The Genocide Men Walk Free

Thirteen years after hundreds of thousands of Tutsis were slaughtered, the Rwandan genocide is back in the news.

Rwanda releases 8,000 genocide prisoners, shouts Reuters. Similar headlines occur in the Los Angeles Times, The Australian, JURIST and on the BBC website. Rwanda’s wounds are still deep. 800,000 Tutsis were killed. Like September 11, it is the sort of event that will stay with the country long after my generation has died.

The prisons in Rwanda are overflowing. Some of the inmates have been convicted of crimes, while others are awaiting trial. Those released are, according to Rwanda’s Chief Prosecutor, are not the key masterminds of the genocide. It is important to understand that many of the men who killed thousands of Tutsis did so through fear; fear of being killed themselves by the Hutu extremists. Yet the fact remains that they did kill a great many human beings.

I guess it all boils down to two humane qualities: forgiveness and remorse. The Tutsis can only begin to consider forgiveness once the Hutus show some remorse. While the world is still in shock about what happened, no big, bold gesture of sorrow has been made. Tutsi men, women and child who somehow escaped being killed by their fellow Hutu villagers, their former neighbours, their old colleagues, -- they have to live out the rest of their lives in the knowledge that most (if not all) of their relatives were killed by people who intended to kill them as well.

Forgiveness is a long way away at the present time as the Tutsis still live in fear. Hundreds of the 60,000 genocide suspects who have already been released have been re-arrested for trying to reignite the slaughter or trying to destroy evidence linking them to the genocide. Pressure groups claim many of the people released still harbour a genocide ideology. This is probably true. The way I imagine it, once you have killed one person, you feel guilt. As you go one to kill more and more human beings, this guilt cannot be multiplied because you already harbour evil in your soul. Evil is already a part of you and has already consumed you. You are no longer human. The ideology is not only part of your mind, but also part of your existence. As the guilt cannot multiply, the horror can. To kill one person is inhumane. But to kill more is utterly inhumane, regardless of what transcendentalist theory says.

Angela Winters, a black moderate blogger, points out the obvious underlying fact: “If there is any excuse to keep someone in prison it is participation in the killing of over 800, 000 people.” Those who survived against all the odds still need our help. Thirteen years after they watched their loved ones perish at the hands of savages, they still need our help. We can begin by remembering.

Yours, wherever you may be,
Daniel C. Wright