The in Kigali, Rwanda, could easily be mistaken for a botanical garden: groves of palm trees, a rose garden and abundant blooming flowers and tropical plants form a lush landscape accentuated by fountains, sculptures, and the soft, joyful melodies of African songbirds.
At its center, however, large concrete expanses of graves tell the story of the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi, when more than 1 million members of the Tutsi tribe were murdered in a 100-day span by the government-backed Hutu tribe. More than 250,000 of those victims are laid to rest beneath the concrete spans encircled by the verdant gardens.
The peaceful scenery of these memorial gardens reflects the mission at the heart of this museum: to remember and learn.
That is what a group of Kent State students was doing at the memorial site Monday, while taking part in Kent State’s Kigali Summer Institute, a three-week education-abroad experience that includes the course Rwanda After the Genocide Against the Tutsi.
“This is something that we all need,” said Egidia Uwera, study tours coordinator for the Aegis Trust, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending global atrocities, which runs the memorial and sponsors the educational programming there.
She told the students that the lessons of the genocide are valuable to everyone, no matter what their chosen field or profession.
The Kent State students met with members of the Aegis Trust, to learn about the history of Rwanda and how the seeds of prejudice, hate and propaganda had been planted for decades leading up to the 1994 genocide.
Learning from History
Lambert Kanamugire, community peace centers coordinator for Aegis, said their motto is “learn from the past to be able to build a better future.”
He worked with the class through a series of group exercises to explain “the continuum of violence,” and to train them to look at the root causes of violence and how they can grow and become out of control, issues like using one group to become the scapegoat for another group’s troubles or stereotyping different groups.
He noted how prejudice between the Tutsi and the Hutus was nurtured over time, with propaganda and weak leadership, so that the evil grew to the point of a genocide, in which neighbors, friends and family members turned against each other and killed each other.
The students were able to come up with examples from their own lives in the U.S., where they saw parallels to the propaganda efforts used in Rwanda.
Miles Listerman, a junior from Hartville, Ohio, taking part in the course, noted the common prejudice against immigrants in the U.S., and how others often look to make them social scapegoats. “People will avoid immigrant-run businesses claiming they could be dangerous,” he said.
Graduate student Lilian “Lily” Keister from Junction City, Ohio, noted how political parties on both sides make use of political propaganda. “It goes both ways,” she said.
Others mentioned police brutality against Black Americans or how Native Americans are marginalized.
‘To Remember’
The genocide memorial was the first stop for many attending or giving presentations at Peace Education in an Era of Crisis, a global peace conference being sponsored by Kent State’s School of Peace and Conflict Studies, the Gerald H. Read Center for International and Intercultural Education within Kent State’s College of Education, Health and Human Services, the University of Rwanda, and the Aegis Trust.
Conference attendees and presenters toured the museum and gardens Monday, to learn about the genocide in preparation for the three-day peace conference, which takes place July 11-13 in Kigali, Rwanda.
The museum’s displays are powerful and emotional and include a significant display of skulls and arm bones taken from unidentified victims of crisis, with the signs of their violent deaths clearly visible from gashes, cracks and bullet holes.
Among those in attendance was Associate Professor Molly Merryman, Ph.D., who teaches in the School of Peace and Conflict Studies and is founding director of Kent State’s Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality. Merryman will be presenting at the conference on Wednesday.
“You can read about the genocide,” Merryman said, “but to be here is just so profound. For me, the children’s room was the most devastating.”
The room features large photos of infants and children who were killed during the genocide, along with facts about their lives and violent deaths.
“To hear that someone threw a child against a wall,” Merryman said, shaking her head in disbelief. “Who could do that?”
“It’s brutally revealing, yet true to reality as it was then,” said Mercedes Somosierra, a lawyer and peace educator from Argentina, who will also be a presenter at the conference.
Touring the museum left her feeling optimistic for the future, Somosierra said, despite seeing genocides and other atrocities repeated throughout history. She prefers the term optimistic over hopeful, because optimism “puts you in a position of looking to the future with an action attitude.”
Following the tour, the group took part in a ceremonial laying of rose bouquets at the main grave site at the memorial, as a sign of remembrance.
A large sculpture that welcomes visitors reads, “Kwibuka29” or “to remember” in the native, Kinyarwanda language used by many Kigali locals. The 29 stands for the number of years since the genocide, and museum employees point out that next year, the 29 will be replaced with a 30.
Top image photo credit: Aegis Trust/Patrick Ndayishimiye