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Today was quite different than the preceding three days of visiting genocide memorial sites. This morning we visited a TIG prison farm and camp in the Bugesera district about an hour outside of Kigali. Faced with prosecuting and imprisoning hundreds of thousands of accused genocide perpetrators, the Rwandan government decided to implement a traditional community justice process called Gaccaca, updated with some elements of modern jurisprudence. The government’s main focus has

There are no words for Murambi. Our group of 40 Rwandans and internationals spent the day at Murambi today. It was a rough day for all of us, especially for the genocide survivors in our group. Neither my heart or mind knows what to do with this. I’m angry, heartbroken, and vacillating between deep emotions and numbness.  How is it possible that we do such things? How is it possible that we allow such things to be done. As hard as this is, we cannot keep looking away. If we a

Inspiring morning at the Closing Ceremonies of the National Week of Mourning at the Rebero Genocide Memorial, just outside of Kigali. In the early hours of the genocide on April 7, 1994, the Hutu extremists then in control of the Rwandan government murdered a number of moderate Hutu politicians on a hit list who refused to support or openly opposed the genocidal ideology and plans of the extremist. These politicians are buried at Rebero along with about 18,000 Tutsis, murdere

This will be short posting.  It’s already 12:20 am and we have an early departure in the morning. We spent the morning at the Kigali Genocide Memorial Center, the principal genocide museum in Rwanda, which is also the site of mass graves where the remains of over 280,000 genocide victims are interred. The museum is a deep plunge. The museum was funded and designed by the Aegis Trust and a British designer that also designed one of the major holocaust museums. So the exhibits

Our 2nd Peacemaker Institute Rwanda Bearing Witness Retreat began this afternoon with orientation, introductions, and a really powerful film called Longcoat, written and directed by an amazing young Rwandan filmmaker/actor/poet. We have 16 international participants and 32 – 35 Rwandan participants, leaders and senior staff with the key Rwandan NGO’s and government agencies working for healing, reconciliation and genocide prevention. Tomorrow morning we will have our first sm

Our Peacemaker Institute staff attended the opening ceremonies of the National Week of Commemoration and Mourning, honoring the victims and survivors of the 1994 Rwandan genocide against the Tutsis. The four of us were seated in the VIP section just five rows behind the President of Rwanda, at Amahoro (Peace) Stadium, the national stadium, which was packed, standing room only, with about 50,000 people. We were sitting among high government officials, diplomats and visiting di

As one would imagine, our second visit to Rwanda has been a deep plunge into not knowing and bearing witness. As I write this report, I’m acutely aware that 17 years ago the 1994 Rwandan genocide was just about to unleash 100 days of the darkest horrors imaginable on the people of Rwanda, by its end leaving the country in ruins and the people profoundly traumatized. We are getting up at 5 am tomorrow, April 7th, in order to reach the national stadium by 6 am when people begin

Call me Kamanzi.   On our final night in Rwanda before returning home, Issa Higiro gave Fleet Maull and I new Kinyarwanda names.  Fleet became Mugabo (Man) and I became Kamanzi, which can either mean hero or beautiful…….or … The land of the thousand hills welcomed us back in late March with flowering trees and smiling faces.  Many arriving in Rwanda for the first time expect to arrive in a desolate, grey and broken place devoid of joy and peace, still reeling from the Tutsi g

(All of Fleet’s daily blog entries from the retreat are on this site) The western hemisphere air travel mess that resulted from the Icelandic volcano eruption and ash cloud unexpectedly afforded us the opportunity to remain in Rwanda for an indefinite stay following the Bearing Witness Retreat, allowing us to do considerable follow-up work with our retreat partners and potential new partners here in Rwanda. On the morning following the retreat, our staff including Dora and Is

Today was our conference day. We hear presentation from our partner organizations: the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission, the National Commission for the Fight Against Genocide, IBUKA (the umbrella organization for genocide survivor organizations in Rwanda), Memos, Learning From History (our keystone partner in the development of the Rwanda Bearing Witness Retreat), Kisinigara Youth Center (Maison des Jeunes) serving over 4000 youth and young survivors, Evangelical

After hour morning council circles, we boarded our bus for the 30 minute ride to the TIG work camps. TIG is a French acronym that stands for something like working for the benefit of the community. The TIG prisoners are confessed genocide perpetrators who have gone through the Gacaca (something like community restorative justice based on a traditional Rwanda practice) court process, and after time in prison are now serving more time in the TIG work camps where the work on var

We skipped our early morning small group councils today in order to leave early for Murambe, 3.5 hours southwest of Kigali near the border with Burundi. On April 25, 1994, 50,000 Tutsis were murdered at a recently constructed, but yet to open, technical school campus. The local officials began encouraging the Tutsis of the area who were seeking refuge in churches and smaller schools to all go to the new technical school where they would be safe and cared for. This was part of

After our morning small group councils, in which are Rwandan friends are getting more comfortable sharing their hearts each day, we travelled by bus to the closing ceremonies of the official government commemoration week, which took place on Rivero hill, a memorial site where the moderate politicians, including the Prime Minister, who supported the Arusha peace process were murdered in 1994 by the hardliners who perpetrated the genocide. We were special guests of the organize

(warning: contains highly disturbing descriptions) After our first morning council groups, two groups of nine each, both including international and Rwandan retreat participants and staff, we spent the entire day at the Kigali Memorial Centre, one of the principal genocide museums in Rwanda, where 250,000 victims are buried in mass graves. After laying a large wreath of flowers on one of the mass graves, we proceeded to tour the amazingly detailed and well laid exhibits, depi

We welcomed our Rwanda retreat partners and participants today at our retreat headquarters at the Presbyterian Church Guesthouse in Kigali. We held our retreat orientation and first council (listening circle). Sharing our hearts and exploring indigenous Rwandan terms together for our bearing witness retreat methodology we quickly jelled in to a community of peacemakers. After an early dinner, we traveled to the headquarters of IBUKA, the umbrella NGO for Rwandan survivor orga

Rwanda Bearing Witness Retreat Pre-Retreat Preparations in Rwanda April 9 & 10 We arrived in Rwanda on Thursday evening and just finished a whirlwind tour of meetings with a number of our Rwanda retreat partners, government agencies and NGO’s who are the major players in the healing, reconciliation and genocide prevention work here in Rwanda. It is amazing to see the progress the Rwanda people have made in reinventing themselves and their country as a unified people and natio