Rwandan Stories of Resistance: Josephine Dusaminama
As part of the Rwanda Peace Education Programme’s “Peace Week,” I had the opportunity of meeting with and hearing the testimony of Josephine Dusaminama who was a rescuer during the Genocide.
It is the summer of 1994 in Kibuye Town, a small city on the eastern shore of Lake Kivu. Fishing boats parade Lake Kivu at dusk, teeming with the bodies of Tutsis escaping the heat of genocide. Oars extend to calmer shores of DRC, their vessels mimicking the calmness of the waves. They leave no sound, no trace. Onlookers are unaware of the load these boats carry. No one knows that Tutsis found refuge at these waters.
On April 6, 1994, an airplane carrying President Habyarimana and the President of Burundi was shot down, and both presidents were killed. Although ethnic tensions had been brewing in Rwanda for decades, tensions would reach a deadly climax in the months following Habyarimana’s death. The Rwandan Army and militia groups immediately began rounding up and killing all Tutsis and moderated Hutus throughout the country, amounting to one of the deadliest genocides in history. Within 100 days, as many 1 million Tutsis and moderate Hutus had been killed.
The 1994 Genocide is often summed up as a failure from multiple parties.
The West watched passively, as the Hutu extremist regime ravaged Rwanda. In Rwanda, many civilians actively engaged in the massacres, others were bystanders to the atrocities. As such, much of the discourse surrounding the genocide revolves around the failures of various individuals and institutions.
It seems that this discourse leaves no space for the narratives of those who resisted the status quo, fighting to avert the loss of life. It leaves no space for people like Joespine Dusaminama.
As part of the Rwanda Peace Education Programme’s “Peace Week,” I had the opportunity of meeting with and hearing the testimony of Josephine Dusaminama who was a rescuer during the Genocide.
Josephine is a native of Kibuye, having lived there with her family for generations. During the genocide, her family stayed in a small home not too far from Lake Kivu. As the conflict intensified, many Tutsis tried escaping to DRC via Lake Kivu. Many found refuge in Josephine’s home. She managed to rescue 13 people by hiding them on boats, and sailing them to the DRC.
Her survivors were a mix of women, men and children, many of whom were sole survivors of their families. She fed them, clothed them, and gave them the little comfort she could provide.
At the time, Hutus accused of hiding Tutsis placed themselves and their families at risk of being killed. Neighbors became suspicious, and eventually reported to Hutu officials that a Tutsi woman was hiding in Josephine’s house. The woman was breastfeeding her infant child, as gendarmes came blazing through the door. They promptly demanded the woman’s ID. Josephine tried pleading with the officers to no avail. They asked the woman to sit on a chair in front of a door, and they shot her two times in the chest. They spared Joesphine’s life.
[quote]Josephine reminds us that human life has no hierarchy. That those of us who have the privilege of feeling always feeling safe and comfortable should exercise that privilege productively. Rethinking the notion of genocide allows us to see that human agents posses great power. The calculus of genocide breaks down when we love radically. Amidst chaos, Josephine chose love. We should too."[/quote]
Witnessing murder is a traumatizing experience. But it is a risk that one takes as a rescuer. With unflinching determination, Josephine constantly put the survival of innocent civilians over her own safety and security.
She remembers these months as particularly trying times. Her family hadn’t come from much, nor did they really have the capacity to bring outsiders in.
Not everyone was supportive of what Josephine was doing. Her husband even threatened to report her to authorities.
He would say, “ I am not sure about keeping your Tutsis in the house. If they come here, I am going to tell them that you were the one that brought them here and let them kill you. Do you want me to flee and leave you here alone with them?”
And she would simply respond, “ You are a human being and a father. If people came to you asking for refuge, would you chase them away?”
She saw their humanity. This was something that Josephine reminded us throughout the evening. She reminded us that Genocide is fundamentally a manifestation of hatred. It is an unwillingness to acknowledge the humanity of others. This was done by the West, but also by Rwandans themselves.
Josephine reminds us that human life has no hierarchy. That those of us who have the privilege of feeling always feeling safe and comfortable should exercise that privilege productively. Rethinking the notion of genocide allows us to see that human agents posses great power. The calculus of genocide breaks down when we love radically. Amidst chaos, Josephine chose love. We should too.
Achille Tenkiang of Princeton University is currently serving as the Goldin Institute's Global Fellow for 2016. Achille is spending his summer internship in Rwanda with our local partners at the Kigali Genocide Museum focused on uncovering and documenting stories of resistance to the genocide in Rwanda.
In addition to the value these stories serve in the healing of Rwanda, this oral history offers a unique opportunity to support genocide prevention efforts in Burundi and the Central African Republic, neighboring countries that display alarming parallels to pre-Genocide Rwanda in terms of current levels of violence and the growing reality of public hate speech on the airwaves.
Through this Fellowship, Achille is working with the staff of the Kigali Genocide Museum to capture and transcribe interviews with several “heroes” from Rwanda who resisted the 1994 Genocide. These stories are intended to be used in a variety of ways, potentially including: publication in book format; published as a video series; used in peace building curriculum; an exhibit within the KGMuseum; in promotional materials and so on.
Stories of Resistance from Rwanda to Inspire Anti-Violence efforts
Learning Lessons from the Rwanda to Prevent Future Genocides
The Goldin Institute is proud to annouce that Achille Tenkiang of Princeton University has been selected for our Global Fellowship program for 2016. Achille will spend his summer internship in Rwanda with our local partners at the Kigali Genocide Museum focused on uncovering and documenting stories of resistance to the genocide in Rwanda.
In addition to the value these stories serve in the healing of Rwanda, this oral history offers a unique opportunity to support genocide prevention efforts in Burundi and the Central African Republic, neighboring countries that display alarming parallels to pre-Genocide Rwanda in terms of current levels of violence and the growing reality of public hate speech on the airwaves.
Through this Fellowship, Achille will work with the staff of the Kigali Genocide Museum to capture and transcribe interviews with several “heroes” from Rwanda who resisted the 1994 Genocide. These stories are intended to be used in a variety of ways, potentially including: publication in book format; published as a video series; used in peace building curriculum; an exhibit within the KGMuseum; in promotional materials and so on.
Achille will work with the Kigali Genocide Museum staff to identify and recruit participants and then conduct interviews using a video recorder to ensure a broad range of pedagogical and exhibition formats. Check back often for updates as Achille and the team transcribe the interviews and participate in ongoing discussions about how these products may be used in the future.
Colombia Brings Reconciliation Methods to Uganda
In the tradition of the Goldin Institute's Forgiveness and Reconciliation Project, and utilizing the ESPERE methodology developed with our colleagues in Colombia, our efforts towards building child soldier reintegration continues throughout Northern Uganda.
As our Global Associate on the ground in Uganda (Denis Okello) recently reported to us in this summary paper, both Kitgum and Amuru districts have suffered greatly from armed violence and conflict. The instability in the area results in the ongoing recruitment and coercion of countless adults and children into the rebel forces. As Denis tells it, "in some way or capacity, each and every household in Northern Uganda has suffered the direct effects of the conflict in terms of abduction, death, displacement, poverty or illness." Against this backdrop, both districts serve as ideal communities to workshop the methods of ESPERE, bringing effective training to those within the community wishing to cope with the effects of war – and also those hoping to better their lives.
In the Kitgum District, Denis' report focused on a workshop conducted specifically for secondary and vocational school teachers. Here, educators could be equipped with the knowledge and skills on the process of forgiveness and reconciliation in order for them to effectively respond to the needs of their students who have been directly impacted by the civil war that they have grown up in.
In the Amuru District, Denis overviewed the specific training to former child combatants, young mothers, and orphaned young adults of the conflict who have been left to become the 'heads' of their households. Denis provided the history and background, and explained that within Amuru, the sub-county of Pabbo was one of the first and largest camps for Internally Displaced People (IDPs) during the LRA War between 1986 and 2006. After the end of hostilities in 2006, the displaced persons, former combatants, victims of atrocities and children born from captivity within the LRA, flooded back to many parts of Pabbo. It is important to point out that Denis and his own family have been impacted by the conflict's history and because of his training directly from our Global Associate Lissette Mateus Roa, was uniquely qualified to be one of the three facilitators of Amuru Workshop.
Workshops Follow Ongoing Committment to the Issue of Child Soldiers
The trainings held by Denis and his team on the ground in both Kitgum and Amuru Districts, would not have been possible without prior research conducted in Northern Uganda with former child soldiers. Released late last year, we published the guide, Alone and Frightened, to provide first-hand accounts and experiential stories of former child soldiers affected by the brutal war pitting the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) against the Uganda People's Defense Forces (UPDF). Our extensive research with our partners in the region (including our former Global Associate from Kenya, Dr. Dorcas Kipligat, who served as the Project Coordinator to the report), provides an ongoing resource guide to all new workshops being conducted in Africa.
Readers familiar with the origins of the ESPERE methodology, will remember that it is made up several modules reinforcing the two phases of forgiveness and reconciliation. A link to an early version of what this looked liked as it was piloted in Colombia can be found here. The slideshow that we have put together at the end of this story is remarkable in the consistencies between the exercises in Latin America and those taking place to make up the workshops in Uganda.
We are excited to see from the expansion of the project from Latin America to East Africa, how in spite of the cultural, ethnic and societal differences between two unique continents and their people, the methods being shared for forgiveness and reconciliation are held in common. What we are learning in facilitating these trainings is the universal nature of how most all people impacted by conflict have the capacity to embrace these methods. Please follow along in the narrative slideshow below to see this happening in Kitgum and Amuru.
Fr. Leonel Delivers Powerful Keynote Promoting Forgiveness
Like many of his colleagues, Father Leonel Narvaez, the Co-Founder and President of the Colombian peace-building organization Fundación para la Reconciliación (Foundation for Reconciliation), has a gift for weaving anecdotes throughout his presentations and sermons.
Here in Izcalli, Mexico, at the Fourth International Meeting of the Fundación's Escuelas de Perdón & Reconciliación, (The "Schools for Forgiveness & Reconciliation," known by the acronym ESPERE), Narvaez relied heavily on his full arsenal of stories. Nov. 22 - 24, representatives from ESPERE programs from 10 countries gathered to share their experiences, discuss best practices, and mark their collective progress as an organization. One of Narvaez' stories in particular resonated among the attendees:
[quote]Violence is the Failure of Dialogue."[/quote]
- Fr. Leonel Narvaez
As Narvaez tells it, as a graduate student in the late 1980's he had met and befriended Dick Cheney, then a relatively unknown Defense Secretary under President George H.W. Bush. At some point he had been invited to stay at Cheney's house, which he described as a "museum" of firearms: "This man had all kinds of guns and rifles on the walls," he said. "Guns for hunting, guns for fighting, old guns, new guns. I had never seen so many guns in a house."
[slide] [img path="images/Mexico01.png"]Lissette Mateus Roa, Sebastian Sosman, Akif Irfan and Fr. Leonel Narvaez[/img] [/slide]
Cheney also had countless animal trophies on display. "This man was a very serious hunter," Narvaez said.
Cheney also took Narvaez on a personal tour of the Pentagon at the time, at one point showing him a display model of an intercontinental ballistic missile. "He told me, this is the most intelligent missile we have – it can reach 30,000 miles and we control it by satellite. And it only costs ... I don't remember exactly but I think he said $10 million dollars. It was a lot. And I don't know how many missiles they had. Maybe 1,000 or more, I don't remember. But they spend so much money on these things."
"I told him: Mr. Cheney, do you know how much good I could do with what you spent on just one of these missiles?"
To a man who had dedicated his life to building peace, the experience must have been surreal. It is also a testament to Narvaez' character that he has nothing bad to say, about his former host, apart from some good-natured ribbing about his skill as a hunter. This is remarkable, considering the vast gulf between their philosophical approaches towards violence.
Among other things, Cheney is known as an outspoken advocate of pre-emptive military force, large-scale military spending, and probably the highest-ranking government official to defend torture and rendition of suspected terrorists. It would be difficult to find a human being further on the political spectrum from Father Narvaez, who has spent his life working to reverse the damages wrought by five decades of conflict in Colombia.
The contrast is compelling: Narvaez, unassuming and self-deprecating, engaging the then-Secretary of Defense Cheney, challenging him on the wisdom of the priorities of US Defense spending. At its heart, the story is also about being able to engage in meaningful dialogue with people of opposed worldviews. This is at the heart of Narvaez' story about Dick Cheney, and it is also the heart of the tremendous success he has had at the helm of the Fundación para la Reconciliación.
Since it was founded in 2003, the Fundación has touched countless lives in Colombia, and contributed in meaningful ways to the peacebuilding efforts there. The Fundación has also seen its model of forgiveness and reconciliation spread beyond Colombia's borders and across Latin America with a speed that would have drawn jealous interest from Exxon or McDonald's (or Dick Cheney, for that matter).
The primary vehicle for this rapid expansion has been the ESPERE curriculum, a pedagogical workshop that is built on the simple yet powerful premise of forgiveness and reconciliation. Born out of the difficult work of Narvaez and his colleagues in Colombia, ESPERE (which also translates as "Hope") has been adapted for a broader international audience, and tailored to meet the needs of a diverse continent. Today, ESPERE is thriving in countries with experiences of recent conflict, such as Peru, but also in countries like Mexico, where an explosion of organized criminal activity in the past fifteen years has introduced new cycles of violence and retribution.
ESPERE has also shown itself to be adaptable to environments that have not experienced these more familiar forms of conflict, but where the need for forgiveness and dialogue is nonetheless great. These include countries as diverse as Chile, Brazil and the United States, where traditional categories of conflict are not present.
Examples of ESPERE programs are further testament to the program's adaptability: From the Pacific Northwest to the Mar Del Plata, it has found its way into federal prisons, to shelters for victims of domestic violence, to classrooms in remote villages and urban shantytowns.
And it has not stopped in the Western Hemisphere. In a remarkable development, elements of the program have found their way into the villages of Northern Uganda, where the Acholi people are coping with the reintegration of child soldiers returning home after fleeing the ranks of the Lord's Resistance Army.
In describing the organization's core values, Narvaez favors a phrase, "La violencia es el fracaso del diálogo," violence emerges from the collapse of dialogue. This idea is as powerful in its simplicity as it is universal. But, as Narvaez can attest through his own experience, dialogue without understanding and without the goal of teaching forgiveness, has limited results.
This is a concept that, according to Narvaez, is earning an increasing share of attention in academic and policy circles focusing on post-conflict reconciliation. However, it remains far from the mainstream.
His point was illustrated in an unexpected and tragic way, when, on Monday the 24th, the town of Ferguson, Missouri erupted into violence after a grand jury found no probable cause for criminal charges against a police officer accused of shooting an unarmed teen. The televised coverage of the angry demonstrations and looting were broadcast around the world, including to Mexico, where it coincided with the last night of the ESPERE conference.
A failure dialogue has been present at every stage of the Ferguson story, a vacuum that allowed a verbal confrontation between Michael Brown and Officer Darren Wilson to escalate into the use of deadly force on the streets of Ferguson. These same conditions persisted through the response to the news of his death: angry protests, met by a heavy-handed, militarized police overreaction, which eventually escalated into rioting, tear gas and growing outrage on both sides.
La violencia es el fracaso del diálogo: A new cycle of violence is born out of a failure of dialogue and an absence of forgiveness.
But, as the ESPERE conference showed, the world is also full of men and women armed with tools for breaking these cycles, and with the courage and energy to try.
Colombian Global Associate and Partners Expand Peace Initiative
Forgiveness and Care Conference
Mexico City Nov. 21 - 22, 2014
Our Global Associate Lissette Mateus Roa helped to coordinate this first of its kind conference to bring together an international audience exploring the successes and challenges to the ESPERE methodology for forgiveness and reconciliation pioneered in Colombia. In addition to Lissette, the Goldin Institute was represented by Denis Okello, who previously completed Lissette's workshop training in Uganda last June, as well as Sebastian Sosman and Akif Irfan.
Our long-time partner Father Leonel Narvaez, the Co-Founder and President of the Colombian peace-building organization Fundación para la Reconciliación (Foundation for Reconciliation), delivered a powerful speech in which he described the origins of violence.
[quote]La violencia es el fracaso del diálogo."
Translation: "Violence emerges from the failure of dialogue."[/quote]
- Father Leonel Narvaez
Fr. Leonel's spirited talk led to conference participants embracing this key concept and engaging in robust dialogue. Read more about Fr. Leone's remarks here.
The conference continued to explore the concepts of care and reconciliation to teach others in peace-building and community reconciliation. We have featured the history of the project and its successful impact in Colombia in prior reports.
For the Mexico City Event, Lissette focused on the various types of care promoted by the ESPERE method: Care of Self, Care of Others, Care of Intellect, Care of Strangers, Care of Transactions. Care was also put into a religious and historical context. Moving beyond the conceptual, speakers explored the practical aspects of program delivery.
In order to continue the energy of the program, the group discussed techniques to motivate those who would be implementing the program. Using exercises developed and tested by Lissette and her colleagues through the last several years, activities focused on breaking down barriers to communication and learning to trust each other - the same skills that will eventually serve these community leaders when reinforcing the methods in their own home countries.
Finally, and most important to recognizing and appreciating cultural differences, a panel discussion of schools in Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Colombia, and Peru revealed lessons learned, common threads and unique aspects of delivering the ESPERE program in each country. These discussions centered around experiences administering the workshop as well as media presentations of prior ESPERE workshops and conferences.
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[img path="images/GI_participants_better.jpeg"]Forgiveness and Care Conference[/img]
[img path="images/fr_leonel_speaking.JPG"]Above: Fr. Leonel addresses the conference participants in Mexico City [/img]
[img path="images/balloon_activity.JPG"]Above: one of the many team-building exercises being conducted at the Conference[/img]
[img path="images/good_group_shot.jpeg"]Above: The attendees and organizers pose for a full group shot at the Mexico 2014 ESPERE Conference[/img]
[img path="images/fr_leonel_w_lissette_seb_akif.JPG"]Above: Fr. Leonel with Lissette, Sebastian and Akif at the Conference[/img]
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Colombia | Update from the field
In this Skype conversation direct from Bogotá, our global associate Lissette takes us through the recent strides made to end the 50 year conflict between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
Lissette gave us her perspective of what the negotiations mean to her as someone leading community development projects and working towards peace in Colombia. Some of the highlights of this conversation center around the recent 100 page report just issued outlining ten agreements by both parties. Chief among them was an agreement made regarding the marginalization of farmers. Currently, about 40% of the land in Colombia does not have a defined owner and many farmers have lived and worked on the land without documentation of ownership. As Lissette explained, the agreement would prompt the government to start providing contracts to farmers designating ownership.
Lissette went on in our conversation to explain the important agreement put in place to address inequities within education, food and housing experienced by those in the rural areas of Colombia. This agreement will help reduce poverty and allow for a better quality of life for those in rural areas.
Additional agreements relate to an open bidding process for government contracts that will ensure companies and workers are from the same area in which the work is being done. This is likely to reduce corruption and the negative influence to the process by those who have traditionally held the most power.
Finally, while negotiations are still in process and the agreements are going in the right direction, future implementation and enforcement of the agreements will be a challenge. Lissette gave us first hand accounts of these challenges explaining explicit threats made to her partner and mentor (and our colleague and contributor), Fr. Leonel Narvaez. These threats have been issued by groups thought to be para-military and working against the peace process. Because the peace process ultimately hopes to empower marginalized individuals, those working for peace, reconciliation and human rights are viewed as a threat to oppositional para-military groups and they are fearful of losing the power they currently have.
It was good to catch-up with Lissette, as she expressed her optimism in the face of outside pressure to her and Fr. Leonel's work. She assures us that they will continue to move forward, knowing that advancing their work in the reconciliation movement is the right thing to do for the community at large.
We are proud to continue in partnership and support the work of Lissette in Colombia. More information on her and her colleague's work can be found at our overview page here. Find out how you can become more involved and partner with us as we advance our project work in Latin America.
GI Global Associate Issues Progress Report on Project in Colombia
One of the core issues of the Goldin Institute's mission has been our work partnering with communities to promote co-existence, reconciliation and peace-building efforts.
Our partners in Colombia have made great strides in achieving this mission by building community-driven reconciliation tools that are an inspiration to our global network.
Since 2007, when we convened with local and international partners in Colombia to launch the National Partnership for Child Soldier Reintegration, we have continued to seek ways to help local leaders create new and more effective ways to reintegrate former child soldiers.
One community leader who came from the 'National Partnership teaching-tree' is our global associate based in Bogota, Lissette Mateus Roa. Last month, Lissette updated us on the progress of the pilot project began in her hometown in late 2011 called Pedagogy of Care and Reconciliation (PCR).
Lissette explained in the video update how the project is helping bridge the often deep-rooted differences that exist between teachers and students in the schools within her own community. The causes of these differences are complex and unique to the culture of Colombia, but in general are related to the country's decades long civil conflict. Lissette reports that in the schools that have participated, the makeup of the students is a direct sampling of the larger population at whole - especially in rural areas. This includes students who are likely to have experienced the domestic violence, learning challenges and poverty often associated with those displaced in Colombia by the civil conflict.
As Lissette points out in both the update video and also in this more comprehensive report:
[quote]Most people need new tools for relationship building ... that is what we workshop together with the teachers using the main methodology called ESPERE. In these day-long sessions, two main components make up the training: Forgiveness and Reconciliation ... people learn how to forgive and trainees of the project learn how to empathize with those they may have viewed as being different."[/quote]
[slide]
[img path="images/IMG_0394.JPG"]Above photo: Teachers consult the ESPERE guide at a recent workshop outside Bogota[/img]
[img path="images/IMG_0067.jpg"]Above photo: Goldin Institute Associate Lissette Mateus Roa leads a break-out circle at recent ESPERE workshop[/img]
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To broaden the reach of this innovative new approach to reconciliation, Lissette's team has built an online social platform where training tools can be accessed as well as an online library of all supporting documents related to the PCR project (audios, videos, and photos). Perhaps most importantly, the social platform allows teachers and administrators the opportunity to provide instant feedback to improve the reconciliation methodology by reflecting on their own direct experience.
We continue to be excited to be a part of Lissette's project as she sees it through being more fully implemented. The ESPERE method has already shown great promise in being a model for improving the structural and social aspects of reconciliation and as part of the PCR, more widely applied internationally. In fact, we are currently exploring how to apply the same techniques being used in the PCR project by Lissette and her team to our partners in Uganda.
We invite you to join us and Lissette in completing the PCR project – find out how your donation can work directly in peace-buiding efforts.
Update on Pedagogy of Care and Reconciliation Partnership Project
In this short video, Lissette Mateus Roa brings us up to date on what the partnership project has meant to the teachers, parents and students involved. This multi-sector approach has allowed for practices on how best to bring about change that will allow for acceptance and a better understanding of the issues faced by those impacted by Colombia's decades-long civil conflict. As Lissette so clearly states herself in the video:
[quote](Our) School is about ... How to forgive ... how to learn about another people ... how to see another people through new eyes."[/quote]
- Lissette Mateus Roa
Lissette was kind enough to share her own personal photos taken at the most recent workshop she conducted, which are also included in this video.
We are excited to continue to partner with Lissette on this project and see it come to life and expand further. Please view the video above and find out how you can become more involved in support of Lissette and the Pedagogy of care and Reconciliation Project.