rwanda, the Hutu and Tutsi. Between 1959 and 1967, after years of privileged (through laws established by the Belgian colonial government) rule by the numerical minority Tutsi, conflict stirred as both Hutu and Tutsi formed paramilitary groups. The colonial-established monarchy crumbled as violence swept through Rwanda. The United Nations (U.N.) established Rwanda as a republic and general elections secured firm Hutu control. Tutsi guerrilla groups launched attacks into Rwanda from neighboring nations and the Hutu government responded with a backlash against Tutsi that left 20,000 dead. The troubled country fell deeper into civil war as the Tutsi and Hutu continued to retaliate against one another. Then, in 1994, the acting Presidents of both Rwanda and its neighboring country Burundi were assassinated when their plane was shot down. The Hutu government’s reaction was swift and merciless, as over 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu were killed in 100 days. Mark Doyle, the BBC News correspondent in Rwanda, had this to say about the situation, “look you have to understand that there are two wars going on here. There’s a shooting war and a genocide war. The two are connected, but also distinct. In the shooting war, there are two conventional armies at each other, and in the genocide war, one of those armies, the government side with help from civilians, is involved in mass killings.”

Following the genocide and the end of the civil war, Sebarenzi returned from refuge in neighboring Burundi. He was quickly elected to be the Speaker of Parliament, and was able to push forward a position of reconciliation between the two ethnic groups, even establishing legislation limiting the President’s power so that genocide could never be perpetrated in the same manner again. It was that piece of legislation that would force him to eventually flee an assassination attempt in Rwanda for the United States, where he continues to speak on behalf of his homeland, calling for a cessation in hostilities and reconciliation between the two groups.

“Nothing I could do [could] bring back my loved ones,” Sebarenzi said, “but I could make sure that those who survived could live in peace.” He has charged himself with the seemingly impossible task of bringing peace to his homeland, defending the position that “forgiveness and reconciliation [break] the cycle of violence.”

Sebarenzi’s steps toward reconciliation, while at the surface sound trite (if not immature or overly naive), are genius in their simplicity. He says the steps toward reconciliation are that the offenders need to recognize the error of their ways, sincerely apologize, commit to never repeating the offense, and pay reparations to whatever extent possible while the victims need to forgive in the fullest possible meaning of the word. While the steps may sound like something a mother would do to a misbehaving toddler, they are deceivingly intuitive, and nearly impossible to pull off. The criteria require maturity beyond that of a mob, they require complete participation of all involved, and they are difficult to enforce, for true reconciliation is consuming. Sebarenzi used the situation in Rwanda as living proof that humans have a need for retaliation, just as, he pointed out, has been proven again and again by the ongoing millennia-old conflict in the Middle East. He argued that retaliation would make perfect sense if it could bring his loved ones back, then it would be a just course of action, and one that would be productive. But, as he sagely admitted, nothing can do that - and retaliation only makes the victim the attacker, and having to bear grief and guilt is more than one mind can healthfully bear.

“No matter the spirituality,” Sebarenzi matter-of-factly stated, “they all teach reconciliation.” Sebarenzi uses his faith as a motivator, pushing him to bring justice to his homeland. He is also highly critical of his countrymen for wanting violence instead of peace, revenge instead of resolution - he publicly decried their hypocrisy. “If we are honest and pretend to belong to spiritualities, then we have to honor them and avoid revenge and evil,” said Sebarenzi. “Resentment does not hurt the people you are angry at. It only hurts you and those who care about you. Letting resentment build up can eventually affect your physical health. It always affects your emotional health.”

Last Thursday, Sebarenzi provided a stark look inside Man’s worst nature. “Joy cannot be allied with hatred,” Sebarenzi warned - and closed with these words from an earlier crusader, the great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”