Alumnus speaks of forgiveness, healing in Rwanda

Stephanie Damon-Moore Assistant Life Editor

When Vassar alumnus and Sing Sing Chaplain Petero Sabune ’77 went to Rwanda, he thought he was going to teach genocide survivors about forgiveness and reconciliation.

In a lecture Sabune gave about his experiences on Nov. 28, however, he outlined what he learned instead. “We thought we were going to come and share with them what we do,” Sabune said. “We quickly learned that they were going to teach us about what they have done.”

Rwandan citizens face a unique predicament. Thirteen years after the mass genocide that killed one million people in a country the size of Maryland, people whose families were murdered are learning to live side-by-side with the murderers.

Sabune spoke of reconciliation sessions in which he and his colleagues “visited with genocide survivors who would say to us, ‘This is the man who killed my family, and this is the woman who came to tell me that they were going to kill me the next day.’”

Genocide perpetrators are now re-entering society in Rwanda because the prison system can’t afford to support so many people. “They cannot put everyone in prison; they do not have the space,” Sabune explained, adding that the United States “could learn something from that.”

Sabune said that part of reconciliation is understanding that hate is learned behavior that can be unlearned. He explained that it’s easier in some ways for people to see those who have committed a crime as an inherently bad “other,” capable of doing immoral things that a “normal” person would never do. But, Sabune said, if one believes that people who have done horrible things are inherently bad, forgiveness and reconciliation are impossible. And in Rwanda, reconciliation is not optional. “They had to downsize the prison population,” Sabune said, “and the only way to do that is to teach people how to live together.”

Does he believe in holding people accountable for their crimes?

“Absolutely hold them accountable, and they are being held accountable,” he said. “But who else is responsible?”

He pointed out that crimes such as the Rwandan genocide aren’t things that happen because some people are just inherently bad. “Instead of asking, ‘What did you do and how can we punish you?’ the question should be, ‘What happened, and how can we restore it?’”

Sabune speaks about forgiveness from experience. During Sabune’s time at Vassar, his brother James returned to their home country of Uganda and disappeared, killed by dictator Idi Amin.

Sabune said it took 20 years to forgive those responsible for his brother’s death, and it was a decision he made when retaliation was a very real possibility. “When my brother was killed, we knew the guys that took him. We figured we could get them killed and no one would ever know. It’s a real option to do that,” Sabune said.

But for Sabune, forgiveness is the only way to heal. Reverend Jennifer Barrows, the priest of the Episcopal Church at Vassar College, agreed that forgiveness is the only lasting solution. In reference to the issues in Rwanda, as well as the prison overpopulation and high recidivism rate in the United States, Barrows said, “Forgiveness and reconciliation are the only possible practical solutions.”

Barrows was largely responsible for bringing Sabune to Vassar, and shesees an important lesson for everyone in what he had to say. “It’s something we all do almost every moment of our lives, make the decision to forgive and reconcile or isolate ourselves,” she said. “We have to do it very practically in our lives every single day.”

Although Sabune and Barrows both have religious reasons for their belief in forgiveness, they don’t see it as an exclusively religious choice. Barrows described forgiveness as a religious mandate, but said that she believes it is necessary regardless of a person’s spirituality. “For me it’s easier to use the religious language, but I don’t think that’s essential,” she said. “It’s the acts of forgiveness and reconciliation that are essential.”

In Rwanda, forgiveness and reconciliation may be essential to rebuilding a devastated country, one that can’t afford to isolate itself from 300,000 people. But according to Sabune, this lesson of forgiveness is one that the United States must learn, both in day-to-day life and in response to problems with the prison system.

“The message that we took back from Rwanda was that forgiveness and reconciliation are possible,” Sabune said.

In the United States, where the number of people in jail and prison numbers two million, and two-thirds of those who end up returning after being released, this is an important message.

“They don’t become inhuman when they go to prison, and they do get out,” Barrows said. “We have to find a way to address the problems that got them there in the first place, and reincorporate them. And we should look at ourselves as just as capable of committing crimes.”