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In 1994 this infrastructure lent itself to genocide, which was systematically planned by the extremist Hutu government and was unwaveringly implemented by obedient local authorities. Now, paradoxically, the same community controls--and the mind-sets they evoke--may offer the possibility of peaceful reintegration. Last Wednesday, Odetta Mukandari returned to her village and found her house occupied by Mbangukira Kabagare, a 70-year-old Tutsi. Mukandari didn't confront Kabagare; she didn't even knock on the door. Instead she went to live with relatives. Later, when she met him in the street, she simply smiled politely. As for Kabagare, he explained that the authorities had originally told him he could stay in the house, and that if they told him to leave, he would obey: "I will do what I am told."
Even with such compliance, however, 500,000 Hutu refugees will put a strain on the largely Tutsi Rwandan government. Its housing policy is quite clear: anyone occupying someone else's home is required to leave within 15 days of the owner's arrival. But most of those occupying others' houses are Tutsi who, like Kabagare, have nowhere else to go. The only solution is to build new homes, and the government is appealing to the international community, including the U.S., to send humanitarian aid instead of the 12,000 troops originally committed to rescue the Hutu in Zaire. Several hundred thousand refugees may still be scattered in eastern Zaire; a scaled-down multinational force will probably be organized this week to funnel aid to them.
Difficult as resettling the returnees may prove, the thorniest problem Rwanda faces will be how to address the demands for justice. Some 83,000 genocide suspects already pack standing-room-only prisons--and to date not a single one has been tried. As refugees arrive home, thousands more will be denounced as suspected murderers. For the moment, say government officials, only the most notorious will be arrested. As for the rest, investigators will be under orders to move as slowly as possible so as not to cause panic; in this tightly knit society the slaughter was so intimate--neighbors killing neighbors--that it will be impossible to hide. So far, men like Jonasi Ruziga seem content to let loved ones go unavenged a while longer, hoping their restless ghosts are willing to wait as Rwanda struggles to rebuild from the ashes of genocide.
--Reported by Peter Graff/Nkuli