June 2, 2009, Post-Genocide Progress
Posted on 6/10/2009
Photo by Rafiki Ubaldo, PGEF
A manicured roundabout is one of two at the center of Kigali, Rwanda, where University of Arkansas professor Samuel Totten is teaching in a new master's degree program in genocide studies at the National University of Rwanda. Totten and Rafiki Ubaldo also founded a scholarship fund for survivors of genocide. More information is available at Post Genocide Education Fund.
Reporting from Rwanda
Dispatch #4
June 2, 2009
By Samuel Totten
With one class session of "The History Genocide in the 19th, 20th and 21st Centuries" completed, I had to travel to Butare, the home of the National University of Rwanda, for a series of meetings with university officials. I was pleased that the trip to Butare (some 2 ½ hours southwest of Kigali) would also provide me with an opportunity to drop in at the Centre for Conflict Management, where I served as a Fulbright Scholar last year, to see all of the researchers and support staff I had not yet seen since my recent arrival in Rwanda.
As we threaded our way through crowded Kigali traffic, circled the two beautifully manicured roundabouts near the city center with their neat rows of green and yellow hedges and multicolored lilies, and headed toward the outskirts of town, just the thought of heading to Butare and crossing over the scores of green-clad "land of a thousand hills" (milles collines) energized me.
Drive in the Country
Within minutes, we were driving alongside hundreds of tiny ramshackle shops that fronted the road. Beyond the shops and down in the valley, a swollen river, the Nyabarongo, its brown water, like a fat boa constrictor, twisted and turned as it cut a swath through the marsh greenery and flowed swiftly under hand-hewn bridges. Women in gaily colored dresses all hues of the rainbow and children, mostly boys, dressed mainly in tans and browns, bent to fill jugs with river water, while others toted their heavily filled jugs and jars back towards their roughshod homes (more huts than houses, really). Here and there a lone figure, bent low, swung a long-bladed machete as he or she cleared weeds and other undergrowth from around banana plants.
As we crossed over the short bridge spanning the muddy Nyabarongo, we headed up into the hills high above Kigali on the twisting road that would take us to Butare. The drive from Kigali to Butare and return is always a joy for me as the landscape is gorgeous, the people and their activities interesting, and it seems there is always something new to see or discover no matter how many times one has taken the trip.
Over and above that, the everyday scenes are interesting to the eye – at least for an outsider, or, perhaps I should say, at least for me. This is especially true of the scores of small villages with their handmade mud brick homes with corrugated tin roofs tucked away in the hills amongst the banana groves and colorful flora that grace the green hillsides like so many precious bracelets, with goats and cows tethered here and there, people, young and old, tending their small plots of land, women and men lugging huge loads on their heads as they traverse the steep hills, and children playing simple but enjoyable games with equipment made from scraps of this and that.
This time around it was fascinating to observe the installation process of the fiber optic equipment in preparation for the inauguration of wireless connection for the entire country. For miles and miles and miles along the road, hundreds of men and women – ranging in age from their late teens to late 50s – swung picks and shoveled dirt as they created a ditch about two feet deep. Further on, we came across a bevy of young men walking along, inside the ditch, pulling a long cable slung across their shoulders. One, two and even three miles ahead were other men pulling the very same cable along. The effort, I mused, was a metaphor of sorts for Rwanda's progress in the post genocide period; that is, while the method of work in the country was still somewhat archaic and backbreaking, at least in comparison to the way such work is done in First World nations, the result of much of the work, in this case, would provide Rwanda with cutting-edge technology (Wi-Fi connection anywhere in the country). I also couldn't help but thinking: "If only it had been installed a year earlier, then I wouldn't have gone without Internet for some two months during my Fulbright at the CCM office – a nightmarish situation, if there ever was one, for a scholar in this day and age."
Returning 'Home'
Within about two hours, we entered the outskirts of the small country town of Butare. As we drove along the dusty, people-packed streets, awash in the guttural whir of motos (motorcycles) and tens of minivans flitting this way and that, both of which serve as a popular and common man's taxi service, I joyously called out "Ahhhhh, back home!" Justine and Rafiki both laughed at my words and enthusiasm; and Justine, whose personality is delightfully understated and low-key, asked, in her inimitable and dry but sincere way, "Sam, it's true, it really feels that way?"
"Without a doubt!" I shouted above the noise of traffic.
When I was on my Fulbright last year and walked daily from the hotel where I resided to the CCM office, I often pondered how Butare reminded me of certain beach towns in both southern California and Australia (the former was where I grew up and the latter was the site of my first job as a teacher). In fact, almost on a daily basis as I traversed the broad dusty main avenue of Butare – graced on both sides by beautiful flowering trees, wild flowers of very hue – and enjoyed the sweet, soft breeze that blew down the street, I mused that it felt as if the ocean were just over the next hill. Possibly that was one reason why I was so comfortable in Butare; that is, it had the feel, sans ocean, of my hometown of Laguna Beach.
Shortly, we arrived at CCM, with its low-slung yellow plaster bungalow surrounded by green grass, palm trees, and a jarcanda tree ablaze with red blossoms. Inside, I was warmly greeted and exchanged hugs with CCM's secretary, Mama Deo, Aleta, a junior researcher, and Consuluate, the assistant director of CCM. After briefly getting caught up, we – Rafiki, Justine and I – hopped in our car and headed down to the main campus of NUR.
As we were ushered into the NUR Rector's office, Silas Lwakabamba, the rector (which is the equivalent of chancellor or president on various campuses in the United States) greeted me by saying, "So Sam, how are things?"
Funding, Technology Needs
I briefed him on the progress we were making and the fact that we were in Butare specifically to drop by and see him and to let him know that we had set up meetings with the head of the E-learning Unit at NUR's Centre for Instructional Technology as well as the director of grants. I explained the purpose of the meetings and how they were directly tied to our goals of erecting a special Web site for the new master's degree program in genocide studies, an online course of study for individuals residing outside Rwanda, and the obtainment of funding from various funders to cover the costs of the operation of the master's degree in genocide studies as well as adjunct endeavors (such as an annual international conference on genocide). Lwakabamba said we had his imprimatur and to let him know anything we were in need of and he would provide it.
In our meeting with the director of information technology, Mr. Manickam Jawahar, I explained our goals vis-à-vis distance learning as it applied to the master's degree in genocide studies. Immediately, it was obvious that Jawahar was not only intrigued with the idea but supportive of it. That said, he explained that, while NUR was very interested in online education, it simply did not have the capacity to either develop or maintain an online program such as we were describing. We then asked if he and the rector would be amenable to bringing in outside expertise to develop and maintain the online program – be it a university in the U.S. or Europe or a for-profit university such as Phoenix University. He said he saw no problem with such an approach and that, indeed, it would be welcomed. We told him that we would work on obtaining grants to cover the costs incurred by the latter.
We then shared with him that we were interested in creating a Web site for the master's of genocide studies program and wish to place it on the main NUR Web site. He said that would be welcome, and that all we needed to do was provide him with the text, graphics, et al.
The last meeting of the day was with the assistant director of the NUR Grants Office, as the director was busy. During the course of this short meeting, we were informed that absolutely no funders were off limits, that he and his staff would be pleased to help us process any and all grants, and that we, Rafiki and I, would be listed as the co-principal investigators on each of the grants.
By Sunday morning Rafiki and I were back in Kigali and planning the next class session.
Terminology
Monday's class session focused entirely on the key distinctions between and amongst the following terms and concepts: massacre, ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide. By far, the most time was spent examining and debating the use (and meaning) of the following phrases in the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crimes of Genocide (UNCG): "intent," "in whole or in part," and "as such."
I began the session with a short lecture on the origins of the term and concept of genocide, and the development of the UNCG and why the latter is considered by many to be a "compromise document." In addressing the latter, I noted that during the development of the UNCG numerous definitions of genocide were first used, accepted and then rejected.
"Each and every word of the UNCG was examined in regard to its full meaning, how perpetrators might attempt to use certain words as wiggle room for claiming they did not commit atrocities that amounted to or qualified as genocide, and how various groups were, first, included in the UNCG, and thus considered a protected group, and then eliminated due to a combination of politics and realpolitik. What that meant, I explained, was, for example, initially political groups were in and, then, as a result of resistance and compromises, deleted for good, meaning that political groups have never, to this day, been protected under the UNCG. During the course of the session I also noted that gender groups, social groups and economic groups are not – and never have been – protected under the UNCG.
The discussion was especially interesting as the various lawyers in the class – the Supreme Court justice, the Member of Parliament, the former Minister of Justice and others – provided their insights into how prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges interpret such terminology in the process of trying, defending and hearing, respectively, alleged cases of genocide.
After two hours of brisk discussion, we took a break. During the break, the Supreme Court justice came up to me to discuss the ramifications of the UNCG being a document of compromise and thus "a compromised document" (my words, not hers). I mentioned that to this day, some 60 years after the UNCG was passed by the UN General Assembly, the UNCG had not been ratified. I then mentioned that Article 16 of the UNCG clearly states that the UNCG can be revised, pending approval by the UN General Assembly: "A request for the revision of the present Convention may be made at any time by any Contracting Party by means of a notification in writing addressed to the Secretary-General. The General Assembly shall decide upon the steps, if any, to be taken in respect of such a request."
Commenting on that fact, I said: "Wouldn't it be interesting if those nations that suffered genocide (e.g., Armenia, Bangladesh, East Timor, Rwanda, Ukraine) put forth such a request to ratify the UNCG?" Continuing, I said, "At one and the same time, survivors residing in other states (states that might not be inclined to make such a request let alone support such a request without sustained pressure from its citizens) could place pressure on their governmental leaders to support such a request (here I was thinking that first-, second- and third-generation survivors of the Holocaust could apply pressure on the governments of Germany, Israel and the United States; Aboriginals could put pressure on Australia, et al)." At the very least, I noted, it would be extremely difficult for the U.N. General Assembly to not at least honor the request for a debate.
Broadening Perspectives
Moments later, two students – a counselor for survivors of genocide and the national coordinator of Child and Family Support Organization, and the Member of Parliament – came up to me and commented on how the class session had prodded them to think in different ways about genocide: first, that Rwandans need to understand that they are not the only ones who have suffered genocide and that they won't likely be the last; that they hoped the master's degree would provide them with tools to use in their work as they confronted the different faces of genocide; and that it was imperative to focus on prevention in this course if anyone hoped to make a difference now and into the future.
I told them that I could not agree with them more in regard to each and every point they made, and that the master's degree program was designed along the very lines that they had just delineated. The latter comments were extremely heartening in the aftermath of the fiasco surrounding the major changes that had been made to the curricular program I had developed for NUR (see Dispatch #2 for a discussion of that matter). In fact, I immediately thought, "Ah, here are two individuals who could support the focus of the initial curriculum and call into question the 'revised' curriculum."
The last hour of class focused on the major distinctions between crimes against humanity and genocide, a distinction that some individuals in class had great difficulty comprehending. What some could not seem to appreciate, let alone understand, is that even though murder, extermination, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, etc., were all crimes under the rubric of crimes against humanity, the latter crimes do not constitute genocide IF the perpetrators lacked the intent to destroy in whole or in part a particular group of people as such. Again, with the assistance of the lawyers in the group, most of the students began to grasp the legal distinctions and, in doing so, to appreciate the complexity of trying cases of genocide.
The next day I was confronted with one of the uncomfortable realities of working in Rwanda, no electricity. More specifically, within less than a half hour of arriving at our office at the Commission for the Fight Against Genocide, power in the entire building went down. For two hours, we focused on other work and when the power did not come back on we repaired to a hotel, the Chez Lando, adjacent to the Commission, where we knew we could obtain power for our computers due to the hotel having a backup generator.
Reaching Out
Later that afternoon one of my students, Odeth Kantengwa, the national coordinator of Child and Family Support Organization, tracked us down at the Chez Lando. She said she had been thinking how what we were studying in this course could be of great benefit to all the people of Rwanda and wanted to know what I thought about the possibility of organizing a group of students in the class to approach a radio station about offering a weekly show on various aspects of genocide, i.e., those issues we were discussing in class. She said she could see individuals calling in and positing questions to the panelists (meaning, the students in the class) and/or debating issues with them or asking for clarification in regard to complex issues. I told her I thought it was a great idea and one we needed to follow up on. To say that such initiative by a student made this professor's day would be a gross understatement.
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