Out of Rwanda: eloquence, forgiveness

Gakumba spoke Wednesday night at the Rose Wagner Center for the Performing Arts, following the showing of "Beyond the Gates," a British movie about the first harrowing week of the genocide in Rwanda. "Beyond the Gates," part of the SLC Film Center's New Faces of Africa Film Series, is based on the true story of a Catholic-run school where 2,500 Tutsis sought refuge and were eventually hacked to death.

The audio at the screening on Wednesday night was a bit garbled, so it was sometimes difficult to understand the film's dialogue. But in a way it didn't matter, since the horror went beyond words — as U.N. peacekeepers, French soldiers and other non-Africans abandoned the Tutsis to certain slaughter.

The original title of the film is "Shooting Dogs," Gakumba explained. That's because of a pivotal scene in which the head of the U.N. peacekeeping forces protecting the school argued that he didn't have a mandate to shoot the marauding Hutus but he might kill the neighborhood dogs "for health reasons." The filmmakers, Gakumba said, decided the title "Shooting Dogs" would be too offensive for American audiences.

"I have some questions," Gakumba said, pausing and then launching into a series of uncomfortable points: Why is "Shooting Dogs" more offensive than America waiting so long to call the killings "genocide"? Why is it more offensive than then U.N. secretary general Kofi Annan's refusal to act? Why is it more offensive than France's complicity with the Hutu extremists?

"These are my questions. Can you help me? And one more thing: Why is there genocide in Sudan?"

"Oil," shouted out someone in the audience.

"There is always a reason behind the reason," Gakumba answered quietly. "That's why we have all this war."

Like his new mom, Gakumba knows how a story can change us. It is important to forgive but not to forget, he says. In Rwanda now there are tribunals helping to bring justice and forgiveness. He tells the story of a woman whose children and husband were butchered; the woman has chosen not only to forgive the killer but to take him in as a son.

"This is how we will heal our wounds. ... This is how we will move forward," he says. "Rwanda is struggling with peace, one person at a time."

---

E-mail: jarvik@desnews.com