CULTURE-RWANDA: A Poolside View of Genocide

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Fawzia Sheikh

KIGALI, Jun 21 2005 (IPS) - High on a misty, terraced hillside, where a road winds through verdant woods and reddish-brown rock, a makeshift roadblock has been constructed.

Young militiamen brandishing blood-stained machetes brusquely pull frantic passengers from a van and hoist some over their shoulders before disappearing into a thicket.

It’s a horrifying scene, but – fortunately – only that: a re-enactment of events from Rwanda’s 1994 genocide that will eventually form part of the latest film to be made about the killings, ‘A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali’. The production is based on a 2000 novel by Canadian journalist Gil Courtemanche.

In the space of three months just over a decade ago, upwards of 800,000 minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus were murdered in Rwanda during a campaign spearheaded by Hutu extremists.

The massacre got underway after the Apr. 6, 1994 attack on the plane of Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, in which both he and his Burundian counterpart, Cyprien Ntaryamira, were killed. However, planning for the genocide had started well in advance of the incident – this against a background of longstanding ethnic tensions.

Disagreements between Hutus and Tutsis were exacerbated under colonialism, when Rwanda’s Belgian rulers gave preferential treatment to the lighter-skinned and taller Tutsis – considered the superior ethnic group. While Hutus assumed power after Rwanda’s independence in 1962, the resentment which they had accumulated over years towards Tutsis remained, ultimately to be exploited by hardline Hutus.

Several fictional films and documentaries which grapple with the horror that unfolded in Rwanda have been released over recent months, or are in production.

‘Hotel Rwanda’, which earned lead actor Don Cheadle an Oscar nomination, may the best-known of these. But the list also includes ‘Sometimes in April’ by Haitian director Raoul Peck, a British Broadcasting Corporation film entitled ‘Shooting Dogs’ – and ‘Shake Hands With the Devil’, a documentary in which retired general Romeo Dallaire, former commander of the United Nations peacekeeping force in Rwanda, revisits the country.

Now, ‘A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali’ is being filmed; the production is slated for release next year.

Courtemanche visited Rwanda prior to the massacre on behalf of a non-governmental organisation to conduct AIDS-related research and make a documentary, ‘The Gospel of AIDS’.

By contrast, ‘A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali’ – written after Courtemanche’s return to Rwanda in 1995 – blends fact and fiction.

The characters in the novel “all existed in reality”, as Courtemanche notes in his preface, and many of their real names are used. Around this cast, the writer constructs the tale of a romance between Canadian journalist Bernard Valcourt (whom critics have identified as Courtemanche’s alter ego), and a waitress named Gentille – who served the author beer and eggs during his first stay in Rwanda.

Valcourt travels to the central African country to co-direct a new television station that will focus on AIDS education. He and Gentille marry, but are later separated by Hutu militants who take Gentille’s Tutsi features to mean that she is a member of the minority group. Ironically, she is actually a Hutu.

“Gentille’s character symbolises about 10,000 women who were abducted,” Courtemanche explains over a cigarette – and more beer – near the pool at the fabled ‘Hôtel des Milles Collines’ (the Thousand Hills Hotel) referred to in the title of his book.

The cream-coloured landmark, enclosed by palm trees and gardens, has long been the gathering place of choice for local power-brokers and Western expatriates. It is also plays a starring role in ‘Hotel Rwanda’, which describes how ‘Mille Collines’ was turned into a refuge for persons sought by Hutu killers.

Against the background of ethnic massacres referred to in the novel, another, slow motion genocide plays itself out in the form of the AIDS pandemic. Courtemanche refuses to gloss over the sexual violence and promiscuity which are contributing to the spread of HIV, noting that Milles Collines hosted “20 prostitutes every day at lunch.”

Controversially, the character of an unnamed Canadian general – apparently Dallaire – is depicted as timid and naïve. This unflattering portrait is at odds with the usual perception of Dallaire, who anticipated the genocide and attempted to persuade the UN to rush additional troops to the country. His appeal was turned down, opening the world body to accusations that it remained passive in the face of Rwanda’s tragedy.

Courtemanche says the character of the general is meant to convey UN indifference to the mounting crisis.

Back on the set of the film, a towering 19-year-old who gives his name only as Jimmy is wrestling with his role – that of a Hutu killer. He does not relish the prospect of playing the part, even though it is no more than a cameo role, in this “terrifying movie.” But, it’s hard to refuse the daily wage of about 16 dollars that the producers are paying – a coveted sum in a country where most people live mired in poverty.

The film production company has hired psychologists who specialize in trauma management to prepare Rwandans living near film locations for the re-enactment of violent scenes, including one in which 250 extras play dead, bloodied Tutsis lying in a ditch.

Still, a scene shot near a boarding school for young girls went badly, says producer Lyse Lafontaine.

“Most of them had not witnessed the genocide, but when they saw the soldiers, the Interhamwe, there was a bit of hysteria,” she explains. “So we took them out of the school. The psychologists stayed with them.” The Interahamwe (“those who attack together”) is the name given to civilian militias who were responsible for most of the killings in 1994.

Courtemanche says he knew about 30 people who lost their lives in the genocide.

“I knew about their hopes and their lives and things like that. It gives some kind of humanity to the big number of 800,000,” he adds – a humanity that the film is doubtless striving to convey.