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While most students were catching some rays poolside this summer, a select group of University of Nebraska-Lincoln students dove into the murky topic of genocide in the African nation of Rwanda.
As part of one of the newest study abroad programs at UNL, Chantal Kalisa, an associate professor of French and women’s studies, formed a partnership with the Interdisciplinary Genocide Studies Center in Rwanda to give students the opportunity to visit the country and hear from speakers, some of whom were directly affected by the bloody genocide 15 years ago.
The genocide in 1994 was a gruesome culmination of a civil war that had been raging throughout most of the early ’90s between the Hutu and Tutsi groups. In April 1994, the Hutu government sparked a widespread campaign to eliminate Tutsis. By mid-July 1994, the death toll was estimated as nearly 1 million, or 20 percent of the population of the central African nation.
As a Rwandan herself, Kalisa said she has “both a personal and a professional connection with Rwanda.”
Kalisa’s parents were exiled from the country in the late ’50s, so she had not had the chance to return until she was well into her professional life, but since her return, Kalisa has published several works on the study of genocide and the rebuilding of the nation as part of her extensive research in the country.
“Taking a group and doing a course (in Rwanda) was just the next level beyond doing research,” Kalisa said. “It is a very intensive course.”
The program took place July 12-25. Seven UNL students, one student and professor from Nebraska Wesleyan, a professor from Australia and a group from the University of Missouri attended morning lectures and took day trips to genocide memorials around the capital city of Kigali.
One such site was the Murambi memorial, a former school where between 25 and 40 thousand Rwandans were rounded up, left for two weeks without food or water and later murdered. The bodies of the deceased are still in the memorial.
“The bodies haven’t been buried,” said Leslie Riekenberg, a junior international studies and political science major and participant in the program last summer. “There are bodies on tables waist-high, covered in lime to preserve them. Walking into room after room of bodies … was one of the most haunting experiences (of the trip).”
But the program was not all dreary.
Along with all of the history and background of the genocide and civil war, the students learned about what it takes to rebuild a country and try to create a national identity for its citizens.
For example, a new policy the Rwandan government is implementing is trying to get its people to see themselves as neighbors, friends and all Rwandans, instead of seeing each other as being Hutu or Tutsi.
“They’re trying to eliminate the idea that the two groups exist,” said Jared Tidemann, a senior political science and international studies student. “They speak the same language, share a common religion and culture, and they intermarry. Everyone’s Rwandan.”
But Tidemann also said this would be a slow process because people don’t want to just give up their heritage so simply.
For a program just completing its maiden voyage to Rwanda, its success and impact on the people involved have been large.
“Rwanda has become a model of post-conflict rebuilding,” Kalisa said. “This is the moment to go. Rwanda is asking questions that relate not only to Rwanda but to the world.”
Kalisa said she hopes the program will expand to include not only students in the near future, and she also hopes to be able to stay for a longer period of time.
“I would love to go back. It was a blast,” Tidemann said of Rwanda. “Easily the best experience of my life.”
evancotten@dailynebraskan.com
