It is difficult to comprehend that an educated man, one with all his full faculties, after years marinating in the hate ideology, leads a campaign to exterminate a people in his village only to turn around two decades later to declare he had suddenly turned into an altar boy. For someone like that, who has been convicted for having the blood of hundreds or even thousands on his hands, to declare that they had seen the light and would like to share their experience with others tempts someone to take it with a pinch of salt. But Rwanda Correctional Services thinks differently. They believe that the convicts are genuine and have even helped identify the whereabouts of over 120 mass graves of victims of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi But this Born-Again phenomenon does not impress the National Commission for the Fight against Genocide (CNLG); it does not buy it completely. Jean-Damascène Bizimana is of the view that the only people who can help heal and send a positive message are Genocide survivors who have defied all odds, survived and forgiven their executioners. Bizimana is of the view that the Open-air preachers who have made it a habit, on visiting day – to start preaching on the evils of Genocide, might instead trigger bouts of trauma among survivors. But the real question is; “how sincere are they?” 20 years behind bars is an eternity and inmates can even make a pact with the devil to get out of the walled-in existence. It is almost impossible to gauge the sincerity of a person, but anything that can erase the traumatic experiences of Genocide survivors is worth a try.
