By Carina Tertsakian; London: Arves Books, 2008; pp.499. £20 (pb). ISBN 9780955821509. Reviewed by Andrew Coyle, King's College London. ©Andrew Coyle, 2008.
The concept of the prison as a place of detention was introduced to sub-Saha-ran Africa by colonial powers in the 19th century, largely as a means of subduing the indigenous populations. This legacy remains obvious today in the fortress style of many of the prisons in the region, such as that in the Rwandan town of Cyangugu, built by the Belgians in the 1930s, which is on the cover of Carina Terstakian's disturbing book. In Rwanda the rate of imprisonment is about 979 per 100,000 of the population. This is the highest in the world, ahead even of the United States of America and the Russian Federation. This means that about one person in every hundred of the population is in prison. This book explains why this is so and describes in stark detail what the consequences are for the prisoners.
Carina Tertsakian is very well placed to write a book such as this, having been directly involved in Rwanda for a decade with international NGOs. At the core of the book is an amazing series of interviews which she undertook with men and women languishing in the country's prisons. For anyone who knows prisons in Africa, these interviews ring true in the way that they capture the humanity which can exist in the midst of extreme adversity and the acceptance of inevitable reality. The author helpfully sketches the national context which is all too well known, but this is not a book about the tragedy of Rwanda. It is primarily a record of the experience of hundreds of thousands of men, women and children. Tertsakian is clearly a sympathetic listener who allows the prisoners to speak in their own words. In most cases, she passes no judgement on what they are saying about the reasons which have brought them to prison. Instead, she quotes directly from the tortuous experiences which they have had, in many cases while they wait to be charged over a period of many years.
‘The suffering which continued silently in the prisons year after year was of a particularly inconvenient kind: these men and women dying of over-crowding, disease and ill-treatment were not the usual innocent victims. The vast majority were accused of genocide and there was little sympathy for their plight. The fact that most of them had not even been tried or charged – and that many therefore may have been innocent – did not seem to matter. Thus, over the years, the prison situation became an accepted feature of post-genocide Rwanda’ (p.16).
The prison system simply could not cope with the number of prisoners, which peaked at around 130,000 in 1998. Overcrowding in the prisons of Western Europe usually means two or at most three prisoners crammed into a cell designed to hold one. In Rwanda it meant that prisoners had forty centimetres of personal space in which to sleep, eat, sit and live. The ‘chateau’ of the title does not refer to the castellated prison buildings. It is the ironic name given by the fortunate prisoners who have two planks of wood as their own personal space. The less fortunate live and sleep on the ground, in corridors, in toilets or shower spaces, on top of septic tanks or in the open air.
In one of the most moving chapters the author describes the scene when families come to visit:
The first group of prisoners, around 50 of them, emerges from the gate and sits down on the nearest row of long benches … A guard whistles and the first group of visitors lunges forward to take their seats on the second row of benches … There is a frantic exchange of provisions and full and empty containers, and a frantic exchange of words … Suddenly, one of the guards blows his whistle again and the visitors have to leave … from the first whistle to the second whistle, the visit has lasted less than two minutes (p.250).
In unemotional language, often through the voices of the prisoners, Tertsakian describes the added difficulties for women prisoners, for minors, for the elderly, for the sick and for those sentenced to death. She also notes the complete lack of support for prisoners who are eventually released, as well as the lack of concern from the international community:
The crisis in the prisons – which would have provoked outrage had it occurred in almost any other country – elicited barely any response form foreign governments (p.353).
There is little evidence that this nightmare is coming to an end. When Tertsakian conducted her research, the prison population stood at around 85,000. She ends the book by reporting that in May 2007 it stood around 92,000. This powerful book places a spotlight on the continuing tragedy of prisons in Rwanda, which remain a blot on humanity. It deserves to be widely read and to act as a spur for international action.