29 December 2005

Bec’s parents, Jude and Steve, are here, and everything so far has gone well. They’ve actually seen more of the sites here in Rwanda than we have.

They arrived late Monday night, and are staying in the Hotel Mille Collines. For those of you who have seen it, the Mille Collines is the famous “Hotel Rwanda.” On Tuesday, they went around Kigali and saw the Genocide Memorial, which is supposed to be really well done, with the collaboration of the folks who put together the Washington, DC Holocaust memorial.

Getting them a driver was a bit more of a hassle than I had planned. There’s one taxi driver that I (used to) use named Ignace. He has the typical Rwandan taxi, which means you have to hold onto the door to make sure it doesn’t open up while he’s driving, and the windshield is all but shattered. But he’s reliable and he speaks passable English. So we had agreed that he would pick Jude, Steve and me up at noon on Tuesday at the hotel, and he would take the ‘rentals-in-law out for the afternoon.

When I called him on Tuesday morning to confirm, he was in Gisenyi with another fare. Now, you have to understand, Gisenyi is way the hell out on the other side of the country.

I found another driver near our house, and he worked out fine. I asked John Peter in French, “Do you speak English?”

“Yes.”

And then I switched. “Okay, we’re going to have a test. I am going to speak to you in English and use big words.”

“Okay.”

He passed.

Jude and Steve are now in Nyungwe National Forest, where the chimps live. They’re coming back this evening and then tomorrow it’s off to Mugonero, to Victor’s orphanage, for New Year’s. That should be fun. We’ll be there until Sunday afternoon. Jude and Steve head off for a 12-day safari through Uganda on Tuesday. …

So some of you have been asking about the paper I’ll be editing. Getting any new enterprise up to speed is slow, and starting an English newspaper in Rwanda is even slower. There just aren’t the reporters here. So, my boss says he has one story ready to edit, and when there are a few more he will send them to me. Eventually I’ll be able to work in the office, when the reporters are there. …

A Rwandan friend and I had an interesting conversation on Tuesday evening. We spoke about the war here, and the aftermath of the genocide. I was under the impression that there were no widespread revenge massacres when the RPF stopped the genocide. My friend said yes there were, in the west of the country where the Interahamwe and old Rwandan army didn’t have to go do the killings because the local populations performed their tasks with amazing gusto.

We then spoke about the massacres committed by the Rwandan army in Congo in 1997. The Interahamwe and other genocidaires had mixed in with other refugees, all under the knowing noses of the UN. The thugs set up their own government within the refugee camps and killed anyone that stood up to them. They were also rearming and launching deadly cross-border attacks into Rwanda.

In 1997, Uganda and Rwanda, but mostly Rwanda, propped up a militia force that eventually took over Congo from Mobutu. The Rwandan army did the bulk of the fighting, and made time to chase down and slaughter the refugees. I asked if my friend had a problem with this.

“I may sound like a cold man,” he said, eyes blazing, “but the Hutus killed us for decades without any threat of retaliation.” Maybe a reverse massacre would teach them a lesson, he said. “There were no innocent Hutus.”

I rode into the debate with my “eye for an eye makes the whole world blind,” and my Human Rights Watch background. The violence just perpetuates a cycle, I said.

But it felt like I was attacking a battleship with spitballs. None of my arguments could make a dent in my friend’s convictions. In either 1959 or 1962 (I don’t remember which one), my friend’s parents, Tutsis obviously, barely escaped another series of ethnic, Hutu-on-Tutsi, massacres. “They got out by the skin of their teeth,” he said, “They were just children. They were doing this for 40 years. What were we supposed to do?”

“I don’t know,” I sputtered, and we changed the conversation.

I still believe that the revenge killings of innocents were wrong, but I have no problem clearing out the genocidaires, especially since the useless UN was letting them launch brutal attacks from the camps.

But at some point in every conflict, someone has to say we’re not going to fight anymore. At some point, someone has to be brave, and accept whatever may come. Otherwise people just keep killing each other for no reason. Someone in Israel and Palestine (that’s right, I said Palestine) is going to have to say enough. Bec says the more powerful party in a conflict has the responsibility to do that. I don’t think any side has a greater responsibility. Someone just has to get up and say, enough.

I recognize that what I just wrote is a sort of dream world. I’m not a pacifist, and do believe in self-defense. People aiming at attacking innocents need to be stopped, within the law. None of this torture or illegal wiretapping nonsense. But maybe in cases where it’s just one revenge killing justifying another revenge attack, people need to step back and say, we’re not going to retaliate. Maybe that’s the only way to move forward.

I guess that’s my New Year’s wish. And since I’m going to be out of town, in the sticks, for the changing of the calendar, here’s hoping everyone has a happy and a healthy one. Sorry for the rambling and bringing everyone down.