Of Rwandan Reconciliation Individual Actors Take Centre Stage
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University of Louvain Louvain-Europe Political Sciences Institute Department of Political and Social Sciences The \Here and There" of Rwandan Reconciliation Individual Actors Take Centre Stage Jana Schildt January 2013 Thesis presented for the obtention of the degree of Doctor of Political and Social Sciences Jury members. President. Andr´e-Paul Frognier. Professor at the Universit´ecatholique de Louvain Supervisors. Val´erieRosoux. Professor at the Universit´ecatholique de Louvain D´eoMbonyinkebe. Professor at the Universit´eLibre de Kigali Elise F´eron. Professor at the University of Kent Readers. Sandrine Lefranc. Professor at the Universit´ede Paris Ouest-Nanterre Bernard Rim´e. Professor at the Universit´ecatholique de Louvain Contents Introduction. On exile and reconciliation in Rwanda 5 1. Massive population movements . .6 2. The extra-territorial dimension of reconciliation . 10 3. Reconciliation in the light of return . 19 4. Operationalisation of the thesis . 23 5. Structure of the thesis . 29 1 Locating Rwandan reconciliation 35 1.1 Exotic imaginary and scholarship on Rwanda . 37 1.2 Reading Rwandan social relations . 46 1.3 Opening the black box . 58 1.4 Research design . 63 1.5 Positioning research and researcher . 76 2 Militants of reconciliation 93 2.1 Militants of various walks of life . 98 2.2 Transnational(ised) trajectories . 108 2.3 Engagement as \vocation" . 134 2.4 Two-fold turning-points . 139 3 Meanings of reconciliation 161 3.1 Reconciliation with oneself . 162 3.2 Internalisation and fragmentation . 186 4 Structures of reconciliation 203 4.1 Social constellations of reconciliation . 205 4.2 Extraverted social worlds . 229 4.3 Extraterritorial political practices of reconciliation . 244 Concluding remarks 271 The puzzle . 272 Resuming the findings . 274 3 4 CONTENTS Contributions to the study of reconciliation . 276 Future research . 282 Bibliography 287 Annex. List of interviews 301 Acknowledgements 305 Introduction. On exile and reconciliation in Rwanda This thesis addresses the question of reconciliation in Rwanda. It sheds new light on this phenomenon by proposing a shift of perspective for its study. This perspective brings me to include the question of exile and return for exploring the meaning of reconciliation in contemporary Rwanda. As a matter of fact, since the 1950's Rwandan social logics have been shaped by massive movements of population in and out of the coun- try. My argument thus being that the cyclical movements of exile and return fashion the logics of Rwandan reconciliation so that it can only be fully understood when considering its extraterritorial dimensions. Ac- cordingly, in the frame of this thesis, I try to discover the meaning of reconciliation \from below", by taking an interest in individual actors who engage for what they consider to be reconciliation. By focusing on individual militants of reconciliation, this thesis explores the meanings with which they invest it. This micro-perspective indicates that while they conceive reconciliation as an engagement to transform social rela- tions, they ultimately seize it it reflexive terms. Through their various forms of engagement, they put the accent on the necessity to reconcile with oneself. At the time of writing these lines1, Rwanda is celebrating a very 1A previous version of this text was presented in the frame of the workshop \Quelle m´emoireau lendemain d'une guerre? Les fant^omespost-conflit” organised by V. Rosoux (June 21/22, 2012 in Louvain-la-Neuve), \Atelier `post-conflit’ de l'Ecole doctorale de science politique de l'Universit´eParis I" (June 28, 2012 in Paris) and at the workshop \Reconstruction, Reconciliation and Rule of Law in War and Post- War Countries (June 29, 2012 in Nanterre). It has been improved trough the very 5 special day: the first of July 2012 witnessed the fusion of the celebra- tion of 50 years of independence and the 18th anniversary of liberation. This event constitutes a break with the past because independence day has never been celebrated since 1994 even though it has always been a national holiday. It is actually not surprising that this day had not been an occasion for festivity in Rwanda until recently. Remembering this founding episode of was heavily influenced by the unfolding and the outcome of independence which was accompanied by massive massacres and the beginning of long periods of exile for a large part of the popula- tion, most of them Abatutsi2. In order to understand the difficulties of celebrating Rwanda's independence in 1962, it is necessary to put this event in historical perspective, beginning with the day of liberation. 1. Massive population movements Every year, since the 4th of July 1994, Rwanda celebrates a very special day: Liberation Day. This day represents the commemoration of the taking of Kigali by the fighters of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) and consequently, the end of a hundred days of genocide and four years of war3.This public holiday, therefore, is the celebration of the victori- ous return home of Rwandans whose parents or who themselves were forced to take the road of exile from the late 1950's onwards. Since the 1950's and the massacres that systematically targeted the Abatutsi population, Rwanda has known successive waves of refugees exiting the country. Hence, this was a return not only of soldiers but also of an estimated 1,000,000 of exiles who returned to their homeland; many of them entering the country very quickly after the seizure of the capital4. useful comments by the discussants H. Dumas and Y. Ben Hounet, and the other participants. 2Throughout this text I use the following expressions: Umutwa, Umuhutu and Umuhutu (singular); Abatwa, Abahutu and Abatutsi (plural). As K. Kayiganwa, one of our informants, has pointed out to us, these original terms through their common root (umu-, aba-) more correctly express the conception of the Rwandan people that had historically been considered to be composed of a trinity. A commonality that is visibly absent when abbreviating these terms by cutting off their common root; a habit that had been introduced by European colonisers. 3The war started on October 1, 1990 and the genocide on April 7, 1994. 4A compelling portrait of this period of return can be found in the text \Apr`esle g´enocide. Notes de voyage" written by J. Kagabo (1995). 6 It is estimated that at the same time around two million fled the coun- try (Newbury, 2005, 277) and settled in refugee camps in neighbouring countries, while others | mostly the former (political) elite | with the necessary connections moved to Europe and North America. An exchange of diasporas During fieldwork in Brussels conducted in the frame of this doctoral research, a former RPF soldier gave his impression of this phenomenon by referring to a \´echangedes diaspo- ras apr`es1994 "5. While the former persecuted feel safe to return to Rwanda, another part of the population feels constrained to leave the country. The aim of mentioning these intersecting population flows is neither to make a value judgement by putting very different trajectories of exile side by side, nor is it to suggest relativity of suffering. By drawing attention to these rather recent historical events, I would like the reader to consider the significance of this massive movement of population in the Rwandan context. When looked at from a long-term historical perspective, it stands out that a cyclical (forced) movement of exile and return has been a characteristic shaping the social logics of Rwandan society | and thereby the logics of reconciliation | since at least the 1950s. From the time of demands for independence by the elite formerly favoured by the Belgian coloniser, an important share of the Rwandan population found itself outside the country. To cite one marking date in this chronology of departure, it would be the so-called Toussaint rwandaise of 1959 which resulted in the death of several hundred people, the burning and destruction of numerous houses and several thousands made refugees (for these estimates, cf. Vidal, 26; Viret, 17). Let it suffice to mention that most observers and academics concur as to the crucial importance of this period for the course of later events in Rwanda. C. Vidal, for instance, suggests that the country experienced a \radical transformation of its political system"6 and refers 5For the sake of rendering as faithful as possible the way that my interviewees expressed themselves, I will quote them in the language that they used during the interview. However, for the sake of honouring my pledge of confidentiality, I will not reproduce the entire text of the transcriptions and only use excerpts that are relevant for the object under study. 6An important number of academic works on Rwanda are published in French. For 7 to a \historical, violent and precipitated mutation" (Vidal, 1991, 28). A book written by the team of researchers of the Rwandan Institut de Recherche de Dialogue pour la Paix 7 on the period of 1946-1962 asserts that events of this period have \modified everyday life of Rwandans" and that these changes have \profoundly modified the social configuration” (1). Radical social transformation in the 1950's Even though, au- thors from very different backgrounds agree as to the historical impor- tance of this period, the interpretation of its meaning { just like (m)any question(s) concerning Rwanda { strongly polarised8. There seems to be no doubt concerning the transformation of social configurations and re- lations, however, the reactions to it are situated in a continuum ranging from praise to regret. Generally, praise or regret is determined by the interpretation of the character of social relations prior to colonisation. While the former reaction is sustained by the belief that pre-colonial Rwanda was characterised by tension and exploitation of the popula- tion by its rulers, the latter considers this period as harmonious.