Thursday 26 July, 2001
Widows Of Rwanda Unite
Seven years ago the world’s worst genocide took place in Rwanda. In a space of just 100 days an estimated 800,000 Rwandans were killed.
Rebuilding lives after such atrocities seemed impossible but, as Omnibus reports, many widows have found collective strength in a self-help organisation.
Even for a country with a turbulent history, the scale and speed of the killing in Rwanda in 1994 left its people reeling.
Families lived in fear. Wives had lost their husbands, children had been tortured and mothers raped.
Most of the victims were from the minority Tutsi population, but many moderate Hutus lost their lives. Thousands upon thousands of women were widowed in just a few months and children witnessed a kind of horror that no one could dream was possible.
Genocide
Between April and June 1994, nearly one million people were killed in an attempt by Rwanda’s Hutu dominated government and its militia, the Interamhamwe (meaning those who attack together), to exterminate an entire population of Tutsis.
Tension between the Hutu and Tutsi group had been building for years with sporadic violence and even massacres.
The catalyst for the 1994 genocide was the death of the Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, when his plane was shot down on 6 April 1994.
Exactly who was responsible for the death of the president – and with him the president of Burundi – was unclear, but the effect was instantaneous.
Violence
When the news of president Habyarimana’s death broke the Tutsi population knew that they would be blamed.
Within hours a campaign of violence spread throughout the country and during the next three months thousands of Rwandans were tortured and murdered.
Hilarie Mukamazimpaka, a Tutsi, recalls how she heard the news on the radio, and how she immediately tried to escape with her husband. She describes a violence that was to become commonplace throughout the country:
‘They made us get out of the car and lie on the ground for the whole day. At about five o clock they started to shoot people and cut them with machetes. I was lying there among the bodies – 200 of us. They shot my husband and cut his neck.’
Others also recall the monumental level of carnage and the impact that the slaughter had on the nation. Esther Muyowayo recalls the scenes in the country’s capital, Kigali:
| ‘The streets were full of bodies, the houses were destroyed, things were looted and all around in the street. In the middle of that people were half mad.’ |
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‘Those who have survived, hiding for three months and those who were wounded but had no treatment. [They] were not yet able to believe that they were alive. Rwanda was in complete hell.’
Help
The scale of the destruction was awe-inspiring. After the killing, Rwanda was a nation comprised of thousands of traumatised women – many having lost their homes, cattle, crops as well as their families and their dignity. It was also a nation of orphans, many of whom now had to head their households.
But from the ashes of this terrible destruction an extraordinary phoenix rose.
Esther Muyowayo had lost her husband, children and most of her family in the genocide. Through talking to friends she realised that she was not alone in her feelings of fear and loss and so decided to set up a self-help group for the widows of the genocide.
After many long days Muyowayo founded the Avega Agahoza organisation, which from humble origins soon gained support from the newly formed government of Tutsis, and is now on its way to becoming a major organisation.
| ‘For many women this is the first time in years that they have been able to talk about what has happened to them.’ |
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Trauma counselling has unearthed horrific accounts of rape, of systematic plans to infect children with the HIV virus and of the pain and torture that many women experienced at the hands of men armed with machetes.
Dealing with such large-scale devastation has meant that the organisation has to prioritise. Its primary concerns include much needed mutual support, health care and counselling.
Avega was also at the forefront of the government-sponsored efforts to build new villages – made up entirely of widows.
Rights
As well as helping individuals, Avega has also had a political profile. Until recently widows had no rights of inheritance. But the organisation lobbied parliament, judges, journalists and anyone who could help until they achieved a historic victory.
In November 1999 a law was passed allowing widows the rights to inherit land and their husband’s property.
The moral support found amongst the widows at Avega is immeasurable and although the mental scars of the genocide are deep rooted, as Muyowayo explains such action serves to demonstrate how the widows are slowing regaining their self-esteem:
‘There is a big empowerment of women since the genocide. It is unfortunate that they had to pass through such tragic events to get there but at least they got there. In Rwanda it is now a fact that a woman can manage herself.’
|  |  | | | Justice |  |
| | Although the massacres in Rwanda are over, the legacy of the genocide continues. The task of bringing justice is long and difficult.
About 500 people have been sentenced to death and another 100,000 remain in prison.
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