“You see where we’re going? Down in the hill.”
We laugh with a scoff.
“Issa, there are like 500 hills”.
“You will see. It is blue.”
Not knowing what that means, we continue along the bumpy road. As we wind a corner, a giant royal blue party-style tent comes into view. As our bus bumps along, many tall stacks of brick appear. At one stack, men in navy blue are in an assembly line tossing bricks of clay towards a fire. Welcome to TIG; every one of these men before me participated in genocide. As we stand and get briefed by the very talkative officer, I can’t take my eyes off of the men in navy blue. The thought I can’t escape- “they don’t look like murderers”. Well of course not! How does a person look like they committed genocide?
Finally, we walk over toward the men. Immediately, one man- he looks mid 30s- comes over to talk with us. He smiles but keeps his distance. The officer tells two others to come over. They tell us to ask any question, so someone starts with something basic. But I know one question we’re all afraid to ask.
“Issa, it may be too sensitive so you don’t have to translate this, but do they talk about why they did what they did in the genocide?”
Issa immediately translates. My heart beats ferociously, wishing so much I could understand what they are saying in response. Waiting for the translation makes me so nervous. What if I just offended them? What if I’m not supposed to ask that? What if they get angry? And deep down- what if I don’t like their answer?
Interestingly, they all blame bad governance and leadership. Each says he takes responsibility for his own actions, but he wouldn’t have done it if the government had not convinced him it was right.
To become a ‘tigist’ and be in a TIG camp, each of these individuals confessed and repented from the very beginning. They are all in the last 5 years of their prison sentence, which is when TIG is implemented. Every tigist is slowly integrated back into their community through the camp as they provide services to help the very areas they destroyed. The particular TIG camp we visited were making bricks to build houses in the neighborhood.
There is one moment I will never forget as I stood there getting badly sunburned, watching the men work and listening to their stories. We were making our final comments back and forth when the first man who came over- the young one who seemed so genuine and kind- said something like this:
“Thank you for coming here, here to visit us. The things we did that were actions of animals. Now, we are human beings.”
We laugh with a scoff.
“Issa, there are like 500 hills”.
“You will see. It is blue.”
Not knowing what that means, we continue along the bumpy road. As we wind a corner, a giant royal blue party-style tent comes into view. As our bus bumps along, many tall stacks of brick appear. At one stack, men in navy blue are in an assembly line tossing bricks of clay towards a fire. Welcome to TIG; every one of these men before me participated in genocide. As we stand and get briefed by the very talkative officer, I can’t take my eyes off of the men in navy blue. The thought I can’t escape- “they don’t look like murderers”. Well of course not! How does a person look like they committed genocide?
Finally, we walk over toward the men. Immediately, one man- he looks mid 30s- comes over to talk with us. He smiles but keeps his distance. The officer tells two others to come over. They tell us to ask any question, so someone starts with something basic. But I know one question we’re all afraid to ask.
“Issa, it may be too sensitive so you don’t have to translate this, but do they talk about why they did what they did in the genocide?”
Issa immediately translates. My heart beats ferociously, wishing so much I could understand what they are saying in response. Waiting for the translation makes me so nervous. What if I just offended them? What if I’m not supposed to ask that? What if they get angry? And deep down- what if I don’t like their answer?
Interestingly, they all blame bad governance and leadership. Each says he takes responsibility for his own actions, but he wouldn’t have done it if the government had not convinced him it was right.
To become a ‘tigist’ and be in a TIG camp, each of these individuals confessed and repented from the very beginning. They are all in the last 5 years of their prison sentence, which is when TIG is implemented. Every tigist is slowly integrated back into their community through the camp as they provide services to help the very areas they destroyed. The particular TIG camp we visited were making bricks to build houses in the neighborhood.
There is one moment I will never forget as I stood there getting badly sunburned, watching the men work and listening to their stories. We were making our final comments back and forth when the first man who came over- the young one who seemed so genuine and kind- said something like this:
“Thank you for coming here, here to visit us. The things we did that were actions of animals. Now, we are human beings.”