Dancing with génocidaires

Jumping back in time a little because I forgot to cover one of the last incredible things my classmates and I did in Rwanda. Around three weeks back, we paid a visit to two integral facilities in Kigali that demonstrate how the post-genocide justice system works in Rwanda––and how different it is from American prisons.

We started with a stop at the Rwanda Correctional Service (RCS) headquarters in Kigali. Contrary to my initial beliefs, there were no actual prisoners there, mostly just administrative offices and meeting rooms, blah, blah, blah. As we approached the building in our jam-packed school bus, it looked fairly grim. Military personnel in brown uniforms filtered in and out of a tall, tan building. It was a drizzly and gray morning which made the whole day's topic of post-genocide justice, a somber one. We all piled off the bus and one-by-one, filed inside. A man at the door held a bottle of hand sanitizer, and as if it were all he knew how to do, robotically squirted some into each of our hands.

Upon entry, a stern-looking guy introduced himself as Superintendent, Jashi Jawabi and directed us up a few flights of stairs into a conference room with two long tables, chairs and projector-screen in the front. He passed around a microphone and had each of us say our names, schools, and studies. He poked fun at every introduction, telling us to speak up or repeat ourselves––it humanized him a little but there was still something starkly assertive about his character. Jashi gave us a fifteen-minute presentation on TIG which is a French acronym for "community service as an alternative to improvement" or however one says that in French.

Immediately following the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, one in four Rwandans was imprisoned for genocide-related crimes. This meant that jails and prisons were dangerously overcrowded and Rwanda's decimated economy simply didn't have the means to maintain them. Through the establishment of community-based Gacaca Courts in 2001, local Rwandans served as witnesses, juries, and even judges who categorized and decided the punishments for guilty génocidaires. In an effort to find more productive consequences of genocide perpetrators than simply throwing them behind bars––TIG was born. Within the program, convicted criminals (mostly those who have committed genocidal crimes) have the option to serve part of their sentences through community service. Aimed at "national development," the service that TIG members complete is 100% manual labor ranging from crop cultivation, road construction, building houses/schools etc. Some might question how can someone who killed another, reconcile through building a house or fixing a road? The answer is, who knows. The Gacaca Courts and TIG camps haven't been around long enough for us to truly know if they're effective means of judicial reform, but as someone who comes from the country with the most incarcerated people per-capita in the world, I think it's something we should at least consider as an alternative to solitary confinement and social isolation.

Currently, TIG operates from four different camps across the country and has 238 male and female members. Since that number of members is dwindling (as men and women fulfill their sentences), TIG is finding ways to incorporate regular prisoners not involved in the genocide, into the TIG program. Today, anyone convicted of a crime with a prison sentence over five years, can apply to serve partial time in a TIG camp.

Once Jashi finished up the enlightening lecture, we asked questions about the program––most of which involved contrasting Rwanda's prison system to the United States'. From there we hopped back onto our little bus and drove about an hour to an actual TIG camp in Magarere.

Although the camp was situated at the bottom of a hill below Nyarugenge Prison, it was hard to tell where we were upon arrival. It was rather tropical and village-like––not exactly the iron bars and barbed-wire fences we'd been expecting to find courtesy of one too many Orange is the New Black binges. The only dead giveaways to the place were the men and women at work along the hillside, dressed in orange jumpsuits. Clothing is a distinct difference between regular prisoners and TIG members who wear less-flashy, navy blue tops and bottoms.

My peers and I sat in plastic chairs about thirty feet directly across from the already-seated two dozen or so TIG members. The members started by giving an introduction to what they do within the program and how their day-to-day lives look. As no one spoke any English, Celine listened and promptly relayed translations to us. Each of us listened attentively and asked questions––careful not to pry too much into the lives of those we couldn't relate with.

As I listened, I couldn't help but doodle their faces. It's a habit I'd developed over the past few weeks; sketching our lecturers seemed to be an effective form of note-taking that helped me put a face to the information I was absorbing.

Jashi, who had come along with us for the visit, came from behind me and lowered his head to peak at my sketch. Terrified of offending anyone (there always seem to be people that find doodling disrespectful for some reason), I quickly tried to cover the drawing with my hands.

"You can draw me next," he said, grinning. Visibly relieved, I whispered thank you and promised I would.

One of the TIG women in particular stuck out to me and nagged me all day long. She was easily the oldest one there, maybe in her late-seventies, early-eighties. She had short, puffs of white curly hair with tufts of dark gray here and there. She wore a long, ivory beaded necklace with a cross at the bottom. Something about her wrinkled and worn face was so recognizable to me. Then it hit me. Celine had lent me a book on genocide perpetuators a short while back with a section on female génocidaires in the middle. The reading was a compilation of interviews and each subject had a portrait to go along with their story. I couldn't be positive––as there was no way for me to confirm her name––but something told me the woman sitting just ten yards away was the same one who's story I'd read.

As the rest of the students went around asking their burning queries, I brainstormed the topic to raise. Encouraged by the idea that I'd never again have the chance to ask genocide-perpetrators a personal question, I raised my hand.

"How do you feel about European and American students and researchers like us, coming in from the outside world to study you and your experiences?" I asked. Quiet giggles echoed throughout the seated members.

"Good question," my classmate whispered next to me.

Celine translated to the crowd and they responded with a positive answer that I hadn't anticipated. They said that initially, it was difficult. They weren't always trusting of outsiders' intentions or ethical values for research, but now they felt happy to have visitors. Learning about their history would help us become better world leaders who could prevent such genocides in the future, they harped.

It had been about an hour and a half of questions from our side, so Celine shifted the roles and asked the TIG members is they had anything to ask us. Their hands shot up. They asked us about racism in the states, colonialism, and social acceptance of long hair for American males (one of our students happened to have billowing locks). After we gave what seemed to be sufficient-enough answers, Celine thanked everyone for their time and we applauded to signify an end to our session.

The TIG members returned the gratitude and suddenly broke out into song, clapping, stomping and above-all, signaled for us to join in. In proper "you know what, what the hell" attitudes, we began to stand up and bridge the space between our groups to uncoordinatedly partake in the fun. Despite how foolish I'm SURE we looked, everyone seemed overjoyed that we wanted to play along.

After taking a few photos, I too moved over to dance alongside our new TIG friends. I stood next to the woman I had recognized and without hesitation began clapping to the rhythm (or at least attempting to). I couldn't help but think, this is the epitome of mutual acceptance isn't it? This had to be what psychologist, Philip Zimbardo was talking about when he described attributional theory of evil: the idea that under tanatmount circumstances, you and I are capable of anything he or she does.

There I was, standing next to a woman who was guilty of perpetrating genocide, a person I couldn't possibly be farther from both in mind and body. Yet I found it effortless to smile, sing, and dance alongside her. Knowing full-well that I had no place in even holding an opinion on whether or not the program really worked or if these people were actually remorseful, I subconsciously came to a realization. I truly believed in that moment that this woman no longer obtained malice. I was convinced she was a reconciled human being who had yes, made mistakes, but had also made strides to neutralize them.

I left the camp feeling conflicted about a lot of things: hope, resentment, confusion, joy, humor, fear? But most of all, I felt that I had witnessed one of the most fascinating and unforgettable Q&A's of all time.