Human nature and attitudes to archives in Rwanda

Alistair G Tough

(First published in Dunaskin News, April 2003)

The National Archives of Rwanda were very badly affected by the civil war and genocide there in 1994.  Several of the best qualified and most experienced staff were murdered during the genocide, others fled and have never returned.  Then, when the forces of the present government reached Kigali (the capital) massive damage was inflicted on the Archives building.  Approximately half of the records held by the National Archives were destroyed.  Most of the damage was deliberately inflicted as an act of retribution.  This may sound odd but arises from the fact that the National Archives had formed an integral part of the National Sports Stadium.  Tens of thousands of Tutsis had been brought to the Stadium to be murdered by the Interahamwe militia, so the buildings in the Stadium Complex had become an object of hatred and a symbol of oppression.

Understandably this archival catastrophe went almost un-noticed amidst the carnage of genocide.  When I visited Kigali six years later the remaining holdings of the National Archives had been re-located to sheds in a Public Works Department compound.  The records were in a shambles, there were virtually no users and it was clear that the morale of the staff had sunk to a very low point.
 
It seems quite likely that, in the years to come, blame for the loss of so many essential public records will be transferred to the Interahamwe militia.  Much the same has happened in respect of the Public Record Office of Ireland.  Whilst the website of the National Archives of Ireland candidly admits that the PRO was shelled and mined by pro- and anti- treaty factions during the Irish Civil War in 1922, the myth that British troops destroyed Ireland's archives is still regularly heard and has even appeared on websites devoted to Irish genealogy.  Human nature being what it is, it seems likely that the current rulers of Rwanda will encourage the world to believe that their National Archives was destroyed by the retreating Interahamwe as an act of cultural vandalism.