Northern Ireland Troubles legacy: Rwandan reconciliation leader offers lessons from successful model to help 'very slow' progress in NI

An estimated 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed by dominant Hutu forces in 100 days.

Christophe Mbonyingabo is Executive Director of CARSA, which promotes post genocide forgiveness and reconciliation between genocide survivors and their direct perpetrators. He has visited NI before and on this occasion was invited by Thrive Ireland, a Belfast based church community.

"I was invited to bring learning about how Rwanda has moved forward following the death of a million people in 100 days during the genocide against Tutsi in 1994 - and also to seek to understand the NI conflict in 'The Troubles'," he told the News Letter.

Christophe was born in exile in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and did not suffer directly in the 1994 genoicide there. However some of the rebels responsible later killed his siblings in the Congo.

He sees a big difference between how NI and Rwanda try to build reconciliation. In NI, he sees that perpetrators from both sides of the community continue to justify their murders - and are widely accepted by society despite this. He notes that reconciliation here is "very slow" in light of this approach.

But Rwanda takes a very different approach. "In Rwanda, those who carried out the murders are encouraged and invited to accept their crimes, repent as part of the reconciliation process...they must acknowledge their crime and then condemn it but all of that is part of the restorative justice system."

In Rwanda the government leads a policy of reconciliation which has at its centre, truth telling and community restorative justice courts, he says. This includes trauma healing, forgiveness and reconciliation initiatives that bring together ex- genocide perpetrators and their direct survivors.

"We also have intergenerational dialogue utilising survivors and their direct perpetrators, to ensure sustainability and avoid intergenerational trauma and division."

He sees much less progress towards reconciliation in in NI. "Twenty years after the peace agreement, the process of reconciliation is very slow. There is a lack of a shared future policy or practice."

He added there is a lack of involvement of victims/survivors in the peace process, and only isolated initiatives that are working to bring reconciliation.

"There is no shared narrative about what happened [in NI] leading to a lack of recognition of the violence and no truth telling mechanism. Politically, there is still division and sectarianism."

Christophe also met with members of Troubles victims group, the South East Fermanagh Foundation (SEFF).

SEFF Director Kenny Donaldson said: "We value the relationship that we have developed with Christophe and CARSA with Thrive Ireland. We also share his analysis, that a failure by perpetrators to acknowledge and to own what they have done is creating a huge barrier to the potential for progress towards possible forgiveness and reconciliation".