Willi Meckes, long-time partnership activist in the Cyeru / SÜW friendship and support group and in the Herxheim / Nyakinama working group

In 1988, I began my involvement in the Herxheim / Nyakinama Working Group (AK), a partnership that had already existed for three years at the time. Nyakinama is located in the north of Rwanda within sight of the Virunga mountain range. This period was characterised by the amazing commitment of the association and the well-connected population of the municipality. Even in Nyakinama, it was possible to have some residents in Nyakinama as contact persons in an association independent of the ‘bourgemestre’. Many projects could be realised. A large proportion of the people in Nyakinama who followed these improvements seemed to have benefited from these positive changes (school buildings, health centres, a centre for female students at Nyakinama University, church facilities, etc.). At least that's how it seemed to me.

From January 1991, our partner community was severely affected by the ‘clashes’ between the RPF army and the old regime of Habyarimana. My stays in the following years until 1994 were characterised by the warlike situations. Since then I have known what a ‘zone tampon’ is, I saw how the African military monitored this zone, what a child's arm looks like after a mine has torn off his hand.

It was only later that these events made me realise that I knew little about the living conditions of the local population. I knew that there were Twa, Hutu and Tutsi, but I was not aware of the conflicts between the two large ethnic groups. The north of the country was Hutu country. I only learnt about the Bagogwe (Tutsi) minority living in this region years later. Today I realise that many things were kept secret and withheld from me. The partners in Rwanda and I, the representative of the Herxheim / Nyakinama working group, were strangers to each other in many ways and there is still uncertainty in our dealings with each other today.

I was in Kigali when the presidential plane was shot down in April 1994. Locals identified the cruise missile as the rumble of a nearby thunderstorm. I realised that it must have been a bomb, grenade or something similar.

For the next ten days, a friend and I were stuck in the Procure in Kigali. My observations there (who shot down the presidential plane, why are there so many corpses in the streets, what is the Foreign Legion doing in the city, what people are gathering around the Ste Famille church and much more) caused a great deal of uncertainty. When a young man, presumably a Tutsi, sought refuge in my room, it became clearer to me what was going on. It was probably mostly Tutsis whose bodies were thrown into a container in the streets of Kigali by prisoners (dressed in pink).

During the great evacuation of all foreigners, initiated and led by the American ambassador, a coloured boy was taken out of an African diplomatic car by soldiers of the Habyarimana army and shot dead beside the road. We were left speechless in horror. It was only in the weeks that followed, back in Germany, that I increasingly understood the context.

Despite the many negative experiences, I remained active in the partnership work. Was it the idea of doing something better? Was it the ‘noble idea’ of getting involved when there is misery in Rwanda? Was it the obligation to continue what I had started? Was it the happiness of having met so many smiling people despite all the misery? It was probably a bit of everything.

I have continued my partnership work to this day. The words of a child at the beginning of my work, ‘Mukomere Umusungu’ (Only courage white man), have become my guiding principle.