We are truly thrilled to announce that Coexist has earned two major grants, beginning with a $25,000 challenge grant coming from the Germeshausen Foundation. The Boston-based foundation supports Harvard's Women and Public Policy Program, Boston's PBS affiliate WGBH-producer of shows including FRONTLINE, Yale University, and Peace Games. Matching a portion of that challenge is the Mass Humanities. Their board voted to fully fund our proposal for the maximum grant amount of $10,000. All of this serves to bring us much closer to completing our documentary film Coexist and continuing our work in the community to transform conflict in the lives of young people across Boston, the U.S. and the world. Finishing our film does not mean our work ends. Our team will be taking the film to schools, community groups, faith groups, homes and backyards to engage you in conversations about transforming conflict. We're crafting plans now to make that happen and measure just how big our impact is. These foundations have told us that their support is a result of the work we are already doing in schools. This is a team effort. We look to you to connect our communities making sure that students, teachers, parents and everyone facing conflict knows about Coexist and becomes involved. Watch our clips here on the site, tell friends, suggest they become fans on facebook, sign up for our mailing list, donate today! Tell us how we can help you in your community. We are here to work with you, so let's continue the conversation!
Why Coexist?
When hate persists, how will you coexist? It's a question each of us face in our lives whether dealing with name calling and bullying, teasing and harassment, hate crimes, or even genocide. In the documentary film, Coexist we aim to stimulate discussion among people everywhere about the need to coexist. Coexist, is the evolution of several years of exploration, research, and discussion about reconciliation, coexistence, and peace-building. In our film you will see how genocide survivors struggle to coexist with killers in Rwanda, as targeted killing continues regularly throughout the country.
Survivors & Killers Living Side by Side
Because there are killers and survivors in every village in Rwanda, they must live side by side. This has prompted the government to heavily promote reconciliation programs. We found few people even in the most remote villages who have not heard the government's message of reconciliation. But, as you might imagine, reconciling with a killer who murdered your family is impossible for some people.
The Complexity of Coexistence
We set out to explore the extent of reconciliation in Rwanda. We had seen and heard numerous examples of seemingly stunning success. What we found in our investigation in Rwanda is that many people have been able to rehumanize their former enemies. But healing after such extreme trauma can be a life long effort. Many people simply cannot reconcile. For everyone in Rwanda the ability to simply coexist is imperative. As the country's top official at the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission, Fatuma Ndangiza told us, "Reconciliation is at different levels, some will reconcile others will coexist, and I think as long as it contributes to peace its all welcome."
A Feeling of Peace, as Killings Continue
The country is largely peaceful today. There is little danger for those willing to go about their business and keep quiet. But, some say peace is impossible. Because despite the relative peace murderers continue to kill genocide survivors today. The victims' families told us that survivors are being killed for testifying or preparing to testify against genocide offenders. Sometimes the murderers are related to the genocide offenders, and others are the genocide offenders themselves trying to protect other family members from going to prison.
What's Next?
Follow our progress here and share this story with your family, friends and colleagues. If you've visited our site before you'll find there are many new stories to read, pictures to view, information to check out and opportunities to interact. There are numerous ways to do that which we've outlined across our site. Become a fan on facebook, join our cause, send a link to our video on this page: http://upstanderproject.org, make a donation, tell teachers, professors, and administrators about Coexist.
In the coming months as we work to complete our film we will explore coexistence asking you:
"When hate persists, how will you you coexist?"
--Adam Mazo Director, Coexist
"They are still killing"
Huye, Rwanda 2 August 09
Domitilie breaks down into tears describing how she found the body of her husband Paul, hacked to death near their home in Huye, Rwanda. Paul Rutayisire survived the genocide that ended in 1994. A gang of murderers killed him in October 2007. After fighting back tears she said, " Whenever I think of how I found him dead and how they had cut him, sometimes I feel like running mad and running into the streets."
Domitilie believes Paul was murdered for his role on a local court, known as gacaca, organized to try hundreds of thousands of lower lever genocide perpetrators. Killers disagreed with verdicts passed down by Paul and the panel of judges.
They threatened him, then they killed him in the same brutal fashion nearly 1,000,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed in the genocide.
Domitilie is left with her 8 children, ranging in age from 2 to 21. Paul's sister Elisabeth helps where she can to support Domitilie. Elisabeth lives 20 minutes away up a rutted red dirt road in Huye (formerly known as Butare), Rwanda's second largest city. After Paul's murder Elisabeth tried to help Domitlie move her family closer to the sector office for better protection. Elisabeth says local officials refused, afraid that moving the family would scare the neighbors. Despite a government ban on formally identifying Hutus and Tutsis, today she feels unsafe at home and is worried about receiving visitors. She fears her neighbors will infer she is talking about Paul's murder. She said, "In prisons (the killers) accept what they did and they are forgiven, where they explain what they did, people they killed, all the bad things they did. And then they are forgiven and then they are brought back to where they lived, and they do it again. "
Like most Rwandan genocide survivors Domitilie says she has tried to reconcile with killers. But she firmly denies the positive results most others report, "Is it possible to reconcile with the suspects? We wanted to reconcile but they couldn't accept. Even now they don't want to reconcile with us. Instead they are still trying to kill us."
Paul is one of more than 150 genocide survivors to be murdered since 1995, one year after the genocide ended according to the survivors organization IBUKA, which means "remember" in Kinyarwanda. In recent years the killings have increased as more survivors have testified against neighbors who killed their families.
Domitiilie asserts passionately that many of her neighbors and people around the country are wrong, "They want to show the whole world that there's peace in Rwanda. But for sure there's no peace in Rwanda, cause the victims are still in danger. The hands that killed still have the intention to kill once again."
Inside a Rwandan Prison
Kigali, Rwanda Guards armed with semiautomatic weapons struggle to unlock a heavy steel door before finally opening it, unleashing a burst of joyful music from an all male chorus wearing bright orange and pink. A 5-piece band sounding much like Rusted Root tries vainly to excite the crowd full of thieves, killers and orchestrators of the Rwandan genocide. This is the image put forward to visitors by the Kigali Central prison. What goes on beyond the airplane hangar style hall is kept secret.
Among the crowd is Gregoire Nyilimanzi who admits leading thousands of Hutus in his area of Kigali and telling them to kill Tutsis. Unlike most he says that he is to blame for his crimes, not the government. Gregoire says, though the government encouraged killing, he bears the final responsibility for the deaths of more than 10,000 people killed in his sector. He has apologized and confessed with the hope that the government might reduce his sentence. Right now he is facing life in prison. He believes firmly that reconciliation is vital to the future of Rwanda and criticizes those who give false confessions to win early release. Like most he says that the government of unity is helping to lead people to reconcile.
Though he was lower ranking in the detailed and complex power structure, Gregoire takes more responsibility than Amuri Karekezi a former Kigali City Councilor. Karekezi says he has apologized for his crimes and admitted what he did, stoking hatred and dehumanizing Tutsis in the minds of Hutus. But this former government official blames the government for forcing him to commit these crimes. Despite admitting guilt he won't go into detail about his offenses. 13 years after being locked up, he says he has an appeal pending, as indicated by his bright orange short pants and pajama shirt. Karekezi wears a blue and white embroidered Muslim headcap, designer glasses, and blacks socks pulled up high with the word "Friday" at the top. Shoes, scarves, socks, and glasses are the only things prisoners can wear to stand out from one another. The hierarchy is clear loafers, boots, and sneakers like Nike and Adidas seem to separate the upper class prisoners from the others who merely wear flip flops.
Outside the jagged glass topped brick walls of the facility prisoners work continuously. Prisoners in pink and orange spend their days tending to crops in the fields, watering the dirt roads to keep down the dust, and repairing cars. Some carry the same machetes they may have used during the genocide.
As Gregoire points out, there are some killers who haven't changed and he believes some of them are living with impunity abroad. He pleas with foreign governments to hunt down genocide orchestrators so that Rwandans may live without fear.
Building Reconciliation
Pacifique uses a machete to chop wood to stoke the fire for lunch while a few feet away the man who killed her brother and sister thrusts a shovel into wet cement being used to finish construction of her house. This is what reconciliation looks like for many villagers in Rwanda after the genocide here in 1994. Theosphore admits to being in the group that killed Pacifique's family. Now he plays with Pacifique's 2 year-old daughter and jokes around with her like old friends.
The 22 year-old woman looks more like a tall, slim teenager than a mother raising 3 children. Pacifique credits REACH with this seemingly impossible transformation that has allowed her to tolerate seeing her family's killer each day for months.
REACH (Reconciliation, Evangelism And, Christian Healing) in Rwanda coordinates seminars where participants learn about the history of the Rwandan genocide, the role of the church in the genocide, and the possibility of asking for forgiveness and accepting apologies from killers. For people like Pacifique living in poverty in a remote village in eastern Rwanda it is clear, there is little choice.
REACH pays for the supplies and workers to build homes for genocide survivors like Pacifique. They have helped to build dozens of houses in the last 2 years in the Kirehe district. Across the country 1,000 people participate in continuing efforts to build reconciliation through construction projects, singing and dance groups, and a soccer league.
While Theosphore spreads cement around windows, Pacifique is already living in the unfinished house sharing a twin bed with her husband. There is no running water, electricity or latrine. When the house is finished in two weeks the only improvement will be a freshly dug latrine. Pacifique says she had to get out of her aunt's house because her only surviving relative was unwilling to help feed her 2 year-old daughter. Pacifique says, "the man she lives with," helped pull her out of that situation by paying for her meals at a restaurant for 3 months. Pacifique encouraged him to pay for food so she could cook for him instead. Then they began living together.
Theosphore is a father of three living with his wife, 1 mile from Pacifique's house. He says he killed because the government desensitized people to kill. He says he has apologized because the government sensitized people to confess their crimes. He says, "If the government asked people to kill again, I would die or be killed. I could not kill again."
Pacifique says the REACH seminars gave her the ability to reconcile with Theosphore. She plans to go back to school soon. Her outlook for the future is optimistic, "We are reconciling and people are happy, there are few problems."
On this day her only concern seems to be peeling cassava so that she, her children and the reformed killers can eat lunch together underneath her new blindingly shiny sheet-metal roof.
What reconciliation looks like
Jean Gihana calmly admits that he armed and directed a band of killers in his neighborhood during the Rwandan genocide. Confessing got him out of prison early, and today he counts survivors as his friends. "For the one person who I killed, I have apologized to his family." Jean said in an interview outside a seminar on reconciliation and healing conducted by REACH in Kirehe District, Rwanda. Initially, he said he couldn't determine how many people died due to his orders. Asked to guess, he said "42."
"For the 42 people I ordered others to kill, I have apologized to the government. Each man who killed apologizes to the family of the victims," 42 year-old Jean Gihana explained. He said the government is to blame for the fact that he took a machete and slashed a man named Paul, murdering him during the genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994. Though he does not seem to take responsibility for the murders he ordered, Jean also offers that as a leader of his neighborhood's Interahamwe, he supplied men in his neighborhood with guns, machetes, and studded clubs so that they could kill their neighbors.
Jean, who has four children together with his wife, says he has apologized to Paul's family and they accepted this apology. Paul is friendly with Anyesi, a bright, friendly and upbeat grandmother of four with a hearty laugh. They were neighbors before the killings and today.
Anyesi's ability to forgive and move forward is incredible. She has forgiven killers who slaughtered her husband and her three sons. She and her daughter were the only survivors. She even forgives the people who led her to identify her husband by a body part hanging from the town hall. Seeking shelter with her family, her own relative then raped her, blaming it on the fact she married the someone from the "wrong" group. He gave her HIV. After the genocide she adopted five orphans and she continues to care for several children today.
Since sharing her story with us for the first time in 2006 she has been attacked again. A neighbor, angry she has been encouraging reconciliation and identifying killers, snuck up on Anyesi. While she was cooking right outside her house one evening he walked up to her hiding his intentions, and smacked her in the forehead with a studded club-the same sort of weapon used in the genocide. The attack left a scar and lingering pain. Later, he confessed and promised to pay for her health care bills. Then he left town. She has forgiven him.
She also forgives Alexander, the man who helped destroy her house during the genocide. She even considers Alexander, his wife, and five children as her own extended family. Alexander receives Anyesi in the front room of his clay house. The home is surrounded by pigs, cattle, and plantain trees at the end of winding dirt road barely suitable for vehicles. They sit next to each other in an area formerly used as neighborhood bar, until the government somehow found it and shut it down. Alexander justifies his action saying, "We did what the government told us to do. Otherwise we would be killed." He says he was very young at the time. He was 24 in 1994. Asked if he saw anyone punished for refusing orders, he said no.
Anyesi now leads a group of survivors and wives of genocide perpetrators in cooking meals for dozens of people. The women wouldn't even look at each other several years ago. Now they credit the teachings of REACH (Reconciliation, Evangelism And Christian Healing), a ministry that aims to teach Rwandans about the history of colonialism, the church, and the genocide. REACH now pays the women to prepare meals for its seminars. REACH tries to teach participants about the value of forgiveness, reconciliation and peace building. This week they held holding a seminar in the Kirehe district of Rwanda near the border with Tanzania. In the seminar, approximately 40 released prisoners sit separately from about one dozen survivors on their left and a choir on their right. The singers are survivors and children of killers. In the front of the church a group of pastors rotates leading the discussions and lectures. The choir provides interludes to energize participants between preaching, bible reading, and small group discussions.
Anyesi has attended numerous seminars in the past, at first she says she wouldn't even look at the wives of killers. She says when she realized what was happening, survivors being paired with perpetrators' wives, she wanted to beat up Father Philbert Kalisa, the man who founded REACH and organizes seminars across Rwanda. Now she credits Kalisa with helping her to find a way to forgive and move forward.
Alexander credits Kalisa with helping to understand the power of forgiveness. Jean has been to other similar seminars and says that there are no longer any tensions in his neighborhood, "Everyone is happy," he said. He insists that the victims' families agree.
A Survivor's Fear & Hope
"I don't know what is in other people's hearts." Grace explained to us, and then nodded somberly, yes, the genocide could happen again. Grace is the only survivor of the genocide from her family. It is clear she is fearful, "I have to be vigilant. There aren't police officers to protect everyone."
She lives alone, an unusual circumstance in Rwanda, in the capital of Kigali. The area is one of the nicest neighborhoods with palm tree lined streets and embassies all around.
23 years old with a bright smile, she is two years away from a law degree. If you met her in the U.S. you might think she was just like any other young adult with a bright future. When asked about her experience during the genocide she fights back tears and cannot do it. But she openly shares her doubts about reconciliation in her native Kinyarwanda language.
At the Rwanda Youth Healing Center (RYHC) in Ruhango, a small town 60 miles outside the capital, Grace candidly tells us that she believes some killers confess because they know they will be treated favorably by the government. A confession and apology to survivors can get a prisoner released early and yield money for them to restart their lives in society.
Counselors at the center encourage the 70 children and young adults to aim high and work hard. The group, mainly orphans, travels from across the country to come together every other month. A medical student leads the group in a discussion, he acknowledges that reconciliation is a process, "We cannot resolve in 15 years what was 30 years in the making." He stresses the importance of sharing their stories and writing about them, if they can stomach it, to cope with post-traumatic stress. For Grace on this night it is too painful. When it comes to other topics her French flows quick and easy and she even tries some English. When she gets her law degree she is unequivocal in her desire to avoid working for the government. She wants to be an advocate for the rights of children. She is eager to share more and she has invited us to visit with her in Kigali.
37 boys and 33 girls will spend the weekend at the center before scattering across the country. Each one has a tragic story to share, though they are full of smiles, laughs, hugs and affection for each other.
We will return there tomorrow and bring you more stories of the people we meet.
Adam Mazo Ruhango & Kigali, Rwanda July 18th, 2009
6,000 victims, 12 survivors
Charles Mugabe should not be alive. Now he spends his summer vacations guiding visitors through the church turned memorial where he watched his twin brother die. He witnessed a killer decapitating a woman with a machete, hid for 3 days in piles of bodies and then escaped killers for 3 weeks by swimming through swamps. Charles is lucky.
He was one of 12 innocent Tutsis who hobbled out of the brick church. 6,000 other people were murdered where they sought shelter, in the sanctuary in Nyamata, a town 20 miles from the capital. The milita and soldiers used grenades, guns, machetes, clubs and sticks to slaughter them. Outside the church they slaughtered 6,000 more in a few days in April 1994. It was the beginning of the Rwandan genocide that claimed more than 1,000,000 lives in 100 days.
Charles survived by hiding his head in a hole 2 bricks wide and 4 bricks tall near the altar of the church. Before his brother died, he smeared blood all over Charles so that the Interahamwe (Kinyarwanda for: those who attack together) militia would think he was dead. For three days he tried not to move as the killers intermittently probed bodies to see if anyone was still alive. Eventually they found him by poking bodies. When they speared his ankle, he screamed. A scar remains. In the chaos Charles pleaded for his life. The killer spared him and told him to be quiet so no one else would know. He has no idea why. When he did finally leave along with the other 11 survivors, the killers heard footsteps. They fled back into the church and overheard the killers saying they would post a guard and come back in the morning to take care of the rest.
He and the others managed to sneak out. The killers spotted them again so they hid in a pile of bodies outside the church for another day eventually escaping to the swamps where they lived like hunted animals for 21 days.
Today, Charles is a soft spoken 23 year-old student in secondary school studying construction. Having lost nearly his entire family Charles now lives with one of 4 remaining survivors of the church massacre still living in Rwanda. He bounced from temporary homes to an orphanage to his grandmother's home as an adolescent. She died of natural causes in 2003. He asserts that he has not been traumatized by his experiences, though he says he flashes on the one murder he remembers vividly-- the decapitation of a woman with one slash of the machete. Charles believes that telling his story to visitors helps him to cope with these horrific memories.
Despite his unbelievable escape, Charles seems at peace. He strongly believes in the power of reconciliation to heal his community. For him it begins with a killer apologizing and confessing his crimes, only then, he told us, can the process move forward. It seems impossible to many of us. He insists that it is.
As we move forward we'll share more stories of the people we meet. We also hope to share some of what happens behind the scenes, negotiating in a third world country, working with our amazing Rwanda team, and adventures in finding the basic necessities.
Tomorrow we will be at REACH's grand opening of the Center for Unity and Peace, a project 8 years in the making. Then, we will join about 20,000 of our closest friends at the Amohoro National Stadium for the Hope Festival-- look for more on that this weekend (if our internet continues to function as well as it has been!)
--Adam Mazo, Director: Reconciliation's Reach Kigali, Rwanda July 16th