“AFTER THE GENOCIDE, PEOPLE CAME TO APOLOGISE,” says 70-year-old Liberatha from the Karongi district in Rwanda, where nine out of 10 Tutsis were murdered, including her family. “I said, ‘I will never forgive you.’ I never expected to exchange a word with those people again.” Yet now, after going through a process of community-based sociotherapy, she feels “a hint of joy”.
Every genocide eventually comes to an end. The survivors bear their scars and bury their dead. The murderers, looters and rapists either face consequences for their actions or get away with them. And people have no choice but to try living side by side again. How do you do that when mutual distrust smoulders? It is a painfully slow and challenging, yet inspiring process.
No country in history has had so many deaths in such a short time. More than half a million people in 100 days, mostly Tutsis, but also Hutus mistaken for, or protecting, Tutsis. Most victims did not perish due to military violence, but by machetes and clubs studded with nails. It wasn’t strangers who killed or mutilated, but neighbours and acquaintances. Perpetrators
