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From Never Again

As thousands in Britain prepare to stand up for justice in Africa, Clare-Marie White brought back fresh perspectives from Rwanda

"If our poverty is the cause of our being ignored then I fear for the future. Where there is interest there is energy and I fear we will lose the energy. We will keep shouting to the end and keep suffering." This bleak view was from a Never Again conference participant who quoted Abraham Lincoln as he struggled to understand why the international community ignores conflict in his region.

The Never Again forum on genocide prevention in Kigali told the developed world to stop ignoring and start listening to Africa, harder than ever before.

The conference had about 120 participants, mainly from Rwanda, Burundi and the Congo, alongside a few Westerners. Our topic – preventing genocide from ever happening again – focused our minds and empowered us to produce ambitious ideas to take to the UN and put into action.

One of my roles was to help coordinate a group of talented journalism students from the University of Butare, with the intention of sharing the ideas produced at the forum with youth from the rural areas with a publication produced in Kinyrandan. Thanks in part to the exchanges we were able to have on email before we met, they opened my eyes to a culture that is often hidden from Western eyes.

It was a significant time to visit Africa. When I arrived, Rwanda had just had its debts wiped out by the G8. But this wasn't at the top of the minds of most Rwandans, who this summer must relive the horror of the hundred days in 1994 when nearly one million Rwandans were slaughtered by an estimated 700,000 killers. Rwanda's chosen system for justice and reconciliation is called Gacaca. Based on a tribal system of village courts, the whole population takes part in the three-stage process of information gathering, establishing the facts and deciding on punishment. Following a series of local pilots, this process is now underway on a national scale and the first stage is expected to be completed by the end of July. Then the survivors will face the ordeal of returning to genocide sites with perpetrators in order to try, cooperatively, to establish the course of events. Rape and mass murder or genocide planning will not be tried through this system, they will still go to national or international criminal courts.

The Gacaca system, with its focus on reconciliation and constructive sentencing, could have been inspired by Quakers if it weren't wholly African, and it may need the support of international Quakers in coming months. My Rwandan friends were very aware of the problems of the process, including suspects leaving the country when their names are published and increased trauma for testifying witnesses. However, they did not take kindly to the international community's criticisms, particularly when the UN called the Rwandan government's repatriation of refugees illegal. Our discussion of that story and the way it was reported revealed a great deal of resentment. I was told not only that the UNHCR were trying to create jobs for themselves by calling escapees refugees but also that Gacaca was being criticised because it was a traditional African system. You can only understand the perspective of Africans who support Mugabe, the man who 'threw out the whites', if you appreciate the anger against an international community which failed to stop the genocide. That failure nullified the authority of 'you, the whites' – as I was frankly referred to on occasion by a Rwandan friend – to tell Africa what to do. We, the whole international community and especially the UN, have a lot of work to do to rebuild trust.

'Who is reconciling with who?' journalism student Ritah Mukande asked in reference to escaping suspects and the question hung in the air for many reasons. Unless in a historic context, Rwandans will not refer to Hutus or Tutsis. They are Rwandans. They told of the difficulties of communicating between young people, a block which means that people keep suspicions at the back of their minds rather than airing them. The 'taboo culture' is even more pronounced between parents and children and young people fear that their parents cannot let go of many decades of genocidal ideology, but keep it hidden. One of the best received activities at our conference was a 'conversation lunch' in which strangers were paired by common language and used questions developed by the Oxford professor Theodore Zeldin to break down barriers. This was successful perhaps because the partners were in control and though they were not forced to talk about their situations they were able to approach them in an honest way.

The conference revealed a strong desire for youth to build freer communication amongst themselves. However, there is another lesson for 'you, the whites'. We in the therapy-accustomed West need to respect the right of Rwandans to keep their inner fears inside, if they wish, until such time as they feel strong enough to be able to embrace the shared history that binds ethnic groups as well as being Rwandans. The international media in particular should consider whether it is ethical to continually refer to 'Hutus and Tutsis' in their reporting, or whether that perpetuates the divisions that Rwanda still blame colonial powers for forming in the first place.

In the international community there is a mixture of critical cynicism and patronising assumptions about Rwanda. I was not the only visitor looking for cracks beneath the surface of unity, cynical about whether the elite was really representative of the population without, of course, being able to tell without probing for clues. I had heard of press censorship and was told about the rigid leadership structures which gave leaders the freedom to order genocide or reconciliation at will. The truth, of course, is infinitely more complex and as we engaged in dialogue on different issues I became less worried about the state of Rwanda and increasingly concerned with the state of critical thinking in our own complacent, simplistic and divisive society.

Before the conference we mulled over the possibility of Paul Wolfowitz taking time out of his schedule to speak to us. 'Of course he will come', I said. 'We are the world youth'. Never Again as a network inspires that sort of confidence and, not for the first time, it paid off. We were told that the president of the World Bank had 'insisted' on coming to see us. I think it was more than PR: his policy team spent a long time with our Rwandan member, Albert Nzamukwereka, hearing his views on what should be done for the youth of Africa and they requested copies of all the outcomes of our conference. We must push them on their promise to improve poverty levels, for we found poverty, as well as illiteracy, to be one of the contributing factors for genocide.

As we are currently finding in the attempt to draw attention to Zimbabwe, we risk alienating those we are trying to help if we continue to treat Africa as the child who refuses to grow up. You can't have the friends I made, the sophisticated Rwandans of Kigali and their eloquent counterparts from across the Great Lakes, without knowing that they are equals who must be listened to for the sake of our world community. Charity is no longer good enough: the G8 must now deliver the final shot in the arm that brings institutional change to feed the hungry and gives dignity and protection to 'all citizens of the world without distinction' – another participant's phrase.

As well as sending its recommendations to the UN High Level Panel, the conference released a huge programme of potential activities including an online group for sharing ideas which has now been set up, a football league, a network newspaper and a 'global local village project'. The Never Again media group, open to journalists from anywhere in the world, is planning to revolutionise world media and, of course, all of us will be working individually and collectively wherever possible to remember the past and ensure that 'never again' becomes reality. Never before has international networking for peace been so vital, so easy or so exciting. Sparks fly when humans connect and the connections made in Kigali pave the way to a world of equals who listen and work together.

There are more articles on the Gacaca process, forgiveness and the legacy of the genocide at http://www.internews.org.rw.