Northern Ireland terror survivors see how Rwanda has succeeded in creating reconciliation between 1994 genocide perpetrators and victims

In 1994 200,000 of Rwanda’s Hutu majority killed more than 800,000 civilians, primarily the Tutsi minority, in only 100 days, causing shock waves around the world.

A delegation from the South East Fermanagh Foundation has just spent 12 days in the country exploring how perpetrators and victims across the country have become reconciled.

The revelation comes shortly after Sinn Fein Vice President Michelle O’Neill  that there was no other alternative to the IRA campaign which claimed some 1,500 lives during NI’s Troubles - something firmly rejected by SDLP leader Colum Eastwood. Similarly, in 2020 PUP leader Billy Hutchinson released his autobiography in which he fully justified sectarian murders he carried out in the UVF.

Speaking to the News Letter from Rwanda, SEFF director of Services Kenny Donaldson reflected on the ongoing widespread justification and glorification of bloodshed in NI.

“We have not met a single person in Rwanda the last ten days - and we have met with a wide range of people from all walks of life - who were involved in the violence and who has said anything except that the genocide was absolutely wrong. In fact many used the language that ‘Satan entered their hearts’ over that period.”

He believes the key explanation for Rwanda’s success is “a state policy of reconciliation”. No longer are the divisive identities of Hutu and Tutsi used - now everyone identifies as Rwandan.”But the reconciliation in villages only happens because there must be an acknowledgement that what perpetrators did was wrong, and then they must beg for the forgiveness of the people that they wronged.”He acknowledges that the situation in Rwanda and NI are not completely comparable, yet still he sees many parallels. In particular, he sees that the minority was targeted for genocide in part because they were seen as akin to ‘planters’ with affiliations to Belgian colonists, and were also often seen as wealthier and land and cattle owners. “Tutsis would have been viewed ethnically as having links to Belgians in terms of being mixed race and not wholly Rwandan by the Hutus, so they were seen as planters of sorts.

”But there are now cell groups in almost every village where there are repentant perpetrators who have fully accounted for what they did, and are now sitting down with their victims.”

The NI delegation included Fermanagh cleric Canon Alan Irwin whose uncle Frederick and father Thomas were murdered by the IRA; Paul Toombs from Mountnorris, whose father Ivan was murdered by the IRA;  Sammy and Katie Heenan from Rathfriland - his father William was murdered by the IRA, and Yvonne Black from Cookstown whose husband David was murdered by The Real IRA in 2012 on the M1.  

Christophe Mbonyingabo is Executive Director of CARSA, an organisation which supports Rwandas genocide survivors. He has been to NI three times and suggests we could learn three things from Rwanda;-1) A political vision towards unity and reconciliation. 2) A community platform for open conversations about the past, with the aim of providing accountability and acknowledgement for wrongs done. 3) A focus on the individual mental health and trauma of the bereaved. Asked for his view on the ongoing justification and glorification of violence in NI, he responds that the peace process here has never attempted to address the root of the conflict - tensions over ethnic identities and land ownership.

“I really think the situation in Northern Ireland has been approached from the political perspective but ignoring the pain of the people of the community. And because of political interest from people on both sides they only looked at how to stop the violence but without looking at the root causes and consequences of the violence.

“They did not establish a shared way forward. People justify the violence from only a political perspective without truly digging deep and trying to unroot the real causes - which is ethnicity and land.

“Communities need space and opportunities to deal with those two issues - identity and land possession - because this is an intergenerational issue. The current generation has received a legacy of unsolved problems from their parents.”