How do you forgive a man who has killed all your loved ones? Rwanda’s reconciliation efforts have seen survivors and perpetrators of the 1994 genocide against the tutsi living next to each other, healing and transforming. FORBES AFRICA travels to Bugesera to capture one such moving tale.



BY TESI KAVEN Photos by Ridhima Shukla



IT’S ONE THING TO FORGIVE a person who has committed a crime against you, and quite another to reconcile, live next to and even cultivate a strong friendship with the person, especially when he has horrifically claimed the lives of your entire family. 



This scenario is not strange in Rwanda, a country once torn apart by the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, when more than a million people lost their lives. This year, in April, Rwanda marked the 27th anniversary of the genocide, and reconciliation, though unfathomable at one point, has become a concept the country has become known for. On the outskirts of the capital city of Kigali, approximately a two-hour drive away, is a village with a rich history, one that’s not easily given away by the serene and beautiful surrounds. 



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<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">Someone we thought was a friend offered to help us, but instead, he delivered my husband and children to the killers. – Maria Izagiriza</blockquote>




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In what almost looks like a gated community, 110 houses stand at the Rweru Reconciliation Village in Bugesera District. To foster the concept of reconciliation, perpetrators and survivors of the genocide live next to each other. In this village, we meet Maria Izagiriza and Philbert Ntezirizaza. 



Targeted attacks against the Tutsi community had begun long before the 1994 genocide, resulting in mass killings and forced relocations. Among the many affected, was 63-year-old Izagiriza, who lost some of her siblings in killings in 1973 and later, her first husband. 



Widowed at a young age, she later remarried and moved from her birthplace to Bugesera district, where she gave birth to four children. News of the death of the then Rwandan president, Juvénal Habyarimana, was delivered to Izagiriza by a neighbor on that fateful morning of April 7, 1994. She remembers it all as if it was yesterday. 



“My neighbor informed me that the president had died the night before and went on to say that my people were responsible for his death,” Izagiriza tells FORBES AFRICA. “My neighbor said my people and I would pay dearly for what we had done.” 



Indeed, nothing could have prepared Izagiriza, her family and millions of other Rwandans for the atrocities that took place over the next 100 days, following the death of Habyarimana. The militia descended on Izagiriza’s home that morning, killing all her livestock, burning down her house and beating her husband to a pulp, leaving him for dead. The children were miraculously spared. 



She managed to escape through a hole she had created in the mud wall of her kitchen. When night fell, she returned to her compound to get her husband and children. 



“Though breathing, my husband was so badly wounded and bleeding from all parts of his body,” she says, pausing to wipe the tears streaming down her tired face. 



”The children were scared stiff but unharmed.” With the help of her children, Izagiriza somehow managed to drag her injured husband to a hiding place where she felt they would all be safe. This would, however, be the last time she would see her husband and children alive. 



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“Someone we thought was a friend offered to help us, but instead, he delivered my husband and children to the killers. Again, I managed to escape, but this time, with my four-month-old baby strapped to my back. That was the last time I saw my family alive.” 



Izagiriza’s family was led to a barricade where a group of young, blood-thirsty men were killing people. Among them that day was Ntezirizaza. He was only 18 years old at the time. Hatred for the Tutsi people, he says, was planted in him when he was still very young. 



“In 1994, I was a teenager, my body full of youthful vigor and my mind filled with a terrible ideology, fed to me since I was in elementary school,” Ntezirizaza tells FORBES AFRICA. “Our mindset at that time was more lethal than the machetes we carried.” 



Asked what happened to Izagiriza’s family, Ntezirizaza pauses, then, with a low voice and distant gaze, says: “We hacked her husband and eldest son to death and threw the remaining two children in a deep pit, alive. We knew they wouldn’t survive.” 



A while after the genocide, Ntezirizaza was sentenced to 12 years in prison, after confessing to his crimes. It was while in prison that he met with members of Prison Fellowship Rwanda (PFR), an NGO that sought to unite and reconcile Rwandans. 



“PFR helped us see how deadly the beliefs and ideologies we harbored were and the importance of seeking forgiveness from those we hurt,” he says. 



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<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">We have built nine reconciliation villages across the country, and they stand not only as a monument of Rwanda’s history but also as an example to future generations that unity and reconciliation can be achieved. – David Nsoro, the communication officer at Prison Fellowship Rwanda</blockquote>




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In 2003, six years into his sentence, Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame pardoned prisoners who had admitted to their crimes. Though free, guilt kept gnawing on Ntezirizaza’s conscience. 



“I felt like I had been released from one prison and walked straight into another. I had no peace, no rest.” Izagiriza, who had managed to escape to Burundi with her infant daughter, was now back in Rwanda, trying to pick up the pieces of what was left of her life. 



News had reached her while in Burundi that her family was no more, and she battled depression and suicidal thoughts. Just like Ntezirizaza, she met members of PFR, who at the time were building the Rweru Reconciliation Village, to help settle survivors whose property was destroyed and perpetrators who were coming out of prison but with nowhere to call home. Volunteers and pastors from the NGO counseled Izagiriza, helping her to come to terms with what had happened. 



“The PFR team helped me realize that forgiving and letting go was for my benefit. Mentally, they prepared me to meet and forgive Philbert,” she says. “But I must admit, it wasn’t easy.” 



As a sign of remorse for his actions, Ntezirizaza would work on Izagiriza’s farm under the cover of darkness. “I would prepare the farm for planting on one night, then plant the seeds the following night and water them the night after. I wanted to do what the children or husband I killed would have done had they been alive,” he says. 



Eventually, the two had a sit-down session and he narrated all that befell her family and asked to be forgiven. At present, the two are genuine friends. Izagiriza asked Ntezirizaza to be her daughter’s godfather at her baptism. When her daughter got married and walked down the aisle, he was there to witness it all.



The story of Izagiriza and Ntezirizaza may just be one story but it mirrors the experiences of many in the tiny East African hill country. 



It is echoed by countless other survivors of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi who have chosen the path of unity and reconciliation, however difficult it has been. 



David Nsoro, the communication officer at PFR, says that seeing the survivors and perpetrators living together in harmony at the reconciliation villages is a huge milestone. 



“We have built nine reconciliation villages across the country, and they stand not only as a monument of Rwanda’s history but also as an example to future generations that unity and reconciliation can be achieved,” Nsoro tells FORBES AFRICA. In his address to the nation on the 27th commemoration of the genocide against the Tutsi, Kagame emphasized on the transformation that had taken place not just in the country, but more in the hearts and minds of Rwandans. 



Said Kagame: “The immensity of what has been achieved is almost miraculous. The results are attested to by Rwandans, and indeed indisputable. But the intangible transformation which has taken place in the hearts and minds of our people is even more important.”

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Since the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Rwanda has risen from $752million to $9.5 billion in 2018, and the GDP per capita has grown from $125.5 to $787 during the same period. Due to Rwanda’s internationally recognized universal access to healthcare policy called ‘Mutelle de Sante’ life expectancy has risen from 29 years in 1994 to 67 years in 2016. Inflation has fallen from 101% in 1995 to 1.1% in 2018 and Rwanda has jumped over 100 places in the World Bank Doing Business Index, today ranking 38th globally and 2nd in Africa.



&nbsp;Furthermore, with the
9 Year Basic Education policy, Rwanda has seen the average expected years of
schooling rise from 6.2 years in 1995 to 11.2 years in 2017. These numbers,
both the increases and decreases, are not merely statistics on paper, they
reveal a people who have taken the reins of destiny into their own hands.
Following the defeat of the genocidal forces by the Rwanda Patriotic Army
rebels led by now president, Paul Kagame, many highly qualified development
experts believed that the fabric of Rwandan society was irrevocably torn
asunder. Over one million people had been killed in less than 100 days, over 3
million had fled the country to refugee camps in Tanzania, Burundi and the DRC
(then Zaire), the national treasury was looted and there weren’t even pens and
paper in government departments.



&nbsp;Speaking to members
of the Australian chapter of the YPO (Young Presidents Organization) in May
last year President Kagame was asked this question, “experts say that a
turnaround from a cataclysmic event such as genocide is supposed to take a
century or at least a generation, how was Rwanda able to do so in only twenty
years”? President Kagame mentioned the main aspects of the Rwandan turnaround;
thinking big, having a vision, refusing to get stuck in the status quo,
believing in, and having faith in the vision and, lastly, making sure that the
journey is inclusive by bringing people in and creating possibilities for them
to make their contribution.



&nbsp;Rwanda does not have
the usual ingredients for economic transformation. It does not have a wealth of
natural resources such as oil or diamonds, it is landlocked, it has one of the
highest population densities in the world. However, Rwanda has a will to build
a better, more prosperous nation.



&nbsp;What Rwanda did was
put together a development plan called ‘Vision 2020’. This plan envisioned a Rwanda
that was middle-income and knowledge-based. With a GDP growth rate which was
dominated by double digits over the last 10 years, we are reaping the fruits of
the ambitious plan.



&nbsp;One of the fruits is
the emerging MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences and events) sector. Who
could have imagined that 25 years after the Genocide against the Tutsi, Rwanda
would become home to one of the most iconic and most expensive buildings in
Africa, the KCC (Kigali Convention Center)? The KCC, a venue that includes a
five-star hotel and conference facilities that can host over 5,000 delegates,
will this year host, among other world class events, the Commonwealth Heads of
Government Meeting (CHOGM). To date, KCC has hosted the African Union Heads of
State summit, the Transform Africa summit as well as a myriad of regional and
international events and conferences.



&nbsp;The KCC has not been
the only such ‘out of the box’ investment that the Government of Rwanda has
made to create value where no one expected. A decade or so ago, the Government
insisted on building the country’s very first five-star hotel, the present-day
Kigali Serena hotel. Our development partners baulked at the investment, saying
that there was no need for such a high-end facility. The Government, believing in
its vision, went ahead and built the hotel thereby creating the anchor
accommodation facility that opened Rwanda to the opportunity of becoming a
regional destination for business travel and MICE. The country now has five
5-star hotels and more are opening up this year. Furthermore, high end
accommodation establishments have opened their branches across different parts
of Rwanda. To create the ecosystem that a vibrant MICE sector needed, the
national carrier Rwandair was established, investments in skills and capacity
building were made and the private sector was encouraged and supported to
invest in the sector.



&nbsp;Because the
Government refused to take a laissez-faire attitude to the development of the
MICE and the overall tourism sector, investments that we have registered in the
sector as the Rwanda Development Board have totaled $1.5 billion since the year
2000. Hotel rooms have increased from 623 in 2003 to 14, 866 in 2018, tourism
revenues have jumped from $131 million in 2006 to over $300 million with MICE
tourism revenue numbers growing from inconsequential numbers in 2000 to $55
million in 2018. We expect that all the numbers will grow by at least 10% per
year and projections show that the tourism sector will be worth $800 million by
the end of 2024.



&nbsp;This might seem
ambitious, but we believe in our vision and we are actively working towards
fulfilling it. That is why we partnered with different partners, including but
not limited to Arsenal FC and Paris Saint Germain, English and French football
teams respectively, to market Rwanda as a destination for tourism, MICE and
investment. That is why Rwandair is increasing both its fleet as well as its
destinations in Africa, North America, Europe and Asia and that is why we are
currently building a new international airport in Bugesera, on the outskirts of
Kigali, in partnership with Qatar. In addition, we have taken an active role in
building an Africa that freely trades with itself through the African
Continental Free Trade Area (ACTFA) and internally we have reformed both our
business environment and visa regimes.



The business community has followed our lead. Last year, we
registered over $2.4 billion in investments on the back of over 8% GDP growth.
Leading global businesses such as Volkswagen, Motorola Solutions, Andela and
Radisson today provide jobs to young Rwandans graduating from global
institutions of learning that are based in Rwanda such as Carnegie Mellon
University. In addition to the recent opening of the first smartphone factory
by Mara Phones; companies including Volkswagen (in partnership with Siemens),
Ampersand, and Safiride are also rolling out environment friendly transport
solutions through electric vehicles and motorcycles on the street of Kigali and
other parts of Rwanda.



 When we tell businesses that Rwanda is the right place to invest in, we are confident that they will find the right environment to thrive. Why? Because we built that environment.



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Mr. Zephanie Niyonkuru is the Deputy Chief Executive Officer, the Rwanda Development Board. The Rwanda Development Board is a one stop shop for investors, bringing business registration, investment promotion, tourism, ICT development, SMEs, human capacity development, privatization and specialist agencies under one institution.



&#8211; Zephanie Niyonkuru

Tag: Rwandan Genocide

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