By Emily Geminder
16 June 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: Marcel Twizeyemungu has been collecting women’s stories of genocide for the past thirteen years. “Stories are people’s way of preserving themselves in the face of horror,” Rwandan-born Twizeyemungu told MediaGlobal.
In many regions of Africa, traditional storytellers – most commonly known as ‘griots’ – have performed the work of cultural memory. Walking aural libraries, griots pass intricate village histories from one generation to the next. Often reciting for days at a time, they fuse musical artistry with oral history to educate as well as entertain. “The griot is the memory of the continent,” Twizeyemungu said.
But Twizeyemungu does not see himself as a modern day griot. He simply recognized a need and responded. “I saw a gap in Rwandan society, which was torn apart by brutality. I saw that no one was recording these stories, so I started listening.”
Twizeyemungu, who emigrated to Los Angeles and received a Masters in Library Sciences, launched an organization called Infobridge with the aim to use digital archives to create cross-cultural awareness. “There’s a lot Americans don’t know about Africa, and a lot Africans don’t know about Americans,” he said.
But in particular, he felt the world needed to know more about the aftershocks of genocide, particularly as seen through the eyes of women. “So many women have been raped and witnessed violence,” he observed. “Many of the women are now living with AIDS.”
The archives of the Rwanda Survivors Fund detail account after account of brutal sexual violence. Almost all the survivors are widows. Many are also HIV positive.
Nyiramahoro, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, tells a story startlingly common among the archives’ testimonies:
“I had a baby girl as a result of rape. I went for an HIV test after realizing that the boils in my private parts were reappearing very often, and I learned that I was positive in 1995. I found it hard and tried to commit suicide several times, and I almost became mad when I learned that my daughter was an infected victim too. I repaired my Aunt’s home with the help of AVEGA [a survivors’ organization] and now I am living there with my daughter and some other orphans that I take care of. … My new family does not know about my status. I avoid discouraging them. I wonder how they will survive when I die.”
Today the imprisoned leaders of the Rwandan genocide, awaiting trial in Tanzania, are more likely to receive antiretroviral treatment from the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda than HIV-positive genocide survivors. David Russell of the Rwanda Survivors Fund told MediaGlobal that one of the most pressing issues his organization confronts is the lack of treatment for women who were raped during the three months of brutality. “Many of them,” he added, “were deliberately infected with HIV.”
An ongoing campaign by survivors’ groups is demanding that the United Nations-backed court provide treatment to HIV positive survivors – not only in the interest of equity, but also so that they live long enough to give testimony.
A report released last week by the United Nations Commission on HIV/AIDS and African Governance cited women in sub-Saharan Africa as the world’s fastest growing demographic infected with HIV. The report also underscored the interconnected nature of the epidemic’s spread and sexual violence.
According to the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS Nafis Sadik, sexual violence and structural inequalities are at the root of the growing gender disparity in HIV infections. She told MediaGlobal, “Laws must be changed or strengthened to prohibit sexual violence against women and to provide them with inheritance rights. Steps must also be taken to ensure that these laws are enforced and that women have access to legal aid.” Sadik also advocated access to post-exposure prophylaxis as a vital component of HIV programs and sexual violence services.
While the rates of women infected with HIV/AIDS have risen globally, 80 percent of all women living with the virus reside in Africa. In some southern African countries, 30 percent of women die of AIDS before the end of their reproductive years.
Violence and the threat of violence dramatically increase women’s vulnerability to HIV by making it difficult or impossible for them to abstain from sex or to use a condom. In addition, cases of sexual violence are marked by higher rates of HIV transmission due to vaginal tearing. Violence is also a barrier for women in accessing HIV prevention, care, and treatment services.
The Rwanda Association of Genocide Widows estimates that 67 percent of women who survived rape during the genocide are HIV positive.
Voices of Rwanda, an organization conceived to film and preserve testimonies of genocide survivors, recently began to incorporate a focus on HIV/AIDS into its work. The organization’s founder Taylor Krauss told MediaGlobal, “It’s been fourteen years since the genocide. For people with AIDS, their testimonies will disappear.”
The testimonies can last hours, sometimes whole days. “We don’t limit people’s testimonies to the three months that was genocide,” said Krauss. “We’re there as long as they want to talk. In the process, we’re documenting entire lives – childhood memories, songs, words that might otherwise be lost.”
And often the stories of genocide are also stories of AIDS. Krauss recounted, “One woman said, ‘I’ve been told not to get an AIDS test because I’m not emotionally stable. If I find out I have AIDS, I might kill myself.’”
Another woman, whose entire family had been murdered, said after being filmed, “Now I feel like I can move on. Even if I die, my family history won’t die with me.”
Sinosizo Home-based Care also works to preserve memories. Originally founded to treat individuals with HIV/AIDS, the South African service provider soon found itself overwhelmed by an equally pressing need—the orphans AIDS victims left behind.
Together with the oral history project Sinomlando – Zulu for “We have a history” – Sinosizo began working with AIDS orphans to create “memory boxes.” To make a memory box, parents recount their family histories in the presence of their children and a “memory facilitator”, who records the experience. Afterwards, a booklet of the recording’s transcript is made, and the children create boxes to house the booklet and recording, along with objects significant to the family’s history.
The impetus for the memory boxes stemmed from the belief that through knowing the history of their families, children will be better equipped to reconstruct their lives in the aftermath of loss. Philippe Denis, Director of Sinomlando, said, “The purpose is to build resilience in children and facilitate the bereavement process.” Through access to memory – their own and their parents’ – children create a continuous narrative of their history.
UNAIDS estimates that in sub-Saharan Africa, nine percent of all children have lost one or both parents to AIDS.
Marcel Twizeyemungu says that many Rwandans question the relevancy of traditional oral history practices in today’s rapidly changing society. “These days, people don’t have so much respect for the griots. People think they are just walking around talking all the time. They think they are stupid. I wanted to show that there is still a place for preserving our histories – but that these histories can take a new shape.”
Through testimony, experience is not only preserved but also sent out into the wider community. It demands an audience as well as a speaker. Taylor Krauss noted that Rwandans were often particularly eager to talk to him, in part, because he was an outsider. “The international community failed them in so many ways, and people see this as an opportunity to get their message to the outside world.”
This April, members of the Rwanda Survivors Fund read one hundred testimonies in Washington Square Park to raise awareness of the current policy of the Office of the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which prioritizes a number of at-risk populations for access to antiretroviral treatment – among them prisoners – but not genocide survivors.
According to David Russell, the testimonies were vital to the impact of the event. “It has given many of the women survivors who have not had access to treatment the opportunity to record their experiences of the genocide while still alive to tell their story.”