Rev. Ted Huffman

Rebuilding Rwanda

Here is your political trivia question for today. Which country has the highest percentage of women in its legislature? OK, we know it isn’t the United States. The United States Senate will, for the first time, be 20% female when the new class is seated. That is the highest percentage in the history of the deliberative body. Only 39 women have ever served in the senate, so 20 at once is a significant number. Still the percentage is far short of the world’s leader.

Women hold 56% of the seats in Rwanda’s parliament, by far the highest percentage any where in the world.

Twenty years ago we watched in horror as one of the most horrific genocides of the 20th Century unfolded, leaving the country decimated by the slaughter. Part of the reason for the high percentage of women in parliament is the simple fact that so many men were killed. It is a tragic legacy from one perspective. From another point of view, it is nothing short of a miracle.

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The women of Rwanda are rebuilding Rwanda. It can’t be an easy task. Imagine coming to work and having to sit next to the wife of the man who killed your husband or the woman whose partner is living in exile after murdering your brother. It happens every day in Rwanda. The pain of the past is undeniable. The trauma with which the citizens of the country live daily is unimaginable. And yet they are rebuilding. Bit by bit, chore by chore, decision by decision, Rwanda is emerging as a new and different place. In the past five years, more than one million Rwandans have emerged from poverty.

There is much that remains to be done. The average wage still hovers in the $1 per day range. Life expectancy is only 50. Domestic violence still affects a huge number of women. The market streets are still muddy pathways with little infrastructure. The majority of the citizens of the nation struggle to find sufficient clean water. Sanitary sewer systems are virtually non-existent. The country has a distinct lack of engineers and teachers.

But there is a new definition for Rwanda these days. The country whose very name has become synonymous with genocide is gaining a new identity. The place where the tribes Tutsi and Hutu were so bitterly and murderously engaged is becoming a tourist destination.

The “land of a thousand hills” is being returned to the gardens and tea plantations that once dotted the landscape. Rwanda is home to a third of the remaining mountain gorillas of the world, a variety of other primates, and many brilliantly colored birds. It is a land of volcanoes, games reserves, and resorts. It is once again becoming known for its graceful dancers, artistic crafts and friendly people. Located in the heart of Central Africa, it shares borders with Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Nearly 11 million people live in Rwanda today. And they are working to bring their country back from the horrors of its history. And they are being led by men and women working together.

Still, it is an undeniably difficult place to visit if one takes a moment to consider its history. A visit to the country would be incomplete without at least a visit to the exhibition at the Kigali Memorial Centre. There are other, less known, museums and memorials also dedicated to the memory of those who died. There is a church in the small town of Kibuye where 11,000 were murdered in a single day. Nearly 10,000 more were killed the following day in a nearby football stadium. None of these visits is an easy emotional trip. The weight of what has happened hangs heavily on the country.

It is especially difficult for citizens of the United States. The simple truth is that our government did not intervene when we could have. We watched passively as the Hutu extremist regime oversaw the murder of hundreds of thousands of Tutsis. Government officials in the United States were well informed about the killings, but they refused to even utter the word genocide for fear it would oblige the US to intervene. The failure to act when we had the power to save lives is now part of our heritage and history as surely as murder and genocide is part of the history of the people of Rwanda.

It is not all sweetness and light as Rwanda emerges from the horrors of its past. The government, under President Paul Kagame has the backing of the United States and other governments. It is natural, and perhaps fueled by more than a little bit of guilt on our part. But that government has overreached by sending forces into neighboring Congo where they have become directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands. The intervention of Rwanda in Congo is contributing to political instability and suffering. And the motive isn’t purely political. The plunder of Congo’s valuable minerals is extremely lucrative. In the long term it can’t be in the best interests of Rwanda to create political instability in the region for the sake of profit.

Determining an appropriate role for the United States in Central Africa is extremely complex. There are voices that say that any intervention on our behalf is misguided policy. The people of Africa should be determining the future of Africa. But we carry with us the memory of the horrors that resulted when we didn’t intervene.

It remains to be seen whether Rwanda will continue to pull itself up from the tragedies of its past or will once again become a failed state as its government collapses under the weight of abuses of power by those in the highest positions.

A couple of weeks ago a coalition of campaign groups and think tanks wrote to President Barak Obama asking him to reconsider US policy toward the Kagame administration in Rwanda. US policy plays a big role in the future of the people of Central Africa. The news here in the United States is focused on domestic policy these days. But our foreign policies are life and death matters to millions of people around the world. The people of Rwanda are counting on us to do the right thing. I hope and pray that we will consider our actions carefully. Ignoring the situation once again will only lead to tragedy.

Copyright © 2012 by Ted Huffman. I wrote this. If you want to copy it, please ask for permission. There is a contact me button at the bottom of this page. If you want to share my blog a friend, please direct your friend to my web site.