CSUS forum will look at recovery in Rwanda

Much of this country's public awareness of the largely ethnic-based genocide in Rwanda has been credited to the 2004 movie "Hotel Rwanda."

The movie brought to light the horrific atrocities and casualties of the genocide that ravaged the east-central African country in 1994.

Along with the innocent, also destroyed were personal property and the country's infrastructure.

Less well known than the violence that racked Rwanda more than a dozen years ago is the political and economic recovery of the small, landlocked country.

"It's a miracle," said Alexandre Kimenyi, professor of linguistics and ethnic studies at California State University, Sacramento. "It is unbelievable."

Kimenyi knows firsthand how Hutus massacred an estimated 1 million Tutsis and moderate Hutus with guns or whatever crude implement was available: machetes, nail-studded clubs and hoes.

Kimenyi, a Tutsi, said he lost his parents, paternal and maternal uncles and aunts, brothers and sisters, cousins, nephews and nieces to genocide.

A conference he is helping organize at CSUS this week will examine why Rwanda has bounced back, he said.

"We are inviting experts to explain why the country was able to rise from destruction," Kimenyi said.

Kimenyi has written that there are more public and private schools and that more roads have been constructed. Kigali, the capital, is recovering and expanding.

Kimenyi came to this country in 1971 at age 21 as a Fulbright fellow to pursue graduate studies at UCLA, with every intention of returning to contribute to Rwanda's development.

But the chaos that enveloped his nation prevented his return. In 1994, the Rwandan Patriotic Front forces, led by the present president of the country, Paul Kagame, ended the genocide.

Today, the Rwandan government has a system of local courts – called gacaca (pronounced ga-cha-cha) – to try people accused of participating in the genocide.

Justice still needs to be done, Kimenyi said.

"Killers, those responsible for the genocide, are being released because prisons are overcrowded," he said.

Another conference organizer, CSUS Pan-African studies director Boatamo Mosupyoe, is also no stranger to violence in Africa.

Mosupyoe's husband and 3-year-old son were killed in her native South Africa during that country's apartheid struggles in 1989.

She and her husband were both activists in the effort to throw the yoke of apartheid from her country.

"The police were killing activists," she said. "Just to mention (Nelson) Mandela's name was treason."

Mosupyoe said Monday that it is amazing how Rwanda rebuilt itself. Now, she said, Rwanda is second only to South Africa as the most-developed country in Africa.

The country still must try to avoid revenge. Continued reconciliation is possible and the best avenue for a united Rwanda, she said.

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