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I want to tell you how hard it has
become to be here. It is at once heaven and bitter, bitter hell,
and yet all I can do is smile and cry and smile and cry. Today
we went to Nyamata, a memorial and interment for 20,000 Rwandans
killed in April 1994, the former site of a Catholic Church.
Thousands of skulls and piles and piles and piles
of other bones are placed in these catacombs behind the church,
and more and more are being found and placed with the rest. Many
skulls show obvious injuries sustained with pangos, or machetes,
the weapons of mass destruction in this Third World paradise.
As I headed into the courtyard, I broke down a bit. Two boys
approached and hugged me, and I straightened right up. I feel
like my tears are so indulgent, and when I speak to other Rwandese
journalists and aid workers, they are sympathetic, but they have
already cried. They've heard the stories of rape, infanticide,
awful death. It's now time to rebuild.
 Which
brings us to the courts of gacaca, which in Kinyarwanda means
"Grass," and that's where these sessions take place,
in a clearing in a village, under a plastic canopy, with all villagers
in attendance. It is a solemn, very serious affair, with 18 judges
— known as "people of high integrity" —
who in November or possibly before will begin holding trials against
those prisoners who were accused and have admitted to crimes committed
during the genocide eight years ago.
It is agonizing and daunting: imagine a victim of rape who has
never discussed her victimization and who has, possibly, moved
away from the village, having to now testify against her perpetrator(s)?
Hopefully the work that Ervin and Laurie and George Weiss are
doing regarding radio programs that can assist Rwandans during
gacaca will be as useful as we suspect.
» Continue
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Deirdre Stoelzle, a reporter and editor of the
Casper, Wyoming, Star-Tribune, since 1992, recently visited
Rwanda as part of a Dart Center mission to journalists there.
A member of the first class of Dart Fellows in 1999, Stoelzle
has contributed to Center initiatives related to the 1999 Columbine
High School shootings. In this trip, she and Dart Fellow Liisa
Hyvarinen continued a journey begun by Dart Fellows Elaine Silvestrini
and Gina Barton last year. In both years, the Fellows collaborated
with Laurie Pearlman and Ervin Staub, associates of the Dart Center,
who work with Rwandese on communication about the community justice
process (the gacaca). In these remarkable messages, sent to us
from Rwanda, Stoelzle shares impressions of that country.
Photo and caption © Liisa Hyvarinen, 2002
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