Focus on the national unity and reconciliation commission

Commemorations of the sixth anniversary of the 1994 genocide earlier this month have put the spotlight on Rwanda's national unity and reconciliation commission, faced with the uphill task of promoting trust among the country's wary ethnic groups. The commission, which is provided for in the 1993 Arusha agreement for Rwanda, was officially set up last year to try and reconcile Hutu, Tutsi and Twa after the devastating war in which some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered. The choice of Aloisea Inyumba - a founding member of the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) and former cabinet member - as its executive director right from the start was intended to give the commission political clout. "Reconciliation is a major priority of this government, and therefore needs a committed cadre to give it political direction, I think that is why I was given this assignment," Inyumba told IRIN. During the war that brought the RPF to power, Inyumba - who is regarded as the most senior female politician in the party - was the director of finance travelling around the world to fundraise for the war effort. A major target of the commission is to promote acceptance of Rwandans of mixed Hutu-Tutsi ethnicity. In present-day Rwanda, these people are among the most traumatised. "They cannot find solidarity with Tutsi or Hutu and have to live with the contradiction that one part of them betrayed or killed the other half," said Celestine Mbonipa, a genocide survivor with a Hutu father and a Tutsi mother. Inyumba says the commission is trying to educate people that there is nothing wrong or special about ethnically mixed marriages. "We are all Rwandese. It is not easy for the old generation but the young generation is mixing and that is good for the country," she said. The commission's work spreads to all sectors of society in Rwanda, including monitoring government departments, political parties, the private sector and the population to ensure they adhere to the policies of national unity and reconciliation. "For example we ensure that people are not falsely accused of genocide by greedy people who want to take over their properties," Inyumba said. "We also work closely with genocide survivors' groups to make sure that justice is done...you can say we are part of every Rwandan's life when it comes to reconciliation." The little-known Twa people, numbering about 10,000, are also a focus of the commission. "The marginalisation of the Twa people is a dark side of our society," Inyumba said. "They have been systematically forgotten as if they do not exist." She said the commission had made a point of seeking their views on reconciliation "and they have genuine concerns". The commission has recommended affirmative action for the Twa in terms of free education and health services. "We want also the few that are educated to be given priority when it comes to employment," Inyumba added. Currently, there is only one Twa parliamentarian. A major challenge for the national unity and reconciliation commission is the demand for justice by genocide survivors, and the delay in genocide trials that has stretched the capacity of Rwanda jails to the limit. The introduction of community trials, known as "gacaca", due to start this year, is intended to ease pressure on the justice system and give reconciliation a chance. "Gacaca is based on a realisation that it is impossible for the Rwandan courts to try over 100,000 genocide suspects," Rwandan Prosecutor-General Gerald Gahima told IRIN. "We estimate that this will take over 100 years of trials. On the other hand community-based trials will take a relatively short time." Reaching out to Rwandans in exile is another challenge. Inyumba said she had met exiled former premier Faustin Twagiramungu in Belgium to hear his views on reconciliation. While expressing support for Inyumba's work, Twagiramungu said she was "working with the wrong people, such as [President] Kagame". "Reconciliation is not an administrative matter, and should be the business of the Rwandese," he told IRIN. "A truth commission is an ideal way to allow people to give views about genocide and bad politics ... the problem is killers trying to punish killers." International human rights organisations have also expressed reservations about some of the commission's working methods. Alison DesForges, a Rwanda expert with Human Rights Watch, said solidarity camps - set up by the government to promote reconciliation and demystify the use of weapons - are questionable. "The way solidarity camps are run is of much concern to us because people are trained in the use of firearms and this is done in the open on national television," she said. "Surely this is not the best way to promote reconciliation." She also said that while people in other parts of the country were taught to use arms, those from the northwest - a hotbed of anti-government insurgency - did not receive weapons training. "This is causing suspicion about the real intentions of the commission," DesForges added. Rwandan government members believe ethnicity is not the problem, but is being used as a political tool. "The problem we are facing now is the legacy of genocide that has divided our society," Theogene Rudasingwa, the political adviser to President Paul Kagame, told IRIN. "Sharp ethnic divisions ... are a distortion of our history where all the ethnic groups shared the same culture and language." The country's new prime minister, Bernard Makuza, told IRIN one of his objectives is to promote reconciliation "so that our people for the first time can see themselves as Rwandese not Tutsi or Hutu". The government wants to dispel the notion of the stereotypical physiognomy of Hutus and Tutsis. "There is no Hutu or Tutsi look, there is only the look of the ruling class, the working class and the peasant class," said Rwandan journalist Peter Gasana. The national unity and reconciliation commission says the stereotyping of Hutus and Tutsis is one of its major preoccupations. "Our history has been distorted," Aloisea Inyumba said. "To an outsider, Rwanda is about Hutus and Tutsis killing each other. The Interahamwe leader, Kajuga had a Tutsi mother but it did not stop him killing Tutsis."