Orderly and oppressive

As Americans, we tend to assume that democracy is the best option. Human rights groups are jumping on the Rwandan government for achieving order through oppression.

Rwanda offers ample evidence that democracy requires ripeness in the form of at least a baseline of education, common values, and economic stability.

Perhaps it's too early in Rwanda's reconstruction to call for democracy. This is a nation carved out and then divided by outside forces. It was the Belgian government that arbitrarily determined who was in the majority (Hutu: fewer than ten cows, dark skinned, medium height) and the minority (Tutsi: more than ten cows, lighter skinned, tall). The situation is imperfect, and people are suffering, but now again is not the time for outsiders to press for their way of doing things.

Shades of gray

An update to the civil unrest that appeared to be brewing in Rwanda when I last left off: Last week, the government arrested an opposition politician for alleged genocide ideology. The many arrests of Hutu leadership so far signals a clear distrust of allowing the majority back into power.

Is there a point when the suppression of differing ideologies shifts from actions necessary to maintain the peace to actions necessary to maintain power? I'm not sure the answer really matters when we're talking about ideologies differing in terms of "genocide good" versus "genocide bad." But it certainly is not the case that being Hutu translates automatically to one or the other.

There is such thing too as a slow genocide--where silently and slowly, right before our eyes, an entire group of people is stepped on until they are ground into dust.

A way to help

I've gotten some questions about how to support WE-ACTx and the other organizations that I had the chance to work with on this trip.

WE-ACTx is about to throw two major fundraisers, one in San Francisco and the other in Boston. You can attend either event or donate online. Authors Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman will host the San Francisco event, and there will be lots of pretty bags made by the women at Ineza for sale, so it should be neat.

Another great organization to give to and that I worked with is CHABHA, which leads a number of associations that work directly with kids in need. One of these associations is Amahoro, which means "peace" in Kinyarwanda, and is managed by an enthusiastic group of young people who were orphaned by HIV/AIDS and themselves beneficiaries. They took me along for a visit to a tiny village called Bumgogo where four hundred children greeted us with songs and a dance before our presentation on legal rights. Many of the kids walk for hours to be there for Amahoro's weekly visit to play games, learn about everything from HIV to nutrition, and talk about their problems. Like many of the aid organizations in Rwanda, Amahoro is billed as a religious organization but in fact provides aid freely and without regard to class, clan, or religion.
In the Bumgogo schoolhouse, another example of Amahoro's thoughtful aid work. These rabbits now belong to some of the poorest families in the village. In some circles in Rwanda, owning livestock (in whatever form) is critical to social standing and acceptance.

Newsworthy rumors

The national and international media have not covered the most recent grenade attacks in the Southern and Eastern provinces of Rwanda. The justification seems to be, because acts of terrorism occur frequently along the borders of Rwanda, they aren't actually newsworthy. And so, these events (as well as some closer to Kigali) officially remain rumors.

What the media is failing to address is the fact that tensions here are high--some say as high as they were before the country imploded in 1994. While the seven grenade attacks that killed or wounded 47 people in the capital city of Kigali on February 19 and March 4 caught most of the media's attention, a number of other events reveal the mounting tensions here. On February 25, President Sarkozy was the first French leader to visit since 1994, ostensibly to open up relations between France and Rwanda, by apologizing (lamely), for France's starring role in supporting the genocide. Less known is that Sarkozy's visit was also to negotiate a horse trade, President Habyarimana's widow (a woman many know to many as "Lady Genocide"), whom the French have protected since Habyarimana's plane was shot down leading into the worst 100 days of the genocide, in exchange for the safety of the exiled former Rwandan Ambassador to India, who was until recently a respected member of the ruling party. The Ambassador is a former general who is said to have been organizing a split away from President Kagame's regime (read: coup) and is now seeking asylum in South Africa. The next presidential election is in September.

Fracturing within Kagame's RPF is the proverbial hole in the dike--the start of instability in a country that above all needs stability. Kagame's rule may be imperfect, but of the many things it has achieved is making Rwanda one of the safest countries in Eastern Africa in record time. Since the end of its civil war, Rwanda has become the haven to which refugees from the DRC, Uganda, and Burundi have run.

After the first grenade attacks in Kigali, President Kagame attempted to quell fears by assuring on national television that the country is safe. But the announcement seemed only to motivate the opposition party(ies) to prove him wrong. Alarmed by the threat of multiple mass attacks around the country, the government announced on March 7, that March 8 would be a "holiday." In the guise of celebrating International Women's Day, all businesses were closed (read: no one was to be on the streets). Since the forced holiday, the streets have remained noticeably more quiet during the day and almost empty by nightfall. While the UN and U.S. Embassy here have been publicly silent on the situation, internally, staff have been warned to avoid large public gatherings (markets, main thoroughfares), all public transportation, and going out after dark.

To make matters worse, April 6 marks the start of the annual 100 days of mourning throughout the country. Every year in anticipation of this time, medical clinics see a rise in cases of severe depression and PTSD, including flashbacks and severe withdrawal (patients often fail to make the connection between their mental and physical health, coming in with "stomach aches"). The bomb threats, threats of a coup, and now rumored snatching of young men off the streets to be forcibly recruited into various military factions, are reminding everyone of what happened the last time.

Living here and working with many Rwandans, however briefly, my view of the situation is of extreme concern. While I will have the luxury of leaving Rwanda later today, my colleagues and friends here do not. It is critically important for the international community to acknowledge the growing violence here. It is not an overstatement that Rwanda is again on the brink of implosion. As human beings, we owe Rwanda so much, but at the very least, we owe them the help we failed to provide the last time around.

Evil

The fraudulent invitation.

A dedicated member of the WE-ACTx team, a Rwandan who was inspired to work with orphans because he is one himself, showed me an email invitation he had just received to attend a conference of NGO leaders working on AIDS and environmental issues.

The invitation promised an opportunity to travel for free to Los Angeles to meet for a week with others fighting for the cause--all for just a registration fee of $275. He was concerned it was too good to be true. It hadn't even occurred to me that such a thing could be fraudulent. Unfortunately, he was right.

The alleged organizer, the Edith Travis AIDS Foundation, lists a phony contact address on its shady website and hasn't answered my emails requesting more information about their program. They just want me to pay the registration fee.

What kind of people would prey on those who work in Rwanda and other developing countries for HIV/AIDS, environmental, and human rights causes? The people at our organization work tirelessly to ensure access to medical care for more than 6000 women and children with HIV. They persuade guardians, who believe that a child with HIV has no future and therefore can be treated like a slave, to change their ways. They scrape together money to keep children in school who could not otherwise pay the (illegally levied) fees. They counsel women and children who have been traumatized by sexual violence. They act as parents to several hundred children who have been orphaned by AIDS. They provide meals to children and families who otherwise would eat just a few times a week. They manage income generation projects that teach business skills to women who are otherwise unemployable because of their mental health. They mediate property disputes among adults who are supposed to be using the property for the benefit of the children in their care. They do this on a shoestring organizational budget, sometimes supplemented with their own modest to meager personal funds.

If you would like to offer some choice words to the immoral con-artists known as the Edith Travis AIDS Foundation, contact them at etaf-africa@africamail.com.

The child said,

"Lawyers are people who care about the problems of others."

Where the ingagi are

Rwanda may be small, but it has an uncomfortably concentrated population density of about 340 people per square kilometer. Fertile land is scarce, and so the land is tilled to within one millimeter of the protected peaks of the volcanoes in Virunga National Park.

The last 700 mountain gorillas in the world live within these islands of wilderness. They do not survive in captivity.