The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World (30 page)

Ten minutes later, Agnes emerged.

Though her head was shaved, she looked like a young girl, not the powerful former minister of justice of the genocide regime. She'd been an inmate for 3 years, 2 of them in confinement, and was wearing the standard prison uniform-a clean pink cotton short-sleeved dress with buttons down the front. I watched her walk toward me, swinging her arms and moving her head from side to side, seeming more little girl than woman. Freckled cheeks and soft brown eyes made her appear even more childlike, less capable of cruelty.

Of all the women at Duterimbere, I had known Agnes least of all and never fully trusted her. This day was no different.

"Jacqueline!" she exclaimed when she saw me, "I was just thinking of you!"

She held my shoulders and planted an exaggerated kiss on each cheek. "I didn't know you were coming," she said as if we were longtime neighbors reunited by a chance meeting. "Thank you for visiting me. You've been on my mind!"

I couldn't imagine how it would be me she was thinking about, and my own discomfort made my stomach turn. Though she still had not been tried by a jury of her peers, she'd been sworn in as minister of justice at the beginning of the genocide when the Hutu Power government had just begun forming. It was said by many that Agnes had made vitriolic and incendiary speeches, urging men to kill Tutsis and inciting women to encourage their husbands to work harder in their murderous and barbaric acts.

I feared her. I feared even coming too close to her essence. I worried that some of it might rub off on me. I had read that she had shouted out to a mob at one rally, urging, "When you begin extermination, no one, nothing, must be forgiven. But here, you have merely contented yourselves with killing a few old women." Was this the same person who just 5 years earlier had urged women to go forward with enthusiasm and build a better Rwanda together?

Many individuals believe that if women ruled the world, we'd finally have a chance at peace. While that may be true, Agnes stood as a reminder that power corrupts on an equal-opportunity basis. Agnes loved the trappings of power, and when all was said and done, she'd traded integrity and whatever good she'd built for glitter and gold.

Despite all I'd read about her involvement, I also knew that together we had worked to create an institution. My motives for visiting Agnes were mixed. I wanted, at least, to offer her kindness, though I was unsure what that really meant. I wanted to understand her, even if I had no desire to befriend her.

While I was still running the Next Generation Leadership program at the Rockefeller Foundation, I once convinced a South African freedom fighter that we should visit one of the generals who had overseen the country's security forces. The general was promoting the concept of a separate state for Afrikaners in South Africa. Though initially unwilling, the freedom fighter finally agreed to meet the general, but with the caveat that we could cut the meeting short if he became too uncomfortable. The meeting ultimately lasted nearly 2 hours, during which the two men found they shared a love of poetry. Afterward, the freedom fighter and I discussed the general's warmth and lack of self-doubt.

"He was only himself and didn't pretend to be anyone else," my friend mused. "Not like some of the white liberals I know who always say what they believe to be politically correct. At least I know who I'm dealing with here."

Though I no longer knew who I was dealing with when it came to Agnes, perhaps I could learn something from her.

We filled the first awkward minutes of the visit with small talk. How is your family? Did you ever marry? Always the first questions I was asked.

After much reflection, I had brought her a small box of chocolates. She tasted a morsel and beamed, looking like a blissful little girl again. I wondered what hell lived inside her head, what tortures she had created for herself. Externally, I saw nothing.

As she spoke, Agnes fingered the beads of a wooden rosary. I shared with her how much I'd loved the rosary when I was a little girl, though I hadn't held one for many, many years. Agnes had been trained by nuns whose belief in her had played a great role in her academic and career success. She had been one of the first girls in her school to attend university and had been one of Rwanda's first female judges and parliamentarians.

"Having someone believe in you makes all the difference," she told me.

I turned the conversation to Agnes's life in prison and to the general situation in Rwanda, and she plunged into a 20-minute rant. Her youthful face disappeared, transforming itself into a twisted mask of anger. She spoke through lips pressed tightly together, showing neat rows of perfect teeth, with eyes opened so wide you could see the whites surrounding her irises. I said little as she seethed about false accusations and the tragedy of the war, all the while rubbing the beads of her rosary.

According to Agnes, the RPF, the Tutsi-led army that had defeated the genocidaires, were to blame for having assassinated the president. On April 6, 1994, someone had shot down a plane carrying both the president of Rwanda and the president of Burundi, killing them instantly and igniting the genocide. No one discovered who actually did it.

"The RPF did atrocious things," she told me, "but the world sees this as only one-sided." She sucked in her breath. "Jacqueline, you will never understand what really happened because you are from the West. In Rwanda, we know each other. We know how things work. Both sides were killing. If you counted, you would find many more Hutus dead than Tutsis. I know people who were killed by the RPF all over the country in the first few weeks of April. Now it is convenient that the world has vilified the Hutus, so the Tutsis take no blame."

She likened the Tutsis to Jews-hungry for power. "The Jews lost millions and hold out those losses to the world, so they always have power. It will be the same with the other side here. The Tutsis have so much power now, and the world will be behind them for a long time. It could have been in their interest to see so many killed. That is why we need to discover who assassinated the president to determine on whom to lay the blame for this terrible war. You know, those who thirst for power will do incredible things."

I asked her what she remembered most about the work we'd done together.

"Personally, the thing that impressed me the most was the women, who learned they could do something more than they were used to doing. Before, the women would go to the fields, then wait all day to see what their husbands would bring home. When they learned that they, too, could work to bring home even more income than their husbands, they were eager to try. That interested me.

"They came to Duterimbere in big numbers," she recalled.

She reminded me of how hard we'd worked together. "Personally," she began again, "I had to combine the work with political responsibilities. We went to meetings that ended at 10:00 p.m. But we didn't complain. We didn't expect a salary from anyone or even reimbursements for expenses."

It was true that Agnes had worked as hard as any of the women toward building Duterimbere, though I didn't remind her that we essentially had asked her to leave because of her petty corruption.

She continued: "Duterimbere was founded by women who had been lucky to attend school, who had degrees, who had jobs, who wanted to do something for their sisters who hadn't been as lucky. We wanted to help women who weren't able to go to school. The country was getting poorer and poorer. There were more and more female heads of household who had to care for their families. Something had to be done to help them help themselves. In the beginning, that was our strength."

Without warning, a deafening cacophony interrupted her words. The women waiting outside to see their family members were finally allowed into the prison. First, at least 300 prisoners, all clad in pink, emerged in the yard, seating themselves on bright green benches, squeezed tightly one next to another, each holding a dark green plastic bag. A shrill whistle from the guard catalyzed the still-life market outside into wild action: 300 women and scores of children galumphed across the yard, their bags and buckets causing them to sway to and fro until they plunked down on the benches in front of the men. For 3 minutes, maybe 4, they threw fragments of information back and forth as loudly as possible. They were not allowed to touch each other. The din was unbelievable.

"Hello.... Are you well? ... Is there news? ... This child is sick.... That daughter just married.... Our mother died.... ..

Almost as soon as all of the women had taken their seats, the guard rapped his baton on a bench and blew his whistle again. As quickly as they had appeared, the women moved away again swiftly and surely, as if these meetings had become as routine as brushing their teeth.

The prisoners shuffled back through the big metal door, each carrying a green plastic bag filled with the week's provisions. Minutes later, the whole process repeated itself. Three hundred men and 300 women poured a week's provisions from baskets into green plastic bags. Three hundred stories were shouted helplessly over a desperate babble. And at the bang of a wooden stick, both women and men retreated like a regiment of ragtag soldiers. By the end of the day, about 4,000 people would have been in that yard, leaving the confetti of incompleted stories in the air.

Agnes and I resorted to talking in the spaces between the mad shuffles.

As I listened to her speak, it occurred to me that Agnes might have taken a completely different road in the genocide, one that might have left her a hero instead of a perpetrator. For years, she worked closely with Annie Mugwaneza, the Belgian member of our group. Agnes and Annie were part of the founding group that created the Liberal Party in the early 1990s, a broad-based, moderate organization focused on a united Rwanda.

At the time, the West was pushing Rwanda toward multiparty elections. But you can't impose democracy without first establishing some foundation of civic education and understanding of what it means to be an active citizen-a lesson the world is still learning. Most leaders took the opportunity to form parties based not on democratic principles, but on an agenda of gaining power. In Rwanda, an enforced and empty democracy was another lit match in the powder keg.

In the beginning, Agnes and Annie tried to form a party based on principles of diversity and moderation. At one point the party apparently considered allying itself with the Tutsi-led RPF. But when a far-right wing eventually split off, Agnes left with it to join the extremist Hutu Power party. I'll never understand fully how or exactly when she made that decision and can only believe she followed power itself instead of risking her life for principles.

Annie Mugwaneza was one of the most vocal of the individuals calling for a diverse but united Rwanda and had to be silenced if the extremists were to be victorious. On April 6, the first evening of the genocide, the Interahamwe murdered Annie, her husband, and four of their five children. Hundreds of Hutu moderates and Tutsi intellectuals also died that night. There are none more dangerous to extremists than moderates.

Agnes ignored my question when I asked about her friend's death. She seemed to have lost herself in a swirl of words that had little connection to my questions.

"Let's take the United States, for example," she said. "Neither blacks nor Hispanics are the majority. If one day they seized power, if they started oppressing the rest of the population, you understand, that would be a problem. I don't know if you can imagine the blacks one day fighting and seizing the power. I don't think you could accept that."

"You're assuming those in power necessarily oppress the rest," I said.

She just looked at me blankly. Her fear and paranoia summed up the insecurity of a small elite trying fanatically to hold on to power in a society based on a strictly Hobbesian worldview. Power ruled in a zerosum game.

In one sentence, Agnes laid out her view of Rwanda: "Those who had the power, who didn't want to let it go, had to use any means necessary not to lose it; and those who wanted it also had to use any means to get it."

As I listened, I realized there was only so much I could learn from her. She seemed to have paid the greatest price for her choices, sacrificing her very principles to become a force for evil. I'd been running a leadership program in the United States that focused on strengthening one's moral compass and building those things inside you that no one could ever take away. While I was visiting in Rwanda, nearly all the many women with whom I spoke who'd worked with Agnes remembered her as kind, intelligent, and warm. They were devastated that so much had gone wrong, that she had lost her way.

"She was among the strong women who energized the others to work and make better lives for themselves," one of her former friends told me. "She never should have entered into politics, for it is there that you become prey to power."

"I cannot think that she even knew what was being planned," said another. "When you are in politics, you become part of a machine."

I would listen to the women with a sense of wonder that they could believe Agnes hadn't known what was being planned despite the fact that she held one of the government's highest positions. At the time, if the minister of justice hadn't known what was happening, I would ask, who would have? Usually, they would just shake their heads.

When the guard returned to lead Agnes away, she gave me another hug. I thought of how she had traveled with the president to Butare to unleash the killings that would take Honorata's family from her. I thought of the good we all did together for a brief moment, fighting for women's economic justice. I played the same words over and over in my head: How had she gone so far astray?

I watched her walk away in her pink dress and shaved head, looking so vulnerable, still rubbing her beads, turning every so often to wave to me. I stood there, choked by suffocating sadness. A part of me wanted to push away what I'd just heard, to flee entirely from a situation that would forever seem incomprehensible. But Agnes had helped me internalize what I hadn't wanted to see before-monsters do exist, but not in the way I'd imagined them. I grew up believing in Frank Capra's world, where everyone was good except the bad guys who wore black hats and either died or found redemption by the end of the movie.