Peacebuilding and reconciliation: How things stand 20 years after the Rwandan genocide

(Vatican Radio) It was the fastest genocide of the 20^th century. At least 800,000 Rwandans were killed during a three month rampage of violence that began on April 6^th, 1994. The victims were mainly ethnic Tutsis and some moderate Hutus. Joseph Muyango is a Rwandan peace-building specialist who works for Catholic Relief Services or CRS. He spoke to Susy Hodges about the progress achieved so far in the painful path towards reconciliation.

Listen to the full interview with Joseph Muyango:

20 years after the genocide, Muyango says a lot of progress and “many things” have been done by the government, church and civil society in the field of “trauma healing” and to promote reconciliation but says the task is unfinished and ongoing. “There is still much work to do to accompany this healing and trauma processing.”

Muyango points out that the Catholic Church and religious NGO’s have played an important role in promoting reconciliation after the genocide. One example of this is Catholic Relief Services which, he says, has “trained more than 40,000 Justice and Peace Volunteers” to provide “support at community level” in trauma healing and conflict transformation. He also describes the very inspirational example of one female survivor he met in a Catholic diocese who overcame her initial suicidal despair following the slaughter of most of her family during the genocide and is now a leading and very highly-respected member of the local community. This survivor is quoted as saying “Without forgiveness, survivors cannot heal themselves.”

But could a genocide ever happen again in Rwanda? Muyango says “this is a difficult question to answer” but believes the answer is probably “no.” At the same time, he notes that a recent survey showed that among genocide survivors who didn’t forgive and with perpetrators who didn’t ask for forgiveness, around 40 percent in this group of people thought that there was a risk of another genocide occurring “if there was an opportunity.”