20 Years After Genocide, Forgiveness Portraits from Rwanda

MUDAHERANWA: “I burned her house. I attacked her in order to kill her and her children, but God protected them, and they escaped. When I was released from jail, if I saw her, I would run and hide. Then AMI started to provide us with trainings. I decided to ask her for forgiveness. To have good relationships with the person to whom you did evil deeds — we thank God.”

MUKANYANDWI: “I used to hate him. When he came to my house and knelt down before me and asked for forgiveness, I was moved by his sincerity. Now, if I cry for help, he comes to rescue me. When I face any issue, I call him.”

The New York Times has a series of portraits up by photographer Pieter Hugo, who went to southern Rwanda this year and photographed Hutu perpetrators of the 1994 genocide with the Tutsi survivors of their crimes. Working with Association Modeste et Innocent, each pair is “counseled over many months, culminating in the perpetrator’s formal request for forgiveness,” and the way these subjects speak about their relationships with each other (and the way their emotions show up in their body language) is remarkable.