Women and Rwanda's genocide: what goes unsaid.

The victims of the Rwandan genocide did not all die during the 100 days in which most of the killings took place. Ten years after the massacre of an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and opposition Hutu, the genocide continues to take lives. Slowly, painfully and yet almost invisibly, thousands of Rwandan women are succumbing to HIV/AIDS acquired through rape. Genocide, rape, and HIV infection have condemned these women to certain death. We call them "survivors," when in fact their deaths are merely delayed. As we remember the Rwandan genocide this year, it only seems appropriate that we acknowledge those who lived, if only to die another day.

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Genocide, rape and AIDS

A UN report of 1996 revealed the extent of the sexual violence committed during the genocide, stating that rape was used systematically as a weapon of war; that it was the rule, its absence was the exception, and that between 250,000 and 500,000 women were raped. The report also stated that "... the militiamen carrying (HIV) used it as a "weapon," intending to cause delayed death thereby."

Later studies focusing exclusively on violence against women shed further light on the nature, extent, consequences, and perpetrators of rape and other physical atrocities suffered by women. While admitting that it is difficult to prove with certainty that HIV was transmitted through rape, a report by Human Rights Watch states that "Nonetheless, it is certain that some women were infected with the virus as a result of being raped." Based on the testimony of victims such as Jeanne, who was raped by a man who clearly told her "I have AIDS and I want to give it to you," Radhika Coomaraswamy, the former UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, maintains that "many women like Jeanne have survived the genocide but are infected with AIDS."

The devastation caused by AIDS among rape victims suggests that rape was used to transmit the disease. A study published in December 1999 by AVEGA-AGAHOZO reports that 66.7 per cent of the victims of physical violence and rape were HIV-positive.

Lessons to be learned

Tutsi women were stereotyped and stigmatized based on their gender. The widely-read Kangura tabloid abusively ascribed sexual prowess to them, and characterized Tutsi women as a threat to the homogeneity of Hutu descent. Described as objects of temptation for Hutu men, Tutsi women were used as the prelude to a call for Hutu ethnic unity.

This kind of sexual fixation lays the foundation for ethnic hatred based on an idea of the feminine reduced to purely sexual connotations. When analyzed from the perspective of the Rwandan imagination, this raises two conflicting issues.

The first of these issues is the non-tacit recognition that women have the power to give birth. The second issue stems from the term Nyampinga, which refers to women as citizens devoid of ethnic identity. Rwanda being a patriarchal society, lineage descends through men.

The fundamental issue that must be clarified lies in the contradictions inherent to Nyampinga. If women had no ethnicity, they would not have been so hated. How do we explain the fear of seeing Hutu men marrying Tutsi women? How do we explain that Hutu women who married Tutsi men were described as traitors to the Hutu cause and raped under the guise of political reprisal? The challenge now facing the Rwandan people and leaders is not to deny that specific ethnic groups exist but rather to stop using ethnicity as grounds for discrimination and exclusion.

The issue of HIV/AIDS must also be analyzed through consideration of this same perspective: that of first destroying women and thereby annihilating all possible offspring. In the minds of those responsible for the genocide, HIV/AIDS transmission was a three-pronged weapon. A woman who was raped and infected with the virus became a potential source of transmission for any future sexual partner; she would then give birth to children whose chances of survival were next to nil; and she would eventually die herself, causing others to follow in her wake.

Answers?

The inclusion of HIV/AIDS as a consequence of rape committed during the genocide reshapes our perception of justice, given that without access to treatment, survivors are condemned to die. Although the monthly price of antiretroviral treatments is 200 times less in 2004 (US$30) than it was in 1999 (US$6,000), these treatments remain unaffordable to people who have no income.

The majority of women living with HIV/AIDS are destitute. The monthly income of those working in farming is estimated at less than US$10. The national tritherapy program currently has a maximum capacity of 7,000 patients, which means that most women have little chance of accessing it.

There is an urgent need to establish mechanisms for justice and social rehabilitation within this social and economic context. These women were infected with HIV in the very precise framework of genocide, and the nature of this act is unequivocally criminal.

These victims unanimously condemn the fact that they have been denied justice. These women have asked why the ICTR feeds and cares for those responsible for genocide, while they are left to die as the Tribunal looks on with utter indifference. They have demanded that the ICTR devote more attention to gender crimes and their consequences. The ICTR Rules of Evidence and Procedure authorize it to provide physical and psychological rehabilitation for witnesses and victims. These women therefore request that the Tribunal adopt a policy regarding the access of victims and witnesses to antiretroviral treatments and related care.

This urgent situation should also be of concern to international solidarity organizations. There is a need for a more active and coordinated strategy to support victims in the fight against AIDS. Victims of rape and HIV/AIDS have a right to extend their life expectancy through access to treatment.

This is the price that must be paid so that survival will have meaning. This is the price that must be paid so that women's associations for rape victims and the HIV infected--such as the Duhozanye Association in Cyangugu--will not be forced to divide up their meagre resources between hospitalization costs and the purchase of coffins. Only 22 of the association's 30 original members are still alive. Eight died last year. Yes, they were AIDS victims, but, first and foremost, they were victims of genocide.

By Francoise Nduwimana, Historian, consultant in Human Rights and International Development and member of The Coalition for Women's Human Rights in Conflict Situations

Excerpt from LIBERTAS (Rights & Democracy's Newsletter) | Volume 14 Number 2, December 2004