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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Laura Ingalls (laura.ingalls@worldlearning.org) in Washington, 1.202.464.6973

World Learning hosts event on Rwandan genocide, elections

BRATTLEBORO, VT (April 15, 2010) -- Sixteen years after the genocide in Rwanda, the international community must do more to help citizens of the East African country secure basic human rights, according to two experts who spoke at a World Learning event marking April as Genocide Prevention Month.

More than 40 people, including alumni and members of the development community, attended a panel discussion April 13 in Washington titled, "Rwanda: Africa's Biggest Success Story?" Featured speakers included SIT Graduate faculty Joseph Sebarenzi, a survivor of the genocide that claimed the lives of over 600,000 Rwandans—including most of his family—and Chris Hennemeyer, who heads external relations for Bridging the Divide, a nongovernmental organization focused on solving social, religious and political schisms in Africa and the Middle East. Adam Weinberg, World Learning president and CEO, moderated the event.

Rwanda is often praised by the international community for its ability to overcome its past and achieve stability and economic growth. Rwanda's relative progress even prompted CNN's Fareed Zakaria to declare the country "Africa's Biggest Success Story" in 2009. However, Sebarenzi said such claims ignore the restrictions on political rights and civil liberties that Rwandans face.

"In Africa, unlike in the West, the best way for people to make money is in the government," said Sebarenzi, who served as president of Rwanda's parliament from 1997 to 2004. "This aspect needs to be taken into account as we help Africa to devise its path to democracy."

Sebarenzi said Rwandans must invent their own consensus democracy that includes every tribe and every region in the political framework.  That political system should match Rwanda's particular context, much as the founders of the United States did in reconciling the varying power and populations of the states by forming both a House and a Senate.

Sebarenzi said the international community should help foster an open political climate in Rwanda.  The international community and major donors to Rwanda have largely failed to hold Rwanda's leaders accountable, preferring to applaud outward achievements such as economic growth at the expense of structural changes. The upcoming presidential election in August provides one telling example. Some opposition candidates have a hard time obtaining registration of their parties, while others stand accused of harboring genocide ideology, yet the international community has done little to encourage a free and transparent electoral process.

Hennemeyer, who was the country representative for Catholic Relief Services in Rwanda at the time of the genocide, told the audience that a free and democratic country is unlikely without a concerted international effort to support better political institutions. These institutions must be capable of securing rights and justice for Rwanda's varied tribes and ethnic groups, especially the country's Tutsi minority, he said. During the 1994 conflict, Tutsis and Hutu moderates were killed at the hands of Hutu extremists.

Hennemeyer, who has served for over 19 years as a relief worker in Africa, is also concerned that the international community is sending the wrong message to Rwanda's neighbors. Other African countries may see Rwanda's economic growth and business ties with the West as a license to squash political dissidents in their countries. Instead, he believes Rwanda should look to neighboring Burundi for creative ways to address the issue of political rights for all.

"On a political level, [Burundi's] decision to talk openly about ethnicity is a healthier way," Hennemeyer said, citing examples of television soap operas that feature couples in interethnic or inter-tribal marriages. Rwanda's leaders must learn to embrace their nation's cultural diversity, he said.

Weinberg concluded the session by talking about Sebarenzi's involvement with the SIT Graduate Institute's CONTACT program, a three-week professional development course in international conflict transformation and peacebuilding.

by Michael Snyder

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